I’m Going to Jail—and You’re All Coming With Me!

“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.”

The above was just signed into law by President Bush. It’s part of the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, written in as a revision of the existing telephone harassment law under the heading “Preventing Cyberstalking.”

An earlier version that the House approved in September had radically different wording. It was reasonable by comparison, and criminalized only using an "interactive computer service" to cause someone "substantial emotional harm."

That kind of prohibition might make sense. But why should merely annoying someone be illegal?

…Our esteemed politicians can't seem to grasp this simple point, but the First Amendment protects our right to write something that annoys someone else.

It even shields our right to do it anonymously.

What strikes me about this is that it seems designed to protect public figures more than the average people the Violence Against Women Act is designed to protect—people whose harassers are often known to them and make no attempt to hide their identities, thereby making this law inapplicable. I’m also struck by the word “annoy,” which is so subjective as to render the statute either completely useless or wide open for abuse. What’s to stop the RNC from going after every liberal blogger who prefers to remain anonymous, claiming annoyance? Ridiculous. I trust this will be promptly challenged.