Be careful the next time you annoy someone, as the end result could be jail
Just when I thought I had seen enough idiotic legislation, I find this on the news:
What kind of an law is that? A pointless and idiotic one. First of all, in my mind it's a serious violation of my First Amendment rights, which guarantee my right to the freedom of speech. My freedom of speech gives me the freedom to annoy whoever I want. And it's not like I go around annoying people anonymously all day long. No-- it's the whole concept of infringing upon basic rights that ANNOYS me.
But I guess Bush hasn't been too concerned about upholding the Constitution in the past, so it only makes sense that he would pass this legislation. Him, and all of his conservative Republican friends in Congress.
And even more troubling, the legislation says that it is illegal to "annoy" someone without disclosing your true identity. First of all, how do they define annoy? Different people find different things annoying. In fact, just about anything could be considered annoying. If a person wants me locked up, they sure as hell could without much trouble. Having the law worded in such a vague form makes for very subjective interpretation. And secondly, how do they plan to enforce this law? Sure, someone could complain that something I said is annoying, and they want to know my true identity. However, if I was really intent on annoying someone, I could very easily go to a public place and send annoying emails. They can't track me by my IP address, and the name I've provided to the email service isn't verifiable. Simple work-arounds like this make the law pretty pointless. But then again if I wasn't intent on annoying someone, then I could get in trouble for no reason.
Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law a prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity.In other words, it's OK to flame someone on a mailing list or in a blog as long as you do it under your real name.
What kind of an law is that? A pointless and idiotic one. First of all, in my mind it's a serious violation of my First Amendment rights, which guarantee my right to the freedom of speech. My freedom of speech gives me the freedom to annoy whoever I want. And it's not like I go around annoying people anonymously all day long. No-- it's the whole concept of infringing upon basic rights that ANNOYS me.
But I guess Bush hasn't been too concerned about upholding the Constitution in the past, so it only makes sense that he would pass this legislation. Him, and all of his conservative Republican friends in Congress.
And even more troubling, the legislation says that it is illegal to "annoy" someone without disclosing your true identity. First of all, how do they define annoy? Different people find different things annoying. In fact, just about anything could be considered annoying. If a person wants me locked up, they sure as hell could without much trouble. Having the law worded in such a vague form makes for very subjective interpretation. And secondly, how do they plan to enforce this law? Sure, someone could complain that something I said is annoying, and they want to know my true identity. However, if I was really intent on annoying someone, I could very easily go to a public place and send annoying emails. They can't track me by my IP address, and the name I've provided to the email service isn't verifiable. Simple work-arounds like this make the law pretty pointless. But then again if I wasn't intent on annoying someone, then I could get in trouble for no reason.
