Your Blog is a Weapon?

From http://www.boingboing.net/2009/05/05/your-blog-is-a-weapo.html :

"Law prof Eugene Volokh blogs about a U.S. House of Representatives bill proposed by Rep. Linda T. Sanchez and 14 others that could make it a federal felony to use your blog, social media like MySpace and Facebook, or any other web media "To Cause Substantial Emotional Distress Through "Severe, Repeated, and Hostile" Speech." (snip)

"Here's the relevant text:

"Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both....

"<"Communication"> means the electronic transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user's choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received; ...

"<"Electronic means"> means any equipment dependent on electrical power to access an information service, including email, instant messaging, blogs, websites, telephones, and text messages.""

You can't verbally abuse or harass people in other formats either. I doubt this will apply to public figures, so I am not too worried.

If so were living in different worlds.

purely verbal "abuse or harass," without more, is not, and should not be a felony, whether electronic or in person.

Again, please point out the existing law you think provides otherwise.

In the wording. Looking more closely I agree with you on that. I was thinking about sexual harassment specifically, and also considering the potential of bringing in other kinds of media in that harassment, including indecent exposure. But yeah, on closer examination any felony for speech is pretty harsh.

suppose I have a blog (or just my account at DU) and I start posting specifically for the purpose of character assassinating you, snot. I make out that your avatar somehow proves you support terrorism, that you steal candy from babies, take drugs, are a criminal, whatever - use your imagination. Here on DU it's just a spat between two people with silly names, but what if I happened to know your real name and was using my blog to libel you? This happens. I know of one case where a guy has been conducting some grudge-driven campaign against another person (who he worked for briefly) for years. You probably read of that case in the news last year where a teenage girl hung herself because an unpleasant neighbor employed fake identities on the internet to administer severe emotional abuse.

Additionally, I don't have free rein to say whatever I like in non-internet contexts. If I get in your face and call you a jerk or accuse you criminality, you may be entitled to call the police or bring suit against me, depending on how virulent and aggressive my behavior. If I write maliciously about you in the newspaper with no basis in fact, then you definitely have a civil case against me.

Laws on libel and slander are also a kind of restriction on speech, but one we find acceptable because free speech can be misused to injure someone else. In an age when technology gives everyone a megaphone, we should have clear rules about what is acceptable and what is not. This proposed legislation may need refinement, but the concept of personal space has changed substantially with the advent of the internet and there is a good basis for legislation.

I do understand all that. But if what you're talking about is libel, we already have those laws -- I find those laws perfectly acceptable -- and, appropriately, they are civil laws that award damages, not felony sentences to prison.

We also already have civil and criminal laws against intentional misrepresentations of fact intended to induce another to act to their detriment. We also have civil laws against intentional infliction of emotional distress. I also find all those laws perfectly acceptable.

I'm interested in any "refinement" of this legislation that you think would make it more helpful than not. Meanwhile, I hope you will agree this leg. in its present form is unacceptable.

math instruction....

http://mathforum.org/geometry/geom.units.html

Quote me your law against in-person VERBAL "abuse."

We're making it a FELONY to say the wrong thing on the internets.

This is nuts.

See? Of course you are not a child molester. I know nothing at all about you, actually. But imagine that accusation being attached to your real name, and the power of the internet to rapidly reach a wide audience leveraged against you to some malicious end. It is not as simple as 'you should be able to say anything you want', because some people abuse that power.

It's not an ideal solution, but it generally suffices to deter such lies.

What I DON'T need is for you to go to jail for some overly-provacative post you made against a public figure on DU.

Nobody is going to go to jail for making a post on DU. Your (and volokh's) interpretation of this is wildly sensationalistic. As I've said, the draft of the legislation needs tightening up, but the intent is specifically to prevent harassment and e0thuggery directed at private individuals. You're playing right into the hands of RWers who'll use this to whine about 'liberal fascism'.

them - totally false of course, but while they still see everything in terms of the 'gay menace' - things like this are getting proposed.

...the Right does and would like to do to even the moderate dem view

I don't threaten, harass, or say anything that's not true, but I'm sure that those RW wackos that stumble across my blog are none too happy with my comments.

This is nothing more than the attempt to muzzle and silence those of us who want to draw attention to those in public office that are not doing their jobs. Period.

the legislation as proposed is imperfect and needs reworking. But imagining the worst possible case is not a good guide to the likely application.

used against bloggers that routinely post about those in government that aren't doing their jobs, and urge their readers to take action like oh, calling, writing, faxing and voting them out of office?

:rofl:

First, it's proposed legislation and will probably be altered in committee. If it gets out of committee it will then have to face both house and senate votes, and it's most unlikely to become law in its present form.

Second, when you complain about an office holder who isn't doing their job, your political speech is protected by the first amendment with exhaustive precedent; if you're complaining about a bureaucrat (such as an appointee) you enjoy similar constitutional protections.

So :rofl: yourself for not being familiar with the scope and limitations of the first amendment.

Like, we should just trust the authorities, 'cause that's worked so well in the past . . .

We have a Constitution because our founders had learned that we can NOT trust authorities -- on the contrary, we must give them no more rope than they can hang themselves with, and watch them like eagles.

I think the concept is a bit chilling, actually. What defines 'harassment?'

You're wrong! No--YOU're wrong! Oh, no--it's YOU that's wrong!!! Naaah unnh, YOU are wrong--how many times do I have to tell you?

Who's doing the harassing, there? What separates harassment from a little pissing contest?

It had better be written in a very specific fashion, this law, otherwise they may as well call it the Ari Fleisher Memorial Legislation ("Watch What You Say; Watch What You Do").

This law IS a response to that little girl who killed herself after some sick mother pretended to be a teen boy online, I assume? Or was it written with a more political intent? And is political speech of a different quality than, say, someone making fun of their neighbor, a private citizen, online?

I'm not a lawyer nor do I play one on TV or radio, so I really don't know the answers to these questions.

Assuming our courts continue to uphold those rights, and their track record lately isn't reassuring.

Tell me what this law adds that we need and don't already have.

... the person doing the blogging was an adult and the target was a minor.

IIRC the reason for this law was because a minor committed suicide because an adult pretending to be a minor used the system to harass the kid.

No reason to go over board and blame the entire medium because one asshole abused it.

Of course, since I'm no legal expert and there may be circumstances that I cannot foresee, I would be willing to adapt my stance on this issue.