Annoying Someone Online = 2 Years In Jail: Bush

Yes, George Bush has signed into law a lovely bit of legistlation – now making annoying someone online a federal crime with penalities of up to 2 years in a U.S. prison. Does anyone in the government ever bother to stop and ask wether a proposed law ever complies with the dictates of common sense?  So now were someone to anonymously start calling somone else names or be rude in a chatroom under an assumed alias, they’d potnetially be in violation of this new law and could face prison time.  Admittedly, being rude isn’t very nice – but making it against the law is qutie impractical in any free and democratic society for what ought to be obvious reasons.  (And to those without sufficient education or common sense to figure out why, try picking up any text under the heading "Philosophy of Law" to get an idea…I’m not going to write a 1st year paper on the subject here for you.)

 

At any rate, one would think the President of the United States could master the subject matter at hand and ask a question or two before signing such nonsense into law.  Sheesh….

 

And neow the fear will be wehter the next government here in Canada will be any wiser when it comes to addressing such issues following the election on January 23rd.  It was hardly a great omen when Bill C-60 was nearly signed into law before political realities luckily saw the minority Parliament defeated late last year, putting the proposed Act to Amend the Copyright Act (which would have turned ISPs into a de facto Internet Gestappo, reporting customers to agents of the Canadian Recording Industry for subsequent legal action concerning copying copyrighted material online).