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Arizona bill could criminalize Internet trolling

Arizona marches to the beat of its own drummer. But if that drummer gets upset and starts hollering on the Internet, he might get tossed in the clink.

After spending years targeting illegal aliens, the Grand Canyon State is turning its sights on obnoxious Internet users (commonly called 'trolls'). A new update to the state's telecommunications harassment bill could make the practice of harassing people online illegal.
Arizona House Bill 2549 has already passed both of the state's legislative bodies and is currently sitting on the desk of Governor Jan Brewer. While there's a lot in there that doesn't concern trolling, here's the line that has people worried:

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.

Violators could be charged with a Class 1 misdemeanor and face up to 6 months in jail. If electronic devices are used to stalk someone, the charges then become a Class 3 felony, with penalties ranging from a minimum sentence of two and a half years in jail for non-dangerous offenders with no prior record to 25 years.

At the heart of the bill is an anti-bullying agenda. Cyber-bullying has been on the rise in recent years and has been in the news lately. A 2010 report in The New York Times found that one of out five middle-school students said they had been victims of cyberbullying.

Despite its good intentions, the Arizona law is already being called "overly broad" by critics. By using vague terms like "annoy" and "offend," it could easily encompass Internet forums or even comments like the ones found at the end of this story.

Free speech groups say they don't believe the law would ever stand up to court scrutiny if Gov. Brewer does, in fact, sign it. And many have pointed out the flaws in the bill to the governor herself.

"Government may criminalize speech that rises to the level of harassment and many states have laws that do so, but this legislation takes a law meant to address irritating phone calls and applies it to communication on web sites, blogs, listserves and other Internet communication," Media Coalition wrote in a letter last week.

http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/arizona-bill-could-criminalize-internet-trolling-184547052.html

Oh heck no. If this spreads, it could shut down the General Talk forum.

Everyone on of us would be up on charges.

The Main Tank would become a shell of its former self.


So if something annoys me on TV does the actor and the writer get charged?

Wow! I just noticed this already passed the Arizona legislature and is just awaiting signing by the governor.

How f'n stupid. Do these legislators even read this stuff before they vote on it? (Yes, I realize the irony of the question knowing that this does indeed happen.)

Third and Long is in Arizona, will we get in trouble if we annoy him? What if he annoys another shark?

I hope I didn't just annoy him.

What if something I write doesn't annoy him at first, but then he reads it again after a couple of years and then gets annoyed

I just lawyered up in case something goes down.

i fully support name-calling and profanity in general.

it was found unconstitutional to pull a person over to make sure they were legal, just because the color of their skin. but they still don't want any brown people in their state, this is their way of getting around the first law.