Annoying someone via the Internet is now a federal crime.

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<MedicalConspiracies (AT) googl (DOT) com>_________http://news.com.com/Create+an+e-annoyance%2C+go+to+jail/2010-1028_3-6022491.html?part=rss & tag=6022491 & subj=news Annoying someone via the Internet is now a federal crime. It's no joke. Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law aprohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoyinge-mail messages without disclosing your true identity. In other words, it's OK to flame someone on a mailing list or in ablog as long as you do it under your real name. Thank Congress forsmall favors, I guess. This ridiculous prohibition, which would likely imperil much ofUsenet, is buried in the so-called Violence Against Women andDepartment of Justice Reauthorization Act. Criminal penalties includestiff fines and two years in prison. "The use of the word 'annoy' is particularly problematic," says MarvJohnson, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union."What's annoying to one person may not be annoying to someone else."It's illegal to annoy A new federal law states that when you annoy someone on the Internet,you must disclose your identity. Here's the relevant language. "Whoever...utilizes any device or software that can be used tooriginate telecommunications or other types of communications that aretransmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet... withoutdisclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, orharass any person...who receives the communications...shall be finedunder title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both." Buried deep in the new law is Sec. 113, an innocuously titled bitcalled "Preventing Cyberstalking." It rewrites existing telephoneharassment law to prohibit anyone from using the Internet "withoutdisclosing his identity and with intent to annoy." To grease the rails for this idea, Sen. Arlen Specter, a PennsylvaniaRepublican, and the section's other sponsors slipped it into anunrelated, must-pass bill to fund the Department of Justice. The plan:to make it politically infeasible for politicians to oppose the measure. The tactic worked. The bill cleared the House of Representatives byvoice vote, and the Senate unanimously approved it Dec. 16. There's an interesting side note. An earlier version that the Houseapproved in September had radically different wording. It wasreasonable by comparison, and criminalized only using an "interactivecomputer service" to cause someone "substantial emotional harm." That kind of prohibition might make sense. But why should merelyannoying someone be illegal? There are perfectly legitimate reasons to set up a Web site or writesomething incendiary without telling everyone exactly who you are. Think about it: A woman fired by a manager who demanded sexual favorswants to blog about it without divulging her full name. An aspiringpundit hopes to set up the next Suck.com. A frustrated citizen wantsto send e-mail describing corruption in local government withoutworrying about reprisals. In each of those three cases, someone's probably going to be annoyed.That's enough to make the action a crime. (The Justice Departmentwon't file charges in every case, of course, but trustingprosecutorial discretion is hardly reassuring.) Clinton Fein, a San Francisco resident who runs the Annoy.com site,says a feature permitting visitors to send obnoxious and profanepostcards through e-mail could be imperiled. "Who decides what's annoying? That's the ultimate question," Fein said.He added: "If you send an annoying message via the United States PostOffice, do you have to reveal your identity?" Fein once sued to overturn part of the Communications Decency Act thatoutlawed transmitting indecent material "with intent to annoy." Butthe courts ruled the law applied only to obscene material, soAnnoy.com didn't have to worry. "I'm certainly not going to close the site down," Fein said on Friday."I would fight it on First Amendment grounds." He's right. Our esteemed politicians can't seem to grasp this simplepoint, but the First Amendment protects our right to write somethingthat annoys someone else. It even shields our right to do it anonymously. U.S. Supreme CourtJustice Clarence Thomas defended this principle magnificently in a1995 case involving an Ohio woman who was punished for distributinganonymous political pamphlets. If President Bush truly believed in the principle of limitedgovernment (it is in his official bio), he'd realize that the law hesigned cannot be squared with the Constitution he swore to uphold. And then he'd repeat what President Clinton did a decade ago when hefelt compelled to sign a massive telecommunications law. Clintonrealized that the section of the law punishing abortion-relatedmaterial on the Internet was unconstitutional, and he directed theJustice Department not to enforce it. Bush has the chance to show his respect for what he calls Americans'personal freedoms. Now we'll see if the president rises to the occasion.BiographyDeclan McCullagh is CNET News.com's Washington, D.C., correspondent.He chronicles the busy intersection between technology and politics.Before that, he worked for several years as Washington bureau chieffor Wired News. He has also worked as a reporter for The Netly News,Time magazine and HotWired.