Time for a Privacy PAC?
It's now illegal to "annoy" someone on the Internet. President Bush signed Sen Sensenbrenner's VIolence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act last week. Declan McCullagh does a good job describing the implications in CNET.
As the name suggests, it was slipped into the mundane Justice Department's funding bill as a provision to prevent so-called cyberstalking. The language makes it illegal to annoy someone with anonymous email or a blog.
As I understand it, the test for triggering this provision is that it has to be well, annoying, must be done with the intent to annoy and must be anonymous. The penalty is fines and up to two years in jail.
Several lawyers have posted around the Net claiming that this law is unenforcable due to the First Amendment. Maybe true, but it will take the Supreme Court to strike it down. Like similar rules in the past (CDA and COPA), the true test is in the enforcement by the Justice Department until someone can challenge it in court.
SIgh. Why don't legislators get it? This is the kind of bill that sounds great in a vacuum, I mean, who wants to vote FOR cyberstalking? But, the implications to free speech are chilling and handing the Bush Administration another weapon against civil liberties is like buying Jeffrey Dahmer a cookbook.
What I'd like to know is where are the "privacy" organizations when these kind of bills are being passed? The ACLU is an after-the-fact lawsuit kind of shop, but what about EFF?
I think that it's time for some new privacy organizations that will lobby before these idiot bills get passed.
Do we need a Privacy Pac?
Posted on January 10, 2006
