Comments on: Create an e-annoyance, go to jail

Annoying someone via the Internet is now a federal crime. And that irritates CNET News.com's Declan McCullagh.

[SkotSnot]

OMG!

What the hell!
Bush is such an IDIOT, wasting tax money on WORTHLESS bills!
Since when is being annoying a CRIME?!
Two years for being a pest is almost as dumb as marijuanna crimes carrying equal penalities as violent offenders, oh wait that real too!!!
Dude, I've had it, thats it...Im moving to Canada.

[casper2004]

Why are you moving to Canada?

because you can't be annoying, or that you can't smoke marijuana?

[demodred]

Annoyance?

What the heck am I going to do now? almost everyone finds me annoying... I guess all I can do is sit and wait for the annoyance police to show up...and how to defend against such a charge? I didnt intend to be annoying? How do you prove that sort of thing? from either side?

[The user with no name]

chances are YOU'RE safe

chances are most of the people who you annoy KNOW who you are (not anonymous) and the rest of the ones just don't really give a rat's a$$


lol.... sorry... your post inspired me...lol

[n2vip]

You ar emisleading people...

The act as I read it does not introduce the word "annoy" into law, it takes an existing statute that is intended to prevent individuals from harassing others over the telephone and other devices, and the bill as signed by the president simply clearly adds internet devices to the existing law.

Should a stalker be permitted to violate someone becuse they choose to use email instead of the telephone? Where do VoIP phones fall under the previous law?

Let's try the "Dukakis Test" - if your wife/husband or child were being stalked via email, IM, etc., should the person committing the offense be free to continue becuse they didn't use the phone?

Before you "blame" the president for this (or any other law passed by the House and Senate), remember the majority of our representaives approved this, making it, by definition, the will of the people.

[declan00]

Not quite

If the law had prohibited only "annoying" people via sending them directly email or making VoIP calls, that would be one thing.

But instead it criminalizes posting on a public Web site that could be viewed as annoying, and that's something different. And far more worrisome.

[R. U. Sirius]

Response to Ken Hansen

>The act as I read it does not introduce the
>word "annoy" into law

Uh, the author included some of the text of the law right in the article, and the text in question includes the word "annoy".

[glooface]

the new law.....the will of the people....

The will of the people had/has nothing to do with the fact the law got passed, specially since it was nefariously attached to a bill of higher importance and obscured by the larger issue.

IF the will of the people WERE involved, laws like this would go through a national referendum, to become a Federal Law, ....and not a: "Good Ole Boys' Club", where the everyday citizen has NO say.

[MisterFlibble]

Um... what planet are you from?

RE : remember the majority of our representaives approved this, making it, by definition, the will of the people.

Uh... you are scary. Politicians raely represent their own constituents, henceforth the vote on CAFTA, many voted against what their own constituents were telling them, such as the labor unions, in order to advance Bush's agenda, which is more important to congress right now than the will of the people.

[johnkeller2004]

Yeah, just like the Soviet Union

"the majority of our representaives approved this, making it, by definition, the will of the people."

Say WHAT?

The Will of the People is not represented by the Washington Criminals. Not on this matter, not on the war, not on most things. The Supreme Soviet claimed to represent the "people," too.

[casper2004]

A President is to blame for everything that happens during their rein.

I do blame the President for this because he's annoyed, harrassed, and threatened lawmakers into doing as they're told.

[Earl]

People's Right's

Sorry that was tosted out a long time ago.
I personaly will say & do as I wish,(IT"S MY RIGHT"S)

[aqvanavt]

e-nnoyance

I'm sorry, but your constant complaining about your rights while we remove them is interfering with our ability to govern. Surely you can understand our need to control the venues relating to the freedom of speech. What are you? Anti-American.

[marigolds]

Misrepresenting law, or Nice use of ellipses

The quote pieces together parts of three different sections.
The real law states that you cannot annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass

via a phone call without revealing your identity if you intiated the phone call

via a telecommunications device using obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent communication if you initiated the communication

via a telecommunications device using obscene or indescent communication while knowing the recipient is under 18 years of age regardless of who initiated the communication

The text is here:
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:eTgHNQ2YpkMJ:www.fcc.gov/Reports/1934new.pdf+%22Communications+Act+of+1934%22&hl=en&client=firefox-a
on page 54

[declan00]

Um...

You would be correct if we were talking about the state of the law _as it existed before last Thursday_.

The FCC hasn't updated its web site yet to reflect the amendments made by the new legislation. You have to take the thomas.loc.gov copy of the bill and do it yourself.

It's not difficult but it will take you a few minutes. And then you won't look silly when posting comments here.

[justicehunter]

Email is least of your worries.

Email is not the only form of internet communication, and email is the least of your worries. You can easily get the headers for an email, report the person to the ISP, or mail service and get it take care of. Whether it means they get their accounts suspended or banned would be up to the ISP, but there is a form of action. This law includes the *internet* which means any communication medium, including IRC, IM, News Groups, Games, Social Forums, etc. In other words, if I do something that annoys someone in a game, they can demand my real name. If I do not provide my real name, the government can demand my real name from the provider (since it is actually the law). The person claiming I annoyed them is now entitled to my real name in order to file charges. All of this because I may have said something against their political, religious or personal views. Whether it gets any further than that isn?t relevant, the point is they are able to obtain the information and are able to disrupt my life because they didn?t agree with me. The 1st amendment states I am able to state my opinion without persecution from the government. How can they make a law allowing them to convict me for stating my opinion just because my opinion annoys someone? Keep in mind, I am not threatening or harassing the person, I am only annoying them.

[T-birdJunkie]

define annoyance!

Does this only apply to verbal annoyances, or actual, ahem, physical annoyances?

like say you're playing Interstate '76, some guy keeps driving over to you when you spawn, and you get blown up within 30 seconds of respawning EVERY time. That gets annoying...does that count?

[krioni--2008]

Read it yourself - article is wrong (link inside)

Here's a link to Section 113 of the legislation discussed:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c109:6:./temp/
~c109EBYbfy:e91030:

No mention of annoyance. Good research, CNET. I guess if
someone else told you it said that you didn't have to bother
checking it yourself, did you?

[krioni--2008]

LINK - SECOND TRY

Obviously, CNET's forum posting broke the URL - you'll need ot
put it together yourself, although I'll try several different ways to
get it to show as a link:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c109:6:./temp/
~c109EBYbfy:e91030:

thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c109:6:./temp/
~c109EBYbfy:e91030:

Link to legislation

[rwilkens]

No it's not

If I read the article correctly, it does not say that sec. 113 (or whatever sec.) uses the word "annoy".. It says the bill uses the word annoy, and the bill has at least 113 sections in it, if I understand it right.

[goghgirl]

Please provide a working link

Your link was based on a temporary search result.

From the Thomas Library of congress website:

"Search results are only retained for a limited amount of time.Your search results have either been deleted, or the file has been updated with new information."

Please provide search info or link to archived copy.

[TeslaAldrich]

Article is right, just doesn't include link to original act.

Your link seems to be broken.

Please be aware that the text in the amendment (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/C?c109:./temp/~c109AvVrQv) doesn't contain the text in the original act, which can be found at http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode47/usc_sec_47_00000223----000-.html.

Check section 113 of the amendment, which refers to section 223 of the act.

[anussimkatu]

The word ANNOY appears in the ORIGINAL LAW (1934 Comm. Dec. Act)

The law was an amendment, the word annoy appears in the original bill. Section 113 of this law called "PREVENTING CYBERSTALKING" is the specific section in question (from HR 3402). It amends a previous law (Paragraph (1) of section 223(h) of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 223(h)(1)).

It is this previous law that contains the "annoy" language. The very important thing this story left out is that the communication act says that the annoying content MUST ALSO BE "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent".

So this law does not apply to just normal annoying criticism. It only affects anonymous annoying communications that are filthy, lewd and obscene.

The relevant law that was changed is available here: http://www.fcc.gov/Reports/1934new.pdf

here is an excerpt of that:

------begin section 223 of 1934 Comm. Dec. Act

SEC. 223. [http://47 U.S.C. 223|http://47 U.S.C. 223] OBSCENE OR HARASSING TELEPHONE CALLS IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA OR IN INTERSTATE OR FOREIGN COMMUNICATIONS.
(a) Whoever--
(1) in interstate or foreign communications--
(A) by means of a telecommunications device knowingly--
(i) makes, creates, or solicits, and
(ii) initiates the transmission of,
any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or
other communication which is obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or
indecent, with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass another
person;

-----------end of Sec 223 of 1934CDA-------

The following text is the relevant text from the new law that amended the 1934 CDA so that internet communications are now included:

--------------begin section 113--------
SEC. 113. PREVENTING CYBERSTALKING.
(a) IN GENERAL.?Paragraph (1) of section 223(h) of the Communications
Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 223(h)(1)) is amended?
(1) in subparagraph (A), by striking ??and?? at the end;
(2) in subparagraph (B), by striking the period at the
end and inserting ??; and??; and
(3) by adding at the end the following new subparagraph:
??(C) in the case of subparagraph (C) of subsection
(a)(1), includes any device or software that can be used
to originate telecommunications or other types of communications
that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by
the Internet (as such term is defined in section 1104 of
the Internet Tax Freedom Act (47 U.S.C. 151 note)).??.
(b) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.?This section and the amendment
made by this section may not be construed to affect the meaning
given the term ??telecommunications device?? in section 223(h)(1)
of the Communications Act of 1934, as in effect before the date
of the enactment of this section.

[R Me]

hidden aganda

this is a direct act to be able to go after political blogs. Recent legislation failed to be able to regulate blogs under political laws so a round-about-way was devised. Slimey politicians will always make sure they have the legal right to use their money and contacts to their best advantage and the unconnected disadvantage. These gutter slime feel it is their manifest right by reason of election.

[anussimkatu]

No it isn't a hidden agenda

This law is to prevent only anonymous OBSCENE and LEWD communications that are meant to ANNOY AND HARRASS people.

See the 1934 Communications Decency Act at:

http://www.fcc.gov/Reports/1934new.pdf

The only thing new is that people that use communication and telephony devices over the internet receive the same punishment as people that use other forms of telephony and communication devices.

It clearly does not affect political speech since it only applies to LEWD and OBSCENE anonymous annoying and harrassing communications initiated by one person to another.

[vice versa]

And you guys hate China for their violations of freedom?

The media screams everytime a Chinese government arrest a Terrorist for posting anti-govt crap over the Internet.

Looks like the Bush administration is learning a lot of the Red Chinese.

First create a Patriot act to make it legal to call anyone who hates the Govt. a Terrorist.

Then sign a bill that makes it legal to arrest people for posting anti-govt. blogs.

Whats next?

Let me guess, running a tank over the peace activist?

[marinemom05]

e-annoyance?

gimme a break. i guess when i email shrub from now on, i will have to let him know who it is. i wouldn't be afraid to bet that his staff is tired of reading his hate mail so they slipped this law into another one that was sure to pass.

[markdoiron]

M Game Sales and Annoying Net Posts

okay, it will be interesting to see how this fairs in the venue of constitutionality. i mean, we can't restrict sales (not playing, just sale directly to) of games that are clearly labeled "for adults only" to those who obviously aren't adults. but the prez thinks we can restrict anonymous speech because someone finds it annoying? give me a break.

mark d.

[Pilaar39]

So, how does this work Internationally?

This is a US law. The internet is international. So, how the heck is this supposed to work if someone from another country anonymously posts something annoying?

[ebrandel]

It doesn't

This law also won't work in the US. It would never hold up in court.

[SeanInSWFL]

Why All the Fuss?

Read Section 113 of the bill. Now try to find the text as reported in this article. It does not exist.

[declan00]

Links

I included the links in my column. Here they are again.

Go here:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.3402:

Click on version #6, then printer-friendly display. Search for Sec. 113.

Note how Sec. 113. amends existing law by changing the definitions in 47 U.S.C. 223(h)(1)., which are here:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode47/usc_sec_47_00000223----000-.html

Before the new law took effect Thursday, 47 USC 223 explicitly said it "does not include an interactive computer service." The changes override that for the "to annoy" section.

In other words, the section as amended reads like this: "Whoever...utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet... without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person...who receives the communications...shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."

[Pureclint]

Original Law from 1934

Stop trying to blame Bush and the evil Republicans for everything, the law amended was signed off on by the Democrat President FDR. Now it covers not only telephone buy internet communications.

Also, note the word "intent" the only way they could enforce being annoyed is if you can prove they intended to annoy (to harass or disturb by repeated attacks)you. That does not equal the recipient being annoyed and nor does it state as much.

Stop blowing things out of proportion.

[johnkeller2004]

Stalinists, all of them

Roosevelt was a Stalinist just as much as this current prick, Bush, is. They both admire(d) power and lust(ed) for it.

There are Liberty-Loving Americans, and then, there are Democrats and Republicans.

[JoeBuckstrap]

Since when does Bush care about the Constitution?

By signing this meaningless bill, Bush simply signals again his contempt for the 1st Amendment and the 4th Amendment. He cares neither for free speech or for privacy. For that matter, he doesn't care about your habeas corpus rights either.

You keep writing stories like that and the Bush junta will go after you, throw you in jail and throw away the key ... but not until they bug you, your family, your friends and your dog and cat.

[Pureclint]

Original Law from 1934

Remember it is not Bush, he is ammending a original law from 1934. This has to do with stalking and harrasment not freedom of speech.

[Neo Con]

Not to worry

I'm sure the Supreme Court will strike down this law just as they struck down the ban on free speech known as McCain-Feingold. Oh, wait... They upheld that unconstitutional piece of excrement. I guess we're in trouble. :P

[casper2004]

We are in trouble

as long as Judges die, or retire, during Bush's rein, he gets to pick people who suck up to him.

[amigabill]

anti-spam potential?

I find all the spam I get to be very annoying and irritating. I wouldn't imagine it'd do any better than CAN-SPAM, but might provide another angle for that.

For now I forward most of the spam I get to the FTC, fake stock tips also go to the SEC and medical stuff also goes to the FDA, which hasn't done a bit of good yet.

[Pureclint]

intent

To bad they say "intent to Annoy" I am sure they do not spam you with the intent to annoy as they would loose business by annoying people.

Now if they said caused annoyance we might have something there!!

[Sire Nicholas]

Marv Johnson

I could have predicted that the ACLU would be against this. Oh no! But if someone wanted to send a Christmas e-mail.....

[CompHobbyist]

rather ironic...

this is rather ironic, especially considering I had to wait 30 seconds while that hideously annoying AT&T Shockwave ad covered the entire first screenful of this article. if that isn't an e-annoyance I don't know what is.

[bobby_brady]

Turn off ActiveX, that will stop all ads

and make your computer more secure.

[amigabill]

Attachments to unrelated bills == bad

>To grease the rails for this idea, Sen. Arlen
>Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, and the
>section's other sponsors slipped it into an
>unrelated, must-pass bill to fund the Department of
>Justice. The plan: to make it politically
>infeasible for politicians to oppose the measure.

I can't imagine why we the people put up with these shenanigans. I'd like to see our lawmakers pass a law that forbids attaching off-topic items to bills. If it can't survive on it's own, then a bill just might not be that good of an idea, and just may not deserve to be passed into law at all.

Come on, Congress. I dare you to play fair. If you don't like the idea, then I'm going to propose to my representatives that they attach an off-topic bill to something important, which will allow me to smack each and every (and I do mean EVERY) politician upside the head once a year as I see fit. Make a nice taxpayer-funded shindig of it all too. Get this snuck into some must-pass war budget or something so it's all nice and legal.

Especially in the dubious "must pass" category, bills should be protected from becoming tainted bu off-topic language, IMNSHO.

[mwild10]

Alarmist Crap

This article is disingenuous at best and deliberatley muck-raking at the worst. If the author had spent 2 minutes reading the bill in question along with the original law, he would have realized that all this does is close a loophole for internet phone services like Vonage.
The Internet in general is already exempted from the provisions of the this law and the amendment specifically reinforces this exemption. This is all much ado about nothing.

[declan00]

Not just Vonage

Mark:

Unfortunately for us, that's not what the law actually says.

The US Code as amended reads like this: "Whoever...utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet... without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person...who receives the communications...shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."

It would have been trivial to limit that to VoIP services. Other bills in Congress dealing with VoIP include precisely those definitions. But this one instead covers any type of "communications" on the Internet, including e-mail and Web posts.

If, in some alternate hypothetical universe, your VoIP-limited version of the law were actually the one enacted, then I might agree with you. That is not the case today.

[johnkeller2004]

Cite?

QUOTE the "exemptions" for the Internet.

I posit such "exemptions" don't exist. This is just like the "Communications Decency Act" the Federal ****** tried to impose in 1994.