Bill could mean jail for Internet flamers

LOL!!!

This is hilarious, I wonder what's gonna happen to Celebrity gossips to say the least, you wanna go crazy bust out the Conservatives! LOL!!! Hey, wait a minute...my evidence could date back as far as 4+ years so yeah, I should shut up, LOL!!!

Come on guys, this is the same government when the FBI was first established, gangsters were more prepared than they were, LOL!!! Come on guys, I know you heard those crazy stories...

Did you guys know based on our law, not our right, but FUNDAMENTAL right is worth more than our lives?? Ohh yeah, that's according to our analysis, we love this country, LOL!!! Hello!!! Whack people??? LOL!!!

"Hey Bill, this is what I think of you..."F...U!"

I'm looking forward to anonymous getting ahold of this one. Hacking and hijinks will follow in short order, I'm sure. It always does.

As for my thoughts, though... Yes, this may be abused. But to respond to someone (who I can't even tell whether they're in support of this or not...):

[“the intent is to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person.” DOES NOT equal “being mean” to people on the internet. what I’ve read even included “severe and repeatative” to the verbiage…telling someone to “F off” or saying “your picture is horrible” DOES NOT equal purposely and intentionally driving someone to harm themselves (ie: suicide).]

This is true. However, a lot of "Internet harrassment," needless to say, DOES go beyond just "being mean to people on the Internet." There's a difference between telling someone to F off or even getting in one heated debate - that's not coercion, intimidation, harassment, OR likely to cause "substantial" emotional distress in any reasonable person (unless, of course, things devolve too far). But that's the point - I've seen cases, not too many thankfully, where things have turned into extremely hateful speech and threats. There's also a worrying amount of "cyber bullying" that pretty much boils down to trolls/flamers/what have you deciding they hate a particular Internet stranger and need to get them OFF THE WEB ENTIRELY, sometime to the point of trying to make all of their online friends hate them under any means possible.

Seriously - just go to places like Encyclopedia Dramatica. While that site's not MEANT to be taken seriously, a lot of people unfortunately do, and this has caused a lot of extremely creepy actions from Internet users. Some artist refusing to change her drawing style and take criticisms doesn't really necessitate an online petition to have her banned from the Internet. True story... and THAT is, without question, actual harrassment.

I don't quite get the problem. Virtually all communications applications have the ability to block or ignore or otherwise ban anyone who is obnoxious/threatening/frightening. If one is intelligent enough in the first place to not give them any other method of contact, it should be no problem.

The text of this bill is frightening.

Sec. 881. Cyberbullying

`(a) 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.

Isn't that all pretty subjective? How is intent defined? People have strong opinions which are occasionally rendered in strong terms. Is it that persons fault if someone else is offended by this to a point of extreme emotional distress?

I find it laughably insulting that Linda Sanchez would suggest that, "Congress has no interest in censoring speech " because isn't precisely what this law is proposing? Punishing people for speaking freely. Why don't we just outlaw hurting people's feelings?

kids will be kids, you will not stop bullying of any type, whether its between adults, kids w/e. This law is ridiculous, its sad the megan girl died, but thousands of people die every day, big deal, we do not need another pointless law, parents need to get off their lazy buts and control what their kids do. Apparently the lady who played the boy that megan liked was a complete moron, and should be thrown into the pin and have her civil liberties yanked, as its completely apparent she set out to torment this child. This law should be re-written to the extent where an adult harrases a child online they get locked-up, that simple... then again the united states is going to hell in a handbag, with the government and stupidity of our congress...

This is ridiculous.

I'm going to be a felon for calling someone a moron.

Hooray!

Since the telephone is "electronic communication" all my bill collectors will be felons for their coercive, intimidating, harassing calls which cause me substantial emotional distress.

Now you see the true intent of the law - well, that and ending all the nuisance calls and emails from voters to their elected representatives.

Sounds dangerously subjective to me. I was always under the impression the internet was an oasis of free speech, something we have seen less and less of over the last eight years. Nobody should be bullying or intimidating anybody else, either online or off, but making it a crime, and a felony no less, is ridiculous and, I think, unconstitutional. It should be the responsibility of the website to kick out troublemakers, not the duty of law enforcement to imprison cyber-bullies.

All this will take is for someone to get charged with calling another a moron and for it to go to court, and this bill will be squashed.

The problem with these things is that words like moron are totally subjective.

Compared to Stephen Hawking, almost everyone on the planet is a moron. Compared to George Bush, almost everyone is a genius...

There are many many bills that pass, that fade into obscurity almost immediately because of a lack of reality in governments decisions. This will be one of those.

This is GREAT news!!!

I have been the victim of a cyber bully and let me tell you, someone attacking you with graphic sexual references (and having a million people read it), and doing so as who-knows-who,

isn’t a lot of fun, but neither is it right!

and so I applaud the authors of this bill, its about time!!

I have a better idea that saves everybody a lot of trouble:

People just keep their stupid kids off the internet. Problem solved. Sign them up for baseball or karate lessons instead of cluttering up a computer network, and needing over 9000 laws passed to "protect" them there. Nothing of value would be lost.

This bill is so lame. its unconstitutional. It limits freedom of speech, and so violates the Constitution.

great i posted a great response and probably because I had symbolized vulgarity, it didn't get posted... CNN obviously doesn't believe in FREE SPEECH

I like the idea, but this one, like so many other laws, will be used incorrectly. What about those who get offended by a polite disagreement? Or vengeful exes who claim harassment on innocent people? Again, good in theory, but they're going to get floods of complaints and such, about half not worthy of legal action.

Log off the computer if it hurts your feelings. I apologize for my insensitivity, but this is like continuing to watch a movie that offends you and then sueing the producer! The people being "cyber-bullied" can turn the thing off, or choose to move to another social network. Kids...Everyone will not like you. It's a fact of life as social creatures.

The time will come when Christians defending their faith will be charged with this.

"I want a bill requiring any new internets applicant to prove mental fitness."

'riverboat gambler' wrote
"Oh you hurt my feelings on the internet!” waaaah waaah!! …
“You are a seriously weak-minded person if you are “coerced” into hurting or killling yourself by someone on the internet” …

'AS' wrote
"Thanks for proving my earlier point about people’s behavior when they think they are anonymous- I knew there would be at least one."

Thank you, AS, for proving riverboat's earlier point about the wussification of the nation-I knew there would be at least one...
: )

You people saying this is a good idea realize that people from other countries go on the internet sometimes, right? All this law would do is encourage folks from other countries to 'cyber-bully' you as hard as as much as they want, knowing it's illegal for you to stick up for yourself or say anything back.

@ Chris (may 15 6:32)

Why is it wrong for Christians to defend their faith? I can agree it's wrong for them to sit outside and force people to listen to them go on and on about the Bible (Especially since many of them get it wrong), but being a Christian, I think that if you're going to tell me I cannot defend my faith, then it would only be fair to tell everyone else they can't attack it either. Don't get Christianity confused with what you see portrayed in the media.

Onto the original topic...Freedom of speech is one thing, but it really has gone too far. Between the overly liberal people who will say/do whatever they feel makes them happy despite how offensive it is and the overly conservative people that go out and beat the Bible into people's heads, I've about had it with the people of this country and their lack of intelligence and civil conduct.

"Congress has no interest in censoring speech." Excuse me, isn't that what political correctness is all about. Then there's this chilling little finish: "your words are still protected under the same American values." I'm sorry, but that isn't good enough. I much prefer the First Amendment, and the rest of the Bill of Rights as they are, to be kept inviolate. This bill, and especially the philosophy behind it, are frightening. I dislike nasty people more than most, but I also believe that people need to thicken their skins and consider that just because some jerk says something, it doesn't mean that it is true.

this means anyone that finds someone cheating in say world of warcarft "video games" can sew there internet provider then the provider can take the "cheater to court"

"Sec. 881. Cyberbullying

`(a) 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."

Let's see here, if I break up with my girlfriend and she intimidates or harasses me 2 times (repeated). Then I'll get her sent to prison!! This is great! Then I will sue her for tens of thousands of dollars because I suffered substantial emotional distress

Wow this is gunna suck for the MMO players of the world. could you imagine getting arrested after you flame a person after killing them in an online virtual fight. lol.. just wow .. i remember back in the day geting admin passes to a rival groups VoIP room and banning everyone, guess thats would be a felony now..

Stupid is stupid what is american law going to do to people in other countrys so lets say a person from england bullys an american who then intern bullies this said person back on another blog or myspace page and then they are reported for doing cyber bullying and go to jail

please america this law fails

This is a silly abuse of power and a potentially self-destructive one. What happens when you can't log into any site on the internet to vent some steam? There are sites specifically designed for that, and this will only make people more on edge when they're not legally allowed to flame some random celebrity or jackass local politician who could just turn around and say they are 'bullying' them. To all the people saying "stop being mean", grow up. If you're going to arrest me for speaking my mind, you may as well give me and a couple hundred million other Americans a life sentence right now. Thin-skinned people should report their problems to the webmasters/hosts, not get the government involved. Then they can do what most people would do and get over it.

Chronic cyber-bullies are emotionally immature. They are emotionally mature adults. I've been stalked and personally attacked on nola.com neighborhood forums and online Time-Picayune article comments almost constantly since I signed up with nola.com on October 5, 2005, and I've been followed by one abuser onto Yahoo Answer and have been personally attacked there as well. I've also been personally attacked on the Gulf Coast Weather web-site by another internet stalker. I've lost count of how many of my user names have been permanently banned.killed by cyber-bullies on the nola.com forums, but it was over 6 dozen when I stopped keeping track, and now it's probably over 9 dozen. I've also had a rape threat on the Lakeshore nola.com forum, as well as thinly veiled death threats from four or five user names over the last 43 months. I've had Trojan and Backdoor Trojan files placed on my hard drive by an internet stalker, and I know he was reading my keystrokes on Word files documenting the abuse on the nola. com forums, because my user name was permanently banned within minutes of my saving those Word files, and this has happened at least four times.

What about the hosting company of a forum that is complicit with the abuse of even one of it's members by one or more obsessed members with personal vendetta agendas to discredit some one in any way they possibly can because of their own paranoia about what I MIGHT post? Can't the hosting company be sued for complicity with abuse, defamation and libel when they are notified that a particular post violates the terms of the user agreement and community rules, but they refuse to remove a post that has been alerted on?

a.k.a oklatonola, oklatonola##, oklanola####, okie########

This is outrageously stupid. I feel it is tragic that someone lost their life to harassment. However, even in that circumstance she had every opportunity to ....report the abuse to her parents...or...not use MySpace... or...change her e-mail account... or....not commit suicide. The words "Delete," "Remove," and "Ignore" offer every individual user freedoms to choose who and what we want to deal with on the internet. In this case, Megan Meier insisted on continuing a relationship with her harasser.

This does not need separate legislation. However, it needs to be addressed carefully so that individuals have the right to tell someone to "p*ss off" without causing "severe emotional distress." Theoretically, telling someone to stop posting on a forum or else you'll notify the admins is coercion. This is something that can be taken too far, too fast, by too many.

THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS.

Get a backbone. Walk away. Seriously. It's the interbutts, and this bill is a serious disturbance of free speech. That anyone thinks this could ever be a good idea is atrocious. It will be taken way too far, way too fast, and will be a terrible addition to other bills that are trying to take away our rights.

The best part is that people from different countries won't be affected by this, so it's pretty much useless.

If someone on myspace makes a sexual threat online to you , do they go to jail if it's reported to police? Even if this person is out of state can they be arrested and put in jail? How much time can they serve for this crime? And if the victim is disabled do they have to appear in court to testify or can they make a written statement to police to be read in court? I am very upset over this and myspace hasn't banned him from web site as of yet, but they are working on it. They are telling me to make a report to police and send them a copy of it. Please answer my questions and get back to me on this. Thank you. Tina Audet.

Rather interesting place you've got here. Thanks the author for it. I like such themes and everything that is connected to them. I definitely want to read more on that blog soon.

Kate Smith

Megan Meier deserved to die for lack of value on her life. Laurie didn’t kill her, she didn’t put a gun to her head, and she didn’t put the knife in her hand. Oh poor me a boy don’t like me, ah a bully said I have cooties, oh no…MOMMY…….. This is AMERICA and people get picked on daily. Survival of the fittest and obviously she didn’t have the means to survive. Megan AND ONLY MEAGAN choose to end her life because she was weak. Laurie didn’t want her to die, and anyone that thinks so is an idiot. Pisses me off that this is even nationalized get over it! Fact is Meagan was weak and its firkin bullshit that Drew is EVEN TRIED for manslaugter! You people are idiots! Oh no, I called you idiots, now go kill yourself… Millions of people have fake profiles, millions do not read the terms of conditions, there is NO WAY IN HELL I will give my name on a website, do you know the rate of identity theft. I like my privacy thank you very firkin much. I’m really pissed off at the mom to, raising her daughter that if she ever has a problem just commits suicide; she was never even responsible enough to use the internet. Yes it’s the parent’s fault that she died; maybe she should cap the alcohol and put the steak knives away. A little parenting would have told you that Megan had issues and she need mental help, which I’m also recommending you to get yourself because you’re not mentally capable of reproducing. Where was your support to your daughter? Why did you not teach your daughter how to IGNORE PEOPLE!! Hello, I have the choice to not respond to emails, phone calls, text messages, letters and all together have them deleted if I so choose to. NOW, if your daughter had even 1 brain cell she would have respectfully deleted this boy from her myspace and washed her hands with him and onto her life she goes. But she decided that this “boys” opinion was more than hers. Sounds like Megan was an idiot to me because someone that can handle the day to day would know tomorrow is another day, and the injury will soon fade. I was picked on when I was young and guess what, I’m still here. I don’t bully, I don’t encourage it and agree Laurie made a decision and she had to defend herself. Was she wrong? No she wasn’t , because If I needed some investigation done I too would do whatever I had to do to find out the truth. She said one thing that is world is a better place without you…hmmm well you know what…HOW IRONIC!! Without this happening this wouldn’t be national news, therefore bringing new laws in motion. It’s actually funny that although Megan wasn’t’ fit for life, she was motivation for laws. Again I don’t encourage bullying, I do shout out my thoughts on stupidity and Megan has caught my attention. But thankfully we don’t’ have Megan around to hear cry anymore, Just her mom. I hope she too follows her daughters destiny. Man! If I only had the magical wand to rid idiotic stupid whiners. We have freedom of speech, and if we want to create a fake profile then we can just do that. If we want to block our phone number from caller Id we can, if we want computer encryption WE CAN. DO YOU UNDERSTAND!!!! This was a fake profile used to get inside information due to fact that Megan was probably a backstabbing backtalkin bitch, I don’t know her and neither do 99% of you so we’ll just leave it at that. And if same as saying goes for the kitchen if you can’t take the heat. If you can’t deal with life, then do the world a favor. And Meagan did just that!! I wouldn’t show emotions for someone that didn’t value their life either. Oh yeh I in no way whatsoEVER know Megan, Laurie or whoever her moms name is. So now Megan’s mom, you can go join your daughter because I hurt your poor feelings. I do feel for your loss, as I been in your shoes with “almost” the same circumstances, but I’m not trying to put the blame on anyone else, the only one that can be blamed is no longer with me. truejunkmail yahoo dot com

"the only one that can be blamed is no longer with me." May you also find peace.

So "whatever name I want"- is it your position that, because this is America, anyone can target any specific individual for any reason at all and mount a campaign to harass, humiliate, ruin, ostracize, and otherwise mess with without having to take responsibility for their actions? And any individual, who in any way, shape, or form, has any negative or antisocial reaction to being such a target is weak, a product of an irresponsible parent, or otherwise dysfunctional? And that you have never, in your life, snapped at anyone for any reason or done anything else of that nature because you had a bad day or because someone did something to you that you didn't like (judging from your post, I'm going to assume you consider yourself "strong" and have never been negatively affected in any way, shape, or form by anything)? And that rather than target bullies we should encourage everyone who finds themselves a target to shut themselves off from society permanently, or perhaps move from town to town or even country to country until they are no longer a target?

girls usually love to hear celebrity gossips, they are always into it "':

Nope, I think they need to pass some kind of law, Not sure I'd make it a felony, but you should have consequences if you're gonna constantly step up to your keyboard, make inflammatory, degrading remarks to one person, ove & over again.
Many times, these cyberbullies, are not even held responsible for their actions by moderators who insist you must be polite in order to sign up for their forums.
What they need to do, is to pass legislation about the forum moderators, instead, who absolutely REFUSE to do anything about the cyberbullies on their forums, when they instantly INSIST you be polite when you sign up for these forums.
I'd call that a breech of contract, fraud, you name it. The Forum moderators INSIST on sticking up for the bullies, Probably because they are FRIENDS with them.

Let the Forum Moderators who won't do their jobs properly get hit with the FELONIES. But.. if someone ends up depressed, desperate and completely stressed OUT from these cyberbuliles, and then tries to kill themselves because of it, then YES, charge the cyberbullies with a felony.
If I deliberately came into your yard and tried to run you over ,again & again, I'd be charged with a felony. It's the same result.
Some people are weak, they don't have the options to get help, they're stressed out from life events.
Now, since the damn government wants to tax the heck out of us, and allows the cell phone & internet companies to charge us monthly, we're paying for what?
The chance to be mauled over verbally whenever we step up to our computers? I don't want to pay for that abuse!

We're making this a prime form of communication now. The stupid government won't even ban cell phone talking while you are driving, and look how many people's lives that has taken!

So..start stepping up to the plate govt! Do something about these bullies. They're causing massive problem online, and it's like a damn jungle out there online now.

It's cuz the moderators, on most forums, are too darn lazy to do their job and enforce their forum rules. Case closed

well, puppy dog tails, that's EXACTLY what cyberbullies like to do.. pretend you're "whining", or being a Beotch or whatever rude comment or ill mannered nickname they want to tack on you.
TO be honest, we've been a target of cyberbullies, so many times, I no longer trust the internet period!
All these banks who insist you bank online, yet, anyone with a bit of hacking exp can easily get into your computer or your bank account even, if you banked online!
It's stupid! The government itself wouldn't want spies from the soviet union breaking into their private websites, so why shud we continue to have to suffer this injustice on our computers?
To be so complacent about cyberbulies, when the internet has been going strong for 15 years now, is absurd.
yes, we love our freedom of speech, but we were also taught manners. I bring mine to my puter, except in the case, when I'm being attacked again & again by some bully online. Then I give it to them back in spades, though politely.... and without violating the TOS.

Now, we cannot even drive down the road without the police being able to pull us over, if you're not wearing a seatbelt. Most seatbelts choke me and are really uncomfortable yet, I'm FORCED to wear a setbelt or receive a fine. And me, not wearing a seatbelt is NOT endangering anyone but ME!

So.. .I just wonder if there are now lawyers out there who will take the case of a person who's become a victim of cyberbullying, slander, harassment, libel, and if so, how often they win in court.

I think that the law schools need to start a whole program for their students, teaching them the basics of helping a victim of cyberbullying and internet crime.
There's a ton of crime over the web. It's the devils playground now. The more we sweep it under the rug, the worse it will become. Cyber bullying has actually become a big social ill in our whole society.

Yes there should realize the opportunity to RSS commentary, quite simply, CMS is another on the blog.

SOME kind of federal law about cyber-harassment has been needed for years. I've been stalked and slandered/defamed online for 57 months and counting, including death and rape threats. I've succeeded a little bit ONLY in the last month, when I accused some one of violating my copyright in one of his answers on Yahoo Answer. Yahoo employs an independent company to handle copyright/theft of intellectual property claims. The independent company AGREED with me that my copyright had been violated. That particular Yahoo account was terminated by Yahoo. The problem is, cyber-bullies are experts at getting around the rules of a particular hosting company. Since Yahoo does NOT block IP addresses like Advance.net does, all a cyber-bully has to do is just set up a new account with Yahoo, agree to follow the community guidelines, which very few people even bother to read, and the cyber-bully can continue to harass people and exploit the community with impunity. Advance.net DOES block IP addresses from posting additional harassment for 72 hours. You can set up a new alternate account, but you cannot activate a new alternate account UNTIL the account that "is in the pokey" waits out the 72 hour period , when the IP address of the violator is unblocked by the hosting company. When a cyber-bully can create 10 new alternate accounts per day or more, one or two people simply cannot keep up with a devoted chronic cyber-bully posting harassing question that he s/he answers with alternate accounts to justify the posting of the harassing question..

Have you TRIED to get the FBI to go after a cyber-bully? I have, and it's impossible, because the cyber-bully is in one state or another country, the hosting company's servers are in another state, and the victim is in another state or country. The virtual world of the Internet has only virtual boundaries that can be hacked through relatively easily, or just simply overwhelmed by the sheer volume of violations of the user agreement/community guidelines.

scitech.blogs.cnn.com is wonderful. There's always all of the ideal info in the ideas of my fingers. Thanks and keep up the excellent work!

Tremendous issues here. I am very glad to see your post. Thank you so much and I'm having a look forward to touch you. Will you kindly drop me a e-mail?