[declan at well.com: [Politech] New law targets online activities designed "to annoy" others [fs]]

[Justin]

On 2006-01-12T11:32:46+0100, Eugen Leitl wrote:
> Welcome to Teletubby land.
> 
> ----- Forwarded message from Declan McCullagh <declan at well.com> -----
> 
> From: Declan McCullagh <declan at well.com>
> Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 01:41:34 -0800
> To: politech at politechbot.com
> Subject: [Politech] New law targets online activities designed "to annoy"
> 	others [fs]
> User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.6 (Macintosh/20050716)
> 
> The prohibition:
> "Whoever...utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate
> telecommunications or other types of communications that are
> transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet... without disclosing
> his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any
> person...who receives the communications...shall be fined under title 18
> or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."

Incomplete.  There's an exception carved out:

Here's the bill:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.3402:

version 6, section 113, adds 47 U.S.C. 223 (h)(1)(C), which is as Declan
quoted, but...

> (h)(1)(B) does not include an interactive computer service.

47 U.S.C. 230
> (f)(2) The term interactive computer service means any information
> service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables
> computer access by multiple users to a computer server, including
> specifically a service or system that provides access to the Internet
> and such systems operated or services offered by libraries or
> educational institutions.

So it appears not to apply to multi-recipient communications, such as
online forums or usenet or even mailing lists.

-- 
The six phases of a project:
I. Enthusiasm.         IV. Search for the Guilty.
II. Disillusionment.   V. Punishment of the Innocent.
III. Panic.            VI. Praise & Honor for the Nonparticipants.