If you're a troll, you may be going to jail soon!

Specifically, H.R. 1966, originally filed on April 2, will make it a felony if the messages have "the intent is to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person." People using electronic means to harass others face possible fines or jail sentence up to two years, or both.

To date, the bill has the support of Sanchez and 14 other members of Congress, with Sanchez continuing to rally support for the bill.

www.dailytech.com...

Awesome limitation on free speech, bro! So, ATS, do you choose to keep your trolls, or prosecute them?

Much like violence is the American way, trolling is the internet way, and this proposed legislation makes me sad even when I know it won't get very far.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/514e890ede44.jpg[/atsimg]

[edit on 15-5-2009 by Discordian Queen]

reply to post by Discordian Queen

People using electronic means to harass others face possible fines or jail sentence up to two years, or both.

WTF..?


I'm hiring a lawyer now...


[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/29bc505d51bb.jpg[/atsimg]

reply to post by Discordian Queen



When the nwo starts creating laws which are impossible to inforce equally their end is in sight. Can't wait for the web police to bust an old lady for hurting the feelings of the banksters in her blog.

In the words of Peter Griffin:

"While I may not agree with what you say, I'll defend to the death your right to say it!"

Even though it's from a slapstick cartoon on FOX, it's very fitting in todays world I believe.

I believe this is over the lady who pretended to be a boy on MySpace to harass and embarrass a girl her daughters age, only to have the girl commit suicide over that "boy", who was actually her friends mom!

I don't think we need more laws over this, I think this lady just needs to be shot in the gut and let her bleed out!!

"the intent is to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person."

LOL. Well hopefully this law means it would have to be a concerted effort to harrass an individual in various ways online.

If intimidation or causing emotional distress on forums becomes illegal half the forums internet will die.

It's there for a reason. They will enforce this law at their discretion. Usually that will be at the most inconvenient time for some private individual who has gotten on the wrong side of the establishment.
"Mr. Orwell, red courtesy phone."

reply to post by breakingdradles


Nice avatar, Anon. Yeah, they have a whole thing documenting what happened with the girl on encyclopedia dramatica.

Hmmmmmmmmmm. I smell portents of sneakiness. Let's look at that defining sentence again:

the intent is to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person

Coerce. Is an attempt to persuade close enough?

Harass. Like to incessantly say the same thing to an argument or debate?

AND PLEASE!! tell me who is to judge whether emotional distress of a sufficient degree has been caused to a person? What if I'm talking about a past experience of mine..... say, skydiving..... and a person reading recalls a dear relative of theirs dying in a freefall accident and ....... you get the idea.

I always thought that not feeding the trolls was the best way to go. Concerted ignoring. Maybe I'm trying to read too much into it. Guess I don't see the point of it. If "they" wanted to chop the incidence of internet stalking, why not just define that?

middle - medium strangeness.

I'm sure the good denizens of 4chan will attempt to test the waters of this law first, should it pass. It amazes me the amount of BS they'll try and pass off to attempt to baby people.

Seriously though, define harassment?

So, someone gets their feelings hurt.. because they read an opinion they don't share. What power would the offended person have?

Haha... I laughed at the image in the first post..... 7 Proxies.

I reply to Russian and Chinese scammers and spammers with a reply containing a WW2 Enigma code asking for Russian or Chinese military secrets.
wareseeker.com...

These scammers and spammers may get long prison terms or be put in front of a wall and shot if the Russian or Chinese governments break the code in these replies as i thank them for the military secrets they have sent and ask for more military secrets.

These replies would definitely fit "the intent is to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person."

I also bait Nigerian 419 scammers with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a them."
www.419baiter.com...

So when the cops kick in my door for breaking this law i will ask for a jury trial and hope the jury members are is fed up with these Internet criminals as i am.



[edit on 15-5-2009 by ANNED]

reply to post by Hypntick


Honestly, if you don't know how to use a proxy and change your MAC address, you shouldn't be allowed to use the internet anyway. Good luck finding me as I troll your email accounts, you congressmen who are behind this bill!

oh god. why why why are stupid people getting on the internet more and more!!!???

i thought we were doomed with twitter...

ted stevens with his tubes perhaps....

rockefeller (stop saying its misspelled, i wont capitalize it; doesn't deserve it) says internet the worst thing since nazis (paraphrasing of course)

why wont these people just go crawl in a hole and waterboard themselves. i swear, this is getting out of hand.

edit: oh crap i think i am gonna be targeted first with that post

[edit on 5/15/2009 by mahtoosacks]

I dare them to try it. I double dare them. Keep pushing you fascists and see what happens.

It's like the school yard bully that never stops until someone has finally had enough and smashes a fist in the bully's face. Then the bully stares blankly, wondering what he has done to deserve it.

The patience of the American people has just about peaked. I feel sorry for anyone who decides to stand with the pathetic bunch of crooks in DC. The guillotine is about to make a comeback.

This is also something that applies to text, e-mail, social networking messages and so on and so on. IMO, good in a way being that it's criminal to verbally harass, intimidate, and possibly cause mental distress why not apply this to electronic communication as well.

reply to post by Smack


that is the most pleasing sound in total war series.

EXECUTE PRISONERS or just release them???

SWA-CHING SWA-CHING guuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhh bump bump bump

as the crowd ooos and ahhhs

reply to post by alyosha1981


If it were criminal to intimidate, O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh should be in jail.

reply to post by Discordian Queen


Seems some are above the law so to speak, this has always been and always will be, sad that this is how it works but, nothing will change that.

Sweet-baby-raptor-jesus this bill would shut down about 10% of the internet (aka the non-porn portion :p). The WoW forums that Blizzard maintains would become ghost towns over night in the wake of such a moronic bill. Crap like this is how we breed generations of weaklings who don't know how to stand up on their own two feet without somebody holding their hands.