Arizona law would criminalize being lewd or annoying on the Internet, page 1

Arizona law would criminalize being lewd or annoying on the Internet

It seems Arizona has passed a legislative bill that may extend "telephone harassment"
to the internet !!!!

The law is awaiting the Governor's signature !!


By Muriel Kane
Friday, March 30, 2012 22:52 EDT
The Raw Story

The Arizona state legislature apparently finds it difficult to tell the difference between a telephone and the Internet and has passed a bill that would extend the definition of harassment originally devised for phone conversations to anything communicated or published online.

As summarized by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, “The bill is sweepingly broad, and would make it a crime to communicate via electronic means speech that is intended to ‘annoy,’ ‘offend,’ ‘harass’ or ‘terrify,’ as well as certain sexual speech. Because the bill is not limited to one-to-one communications, H.B. 2549 would apply to the Internet as a whole, thus criminalizing all manner of writing, cartoons, and other protected material the state finds offensive or annoying.”

The bill is currently awaiting Governor Jan Brewer’s signature, and the Media Coalition, which defends first amendment rights in the media, has sent her a letter outlining some of the problems with the legislation. ...

Internet Harassment in AZ ?


Would something like this affect ATS ??

Does the fact that ATS is based in Arizona make it a bigger potential problem ?

reply to post by xuenchen

---

I read that article and I think I better go into hiding.

Seriously though, it doesn't sound like it will pass the way it is worded and, if it does, will be extremely hard to implement. It really doesn't make any sense. it's a state bill that wants to enforce what is written and seen anywhere in the world? Really?

If that's the case, I want the writer of that article arrested when the law comes into effect ( Is there any kind of statute of limitations here?) because the whole thing just annoyed the hell out me.

reply to post by xuenchen

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I doubt it would be effective or enforceable before its struck down. If the encounter occurs in the State of Arizona, IE the person complaining and the "offender" are in Arizona then it could work. If either person is in another state then no, Arizona law would not apply, Federal law would.

Hell we have a hard enough time dealing with phone harrassment in my state in terms of who is responsible for jurisdiction. The agency where the call took place from or the person who recevied the call and wants to press charges.

What I can see this being used as is a back door effort to control online pornography. Either or I can see it being struck down as unconstitional. There is already precedence established by other State / Federal Courts that have struck down State / Local Laws that deal with being able to look at pornography on computers at public libraries. Which is to say the laws were passed to prevent it and were struck down.

As far as the question about ATS I would say yes, because its based out of Arizona, they could / would be affected by the law.

2009 - High Court strikes down anti-pornography laws
The topic has been on the Courts radar screen going back to 2004.

ETA - For those who want to see all the details the link below is to the Arizona Government website that tracks pending legislation.

HB2549 electronic; digital devices; stalking; threatening



If you check the site out keep in mind they show the origional bill language in addition to changes, proposed and adopted amendments etc etc etc. The other cool thing is at the bottom of the page I linked there is a section that contains all the video feed from the House dealing withthis bill. You can hear them discuss / debate etc the bill.

reply to post by orionthehunter

---

Its a state law. Assuming you are referring to the US constitution, it was written to protect us from the federal government. I may be wrong, but I do not think the feds would have any jurisdiction here. Seems to me it would boil down to what power is granted to the state under the Arizona constitution.

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