Arizona bill makes it illegal to 'annoy or offend' online

[klr]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/04 ... _bill2549/

Arizona bill makes it illegal to 'annoy or offend' online
Rough-and-ready westerners or dainty shrinking violets?

By Rik Myslewski in San Francisco • Get more from this author
Posted in Law, 4th April 2012 17:38 GMT

The Arizona legislature has passed a bill that makes it illegal to annoy anyone over the internet.

You think we're joking? The Reg – solid and stolid defender of all that is right and true – does not joke about matters of such import. Check it out:

It is unlawful for any person, with intent to terrify, intimidate, threaten, harass, annoy or offend, to use any electronic or digital device and use any obscene, lewd or profane language or suggest any lewd or lascivious act, or threaten to inflict physical harm to the person or property of any person.

"Threaten to inflict physical harm"? Sure. "Terrify"? Well, rather subjective, but we'll let it pass. But "annoy or offend"? To quote that paragon of personal freedom and unbridled expression, Captain James Hook, "No, bicarbonate of soda, no!"

Some may argue that Arizona House Bill 2549, if signed by that state's governor Jan Brewer – she of the Obama finger-pointing and campaign-debate brain freeze – will transform online forums throughout The Grand Canyon State into havens of civility and enlightened discourse. We, however, disagree. If the bill is signed and somehow enforced, online gathering places will more likely become depopulated.

House Bill 2549 is a reworking of an earlier bill that was created during the telephone age, and replaces the original bill's wording of "to use a telephone" with the new text, "to use any electronic or digital device". The earlier bill was passed when communication was a one-to-one affair, and such protections – if somewhat o'er-reaching – were defendable.

The new bill, however, arrives at a time when communication is both anonymous and one-to-many. Here at The Reg, for example, our beloved commentards have been known to annoy one another – or even we thick-skinned Reg writers – with what might occasionally be deemed an intemperate remark or two. Or three. Or four.

But if Governor Brewer should choose to sign House Bill 2549, would our forums' feisty fulminators face the wrath of "America's Sherrif", Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona, because of a digital dust-up in which one commentard commented that another commentor was a fathead?

Let's hope not. America's courthouses are jammed as it is.

Why? Just why?

[Thinking Aloud]

"It is unlawful for any person, with intent to terrify, intimidate, threaten, harass, annoy or offend"

There you go. Prove my intent.

[Atheist-Lite]

There is no place for Crumple in Arizona?

[Svartalf]

Som morons are on the campaign path looks like, even if that law moves to the point where they might try to enforce it, it will never stand a day in court, First Amendment to the rescue.
Plus, as TA said, just try proving the intent.

[mistermack]

Som morons are on the campaign path looks like, even if that law moves to the point where they might try to enforce it, it will never stand a day in court, First Amendment to the rescue.
Plus, as TA said, just try proving the intent.

I'm annoyed AND offended by religion being broadcast over the airwaves. It's insulting my intelligence. And that takes some doing.
Can I get no-win-no-fee?

[Coito ergo sum]

Here is the text of the Bill - http://mediacoalition.org/mediaimages/A ... lature.pdf

It looks like it's an amendment to a nasty or prank phone call law. They cross out "telephone" and replace it with "any electronic or digital device." I doubt the intent was to make posting offensive conduct. I gather that it was meant to address conduct similar to a dirty phone call or anonymous threatening phone call- more of a one-on-one directed at somebody type thing.

I oppose the bill, of course, because it is so overly broad that it sweeps up anything. It's an example of something not well thought out. It tries to take a one-on-one situation where we can tell that a person is calling another person and saying nasty stuff to them, and expands it to basically anything using electronic media.

It's a stupid bill, and clearly would be invalidated by the federal and Arizona Constitutional provisions protecting the right of free speech.

[apophenia]

This can't help but end badly. Somebody tell me when it's over, I'm afraid to look.