And then they came for me.
Some shocking news from the recently revamped
Tory Politico
. A law, currently before the U.S. House of Representatives, could spell doom for bloggers:"The bill, proposed by Californian Democrat Linda T. Sanchez and 14 others could make it a federal felony to use a blog, social media, or any other web medium “to cause substantial emotional distress through severe, repeated, and hostile” speech.”
Here’s the relevant text of the bill:
Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both….
["Communication"] means the electronic transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user’s choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received; …
["Electronic means"] means any equipment dependent on electrical power to access an information service, including email, instant messaging, blogs, websites, telephones, and text messages."
Let's not get any ideas Jacqui...
Posts
9 comments:
It's always the Left that wants to 'crack down' on blogging. Just because we on the Right want to be able to criticise our governments freely, and more particularly because we happen to find blogging easy, the centrally-controlled, joyless, inarticulate parties of the Left are desperate to gag us.
Guido would fall foul of that law for doing nothing more than exposing lies and teasing Brown about his terminal unpopularity. It's just not on!
That is pretty frightening to be honest. That law could be used to cover pretty much anything on the internet. Whatever happened to freedom of speech?
I just love how the US asserts legislative colonialism over the entire planet. If I understand it properly, and I'm not a lawyer, that law would apply anywhere in the world. Could you imagine the broohaha that would occur if the UK Parliament created a law with the same scope to impinge on the US?
They'll need some very capacious gulags for the millions of offenders this law would create.
Ron Paul is almost certainly onto it. Check in and blog at:
https://www.dailypaul.com or
https://www.campaignforliberty.org
"with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person"
a) how do you prove intent?
b) how does this tally with the second amendment?
c) intent to serve the public good through uncovering fraud, etc is not covered.
Supreme Court will knock it down anyway. Not that I don't agree with you in principle - it's just badly drafted and meaningless legislation
PS: The bill is by Megan Meier, entitled the Cyberbullying Prevention Act (HR 1966).
There's a forum thread at Daily Paul:
https://www.dailypaul.com/node/92058#comment-1007605
The locals will be able to put pressure on Meier.
Abosolutely outrageous and just proof of more attempted lefty bullying and oppression tactics.
Give me liberty or give me death!
https://keeprightonline.wordpress.com/2009/05/06/liberty-danger-peace-slavery/
I suppose it's targeted at electronic harassment and bullying (a reasonable idea), but has been poorly put together and worded (or cleverly, if you prefer to assume they meant for its misuse under the cover of benign legislation) so that it can become a dangerous authoritarian measure.