Internet Annoyances Now Federal Crimes

This law is a little more than a year old, but I'd never heard of it, so I'm hoping others will find it as interesting as I did.

In January of 2006, Bush signed into law a restriction on posting or sending e-mail messages that are "annoying" without using your real name. You're allowed to post these same messages as long as you use your true identity. This restriction is within the Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act. The penalties for posting these "annoying" messages are fines and two years in prison. The major problem with this law is that is uses the word "annoying" which is subjective. What is annoying to me may not be annoying to you. This part of the bill is called "Preventing Cyberstalking". The writers of the bill hid this law inside of a bill that requested funding for the Department of Justice. It was a clever way of sliding the law under the radar. Another major problem with this law is that it is a violation of citizens' First Amendment rights. The First Amendment gives us the right to not only annoy people, but do it anonymously. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas defended this right in a 1995 case with an Ohio woman who distributed annoying pamphlets. This law does not support the limited government Bush claims to uphold and is clearly unconstitutional.

I totally agree with the author. This law is flagrantly unconstitutional and violates the right to freedom of speech and freedom of press given to us in the First Amendment. Also, I think 2 years in prison is much too high a penalty for annoying someone. Also, this law does not try to stop annoying messages, it just says you have to use your real name. So, I can still get tons and tons of spam as long as the people sending it give me their name. This law is rediculous and should be repealed.

http://news.com.com/Create+an+e-annoyance,+go+to+jail/2010-1028_3-6022491.html