Plead the First

From now on, if you plan on saying anything annoying online, you’d better do it under your real name:

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.

This seems like a ridiculous violation of the first amendment, and it’s especially dangerous because of the vague wording. Who determines what is “annoying”? And in what manner must I establish my “true” identity? For instance, I could post under my first name, but it’s common enough that it wouldn’t really single me out. However, I’ve never seen another “PotatoStew” posting anywhere, so that name could be said to uniquely identify me. Does one need to post under a first and last name in order to be allowed to annoy? What about folks with common first and last names: Do they need to post an address or phone number in order to legally annoy others on the internet?

Maybe one should be required to purchase an Annoyance License to legally annoy others. It could be stamped with an “Annoying ID Number” that you could include with your online posts. There could be different tiers available: A $25 license lets you be a minor annoyance, but if you purchase the $50 license you can be a major pain-in-the-neck.

:::

Update: In the comments, Darkmoon points to this link in which some folks claim that the original article misinterprets the law, saying that it’s really nothing unusual. I haven’t had a chance to verify what they’re saying there, but it’s nice to know I may be able to safely continue to annoy others.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 9th, 2006 at 1:33 pm and is filed under Blogging, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.