Geek_!$_Sexy

Google

20060112

this is from one of ZDNet's bloggers. apparently, [bold and color are my changes]
It is now illegal, after President Bush signed H.R. 3402, the "Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005," to harrass someone by posting an anonymous comment on their blog.... The effect of this, even though you can't tell it from the language of the bill, is to rewrite this part of the Communications Act of 1934 to read: (B) makes a telephone call, whether or not conversation ensues, without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person at the called number and; (C) makes or causes the telephone of another repeatedly or continuously to ring, with intent to harass any person at the called number ((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)).’

That makes "annoying" someone via comments posted on a blog or Web site a crime punishable by fines of up to $50,000 and/or imprisonment for up to six months.

That's bad news, because it silences critics. Even if you find a critic annoying, they have a right to speak. The bargain we made with the Web was that everyone, even annoying anonymous critics, have a voice. That's been rolled back and, along with it, another important foundation of freedom of speech.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home