The "Annoying" Law

I've had several (more like a never-ending series) of discussions with people about writing laws that require people to be "good". You can't legislate "goodness" -- it's stupid to try cause you end up with unbelievable arcane and useless laws that makes life complicated and frustrating. Like the "Blue Laws" here in Massachusetts. So I was really disturbed by this op-ed new item by Declan McCullagh on CNet:

Create an e-annoyance, go to jail

"Annoying someone via the Internet is now a federal crime.

It's no joke. Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law a prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity.

In other words, it's OK to flame someone on a mailing list or in a blog as long as you do it under your real name. Thank Congress for small favors, I guess.

This ridiculous prohibition, which would likely imperil much of Usenet, is buried in the so-called Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act. Criminal penalties include stiff fines and two years in prison."

FAQ: The new 'annoy' law explained
Here is the language from the law:

"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."

Man, there's so much annoying crap on the internet, how they gonna make this law work? And then why have the law at all? The key is, in order to be illegal, it must be the intent of the author to annoy. It's extra strange cause it sounds like you can be as annoying as you want so long as you reveal your identity. So, you gotta just feel sorry for the guy who runs "annoy.com". I means, it's annoy-dot-com -- what else is that site gonna be about?

Or how about the "best blonde joke ever" thing? I find that whole thing incredibly annoying. But like P2P file sharing, how they really gonna root it out and completely remove it from the internet -- it's linked everywhere!

Two years in Federal prison.