That kinda puts the BBQ Pit out of business, doesn’t it? Unless we change our usernames to our real names.
This won’t stand up to Supreme Court scrutiny, I’ll wager. The term “annoy” is far too vague–any sort of complaint is bound to annoy somebody. Seems to me an excellent case could be made for this law being violative of First Amendment rights. It’ll be interesting to see the first test case. And just in case they wanna test it on me:
Fuck you up the ass, George W. Bush!
Done.
That’s, umm… worrisome, to say the least.
Given that it’s a US law, it’s subject to the First Amendment. So either it’s going to be unconstitutional, or it’s going to be read down considerably, and not cover a lot of what goes on in Internet message boards, but only cover intentional harrasment of individuals by stalkers.
At least in regards to the Pit, I’m pretty sure the Reader has the real names of everyone who’s paid for a membership, so we should be okay on that count.
Still, really dumb law that probably won’t stand up to its first legal challenge.
It won’t stand up to constitutional scrutiny.
Nor should it.
See, I think the problem with your theory is, I don’t know who the fuck you are either. You don’t know me, I don’t know you. How can I be ‘annoying’ you when I don’t know who you are? I may be annoying a group of electrons that have arranged themselves in the form of Revtim, but that is all I know about you.
I think in order for this to have any teeth, the stalker has to have some personal information and is using/taking advantage of such info. As it stands most people on message boards are as annonymous to each other as two leaves in a forest.
Not entirely true. First of all, I’m not sure it’s accurate to say that they have our information, just because we gave it when we paid up. I don’t think they keep those records–when I needed an adjustment due to an error, I had to give the relevant information to Jerry all over again. Secondly, a number of members have been paid by others, so even if the above is incorrect the information on file for these members does not correspond to their real identity. Thirdly, guests can still post for thirty days, during which time there would be no identity on file, even assuming such records are, in fact, kept. Finally, even if the Reader does keep such records for direct CC payments, those who paid via PayPal would not have their identities so recorded.
I wondered about that too. I suspected it might not be OK, because the users are anonymous to the targets of “annoyance”, the other users.
IANAL, that’s just a wag. Ignoring the fact that the law will hopefully be struck down as being unconstitutional, can any Doper lawyers elaborate on this anonymity issue as it pertains to the Straight Dope Message Board? Is Miller correct that the fact that the SD knows the real names enough to get around this law?
Under this theory, wouldn’t this shut down something like 95% of the internet?
I despise Bush as much as the next guy; but Congress passed this. Bush just signed this as a rider on an DOJ bill.
You misunderstand. That wasn’t a “fuck you” specifically for this, it was a general “fuck you” for everything he’s ever screwed up, directly intended to annoy him should he actually read it. 
I think this is correct. The term is cyberstalking, using the internet to harass an individual. I don’t think postings on a message board count.
Frank?! Who the fuck is Frank?!
I’m annoyed!
Question-could we argue that the Pit’s intent is to insult, rather than “harass” or “annoy”?
The law also prohibits anonymous “abuse”, which in retrospect I think might fit the pit more than “annoy”!
So, basically, Congress just moved the Internet to MPSIMS? Efficient.
And will GQ stand for “Government Queries?”
Taking a cue from «Ðëëp¤F®ïêd»™: Why not something healthier, like «Ö¥êńβŗőĬĻĕď»™?
Oops, speaking of moving to MPSIMS, wrong thread. Now onto your regulary scheduled rant.