Arizona bill makes it illegal to 'annoy or offend' online 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, …
This post has been deleted by its author
What about the 1st amendment? That would probably be the bit of the bill that excludes constitutionally protect rights.
Here's part of the Bill:
(b) Does not include constitutionally protected activity or other activity authorized by law, the other person, the other person's authorized representative or if the other person is a minor, the minor's parent or guardian.
In other words, the bill itself appears to exclude 1st amendment rights from being covered. But hey, why let that get in the way of a good scare story?
So the law is null and void then?
The 1st Amendment is about all manner of things. This includes things that are likely to offend or be considred obscene even if it isn't the intent of the speaker to be a troll.
Surely you understood the Mel Brooks reference in the summary. Or perhaps that was wishful thinking.
You don't understand how these neo-GOP politicians think. Well, mostly NOT think.
If you can't legislate morality, then you have to adjudicate it.
Isn't Arizona the state where the chief justice of the state supreme court is facing a complaint for choking a female justice during an argument about a political ruling? Whoops, I see it was Wisconsin. Can't even keep my nutbags straight, eh?
> What about the 1st amendment?
Remember that: a) current US courts hold that while the protections of the US constitution do not apply to non-citizens, or outside its borders, their laws do apply outside the borders (e.g. a ban on on-line gambling for US citizens resulted in people running such operations external to the borders being prosecuted); b) the US has shown itself willing to use the current assymmetric extradition treaties to haul people within its borders for prosecution.
Annoyed your spouse called and asked you to buy milk? Lock them up!
Offended at something you saw on TV? Now you have a legal right to sue!
Upset by someone calling you a bad name? Bam! Jail time for them!
No longer do we have to turn people away at the border for threatening to get drunk and dig up celebrities, or blow up airports because of bad weather - we can actually throw them in jail for using the Internet at all!
And now, if you'll excuse me, please stop the world, as I believe I accidentally boarded the ride to insanity.
"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."
It's an anti-stalker and anti-scumbag law, and, golly, maybe Register readers and writers -will- have to think twice about what they say. The offence is to use (1) an electronic or digital device AND (2a) dirty talk OR (2b) a real verbal threat of physical or property injury AND (3) the deliberate intention to "terrify, intimidate, threaten, harass, annoy or offend". Some of which words also may mean something different in a law bill, such as if "annoy" turns out to mean "to cost somebody money without their consent", but I am just guessing.
Misspelling annoys me, but to be an offence you would have to -deliberately- misspell words for that deliberate purpose. And they would have to be dirty or scary words like "bottum" or "nale bomb".
if some moron in Arizona is annoyed by an article on El Reg, the whole staff of El Reg can then be extradited to the freedom-loving USA and sentenced to life (or death)
Remember that bit in the Simpsons Movie where Springfield is sealed under a dome? Maybe it's about time to do the same thing for the whole USA (it would solve their problem with illegal immigrants and trrsts trying to sneak in)
Arizona is really a beautiful state and in my day to day dealings I tend to come across a lot less rednecks than other places I have lived. Still because our elections are held in winter when all the old rich people come to enjoy the mild climate our politicians are beyond wack. Our governor is a prescription drug junky transvestite that make W Bush look like a good speaker. My Sheriff would rather investigate Obama's birth certificate than prosecute 400 sex crimes he dropped the ball on. Basically Arizona is a corrupt Republican machine similar to the Dem machines in Chicago or Jersey.
This post has been deleted by its author
As a former Arizonian, I would like to point out that this law was probably the brainchild of some pansy Californian immigrants, likely from San Francisco. You know the type. They usually have a common first name, but omit a redundant consonant -- typically the letter "c" from a "ck" combination.
;-P
P.S. Have I annoyed you enough? I'm glad I don't still live in Arizona, then.
P.P.S. It's a good thing I moved, because I'm sure at least half of what I post online would land me in jail under this new law, and I'm relatively nice compared to most :)
Notice the use of the work 'and' in the following sentence:
"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."
i.e You can still intend to annoy and offend so long as you don't resort to profanity or threats of physical violence. Pretty sensible IMHO, and hopefuly will result in a higher intellectual standard of trolling...
This post has been deleted by its author
Well,
you, for one, will not be an example of "higher intellectual standard of trolling" (sic!), that's for sure - since when "so long as you don't resort to profanity" is considered "pretty sensible" per YHO?
Posturing rednecks are posturing rednecks, (simple-minded) logic always gives them away...
Nobody should try anything to bring to book the vile, vicious, empty-headed, nothing-to-say trolls who spend their miserable lives doing naught but threatening, bullying and cursing those of us with a higher than Kindergarten education?
There, fixed that for ya... Got my coat... it's the one with McGuffy's Reader in the pocker.
" If you can mangle the spelling and grammar as well, that adds reasonable doubt over what you actually said, or meant. Some might argue that a large proportion of internet users have been doing this for years."
And there was me thinking the vast majority of internet users were just thick. The reality is that they're all clever bastards who saw this coming, and it was me being thick all along.
You really have to capitalize "State of Arizona". Forgetting as we must that Arizona obtained "States' Rights" fifty years after the Civil War, and that Congress bought half the place from some dodgy Mexicans who insisted it was Apache-Free, and green in spots.
It's Business Class for you, Bubba.
This post has been deleted by its author
Arizona wasn't even a state until February 14, 1912. It was part of New Mexico territory until 1861, when part of the NM territory seceded from New Mexico as the Confederate Territory of Arizona, and was recognized as such by Jefferson Davis February 14, 1862, so Arizona comes by its redneck status legitimately...
"America has been the laughing stock of the planet for over a decade and that isn't going to change any time soon."
I used to think that Italian politics were loopy; now, it's the same and worse right in my own backyard.
Seriously, does no one remember that old chestnut about stick and stones, or am I just showing my age?
you're the kind of socialist that would prefer nameless power drunk losers monitoring everyone instead of defending your own right to exist. you're like the upper middle class in the US that think that because of their imaginary wealth that the system works for them or the brown shirt at the [insert three letter agency] that thinks he/she is part of some vast beaurocracy of righteousness and helicopters will be deployed in their defense. the reason so many of these laws are passed is because noone gives a %*#@ about your stupid rules and they are too busy working. you keep supporting tyranny and start locking enough people up and you are going to wake the dead. the reality check will come right before the light and that peaceful feeling. anon=bigger fish to fry.
To a point I agree, just because your posting on the internet doesn't give you carte blanche to post whatever vile abuse you like, but........'annoy'? I get annoyed by the bloody flash ads on every other site, I get annoyed by the constant "Please help feed my animal request in *insert name of random facebook app" posts that come up on facebook. Annoy is a very loose term.
If you threaten or abuse someone IN PERSON in Arizona -- where they have "Stand Your Ground" and essentially-universal "Concealed Carry" laws -- they can legally shoot you. They can't shoot you over the interwebz for doing the same thing, and that is simply unacceptable!
...I begin to think that we can add Southern Californians, Arizonans, Texans, and Floridians to the list of "mad dogs and Englishmen" who spend too much time in the midday sun.
Arizona is a beautiful state that unfortunately is ran by retards. There are lot of rational people in the state but there are just enough that suffer from the mass psychosis of conservatism to ruin everything. Fear not though much as our grandfathers did with fascism wacko conservatism will die with the Baby Boomers.
This post has been deleted by its author
except the state Senate rewrote the bill after it was passed by the house, which means its NOT on the govenors desk, and instead is back in the House committee, where they are sitting on it because of the stink it raised as written... so these news reports are based on half the story.
me, everyone who professes believe in a magical god annoys the $#@t out of me, can we lock them all up?
Obviously El Reg's correspondent didn't actually bother checking the story out before posting it. According to an article in the Phoenix New Times, the bill was never transferred to the governor for signing, contrary to the numerous media reports saying it had been. It was amended before it passed the Senate, meaning it was returned to the House where it's apparently been stopped.
Don't pretend this was some statement bill and wasn't going anywhere though. It probably would have been on the governors desk if not for the stink. Remember this is the legislature that put that bill on her desk that Arizona was going to decide if presidential candidates were true Americans or not.
The bill was amended in the senate and sent back to the house, where it died. I think it started out as a do-nothing feel-good legislation (it passed unanimously) and then, probably due to the furor, they took another look at what they'd passed and realized they had technically outlawed free speech. And so, being politicians concerned about their re-election possibilities, they decided to let the bill die silently and hope that everyone forgets about it.
some people on here are blaming the "conservative" right for this law. I personally would put this one at the feet of the politically-correct "liberal" left, since they're the ones that preach "tolerance" and "acceptance" while being more intolerant and unaccepting of those whose opinions differ from the official PC worldview, than any historical fascists ever were.
Consider how dangerous (even potentially career-destroying) it has become to publicly say anything that is politically incorrect these days. The irony is that while so many people profess to despise political correctness, large numbers of those same people will blow their fuses in fury and demand resignations the moment somebody says something that is actually un-PC.
Not "annoy or offend"? Only PC proponents - and that's the lefties - would demand legislation banning "offending" people.
> say anything that is politically incorrect these days.
You mean like when Bush and Cheney were firing economic people for daring to complain about deficits being dangerous or firing scientists for not changing their science reports?
>Not "annoy or offend"? Only PC proponents - and that's the lefties - would demand legislation banning "offending" people.
Did you notice 6 Republicans sponsored this bill? As for banning offending people no the right loves banning offending information instead. Its not lefties that get on school boards and try to ban science that offends their religion.
Arizona is an awful state anyway. It's full of senile pants pooping old people, shit eating rednecks and collar popping douche bags.
This will only help alienate Arizona from the rest of the good world and I welcome it. Insterad of a wall across the mexican border put one around arizona.
What do you have a two hour layover in Phoenix international and now you are an expert on the state? Its one the naturally most beautiful states in the country. We not only have about the coolest meteor crater on earth but we have this little thing called the Grand Canyon you may have heard of. Yes the cities outside of Phoenix metro area for most part sucks and yes our leaders are right wing retards but their is a reason so many sports stars and rich people live here. Remember how you shoveled snow and scrapped your windows nearly every morning this winter? Yeah I haven't done either in years.
"to use any electronic or digital device and use any obscene, lewd or profane language or suggest any lewd or lascivious act,"
So thats any number of stand up comedians (lewd profane language) who release dvd's,nhorny text message, anyone using a swinger site, or in some cases dating site. The Sun newspaper website. Personally I'm annoyed by Simon Cowell.
My Nan used to be offended by the word "sod" or "bloody". If they're going to word it as loosely as 'annoy' you may as well shut the internet down now.
This bill (now amended and dying or dead) could have been used to sue Ted Nugent, who openly threatened the President and Hilary Clinton (and assorted others) with a gun in one of his rants. Rush Limbaugh (in the way he described a certain student who testified before congress) could be seen as insulting and harassing using obscene language (i.e. business as usual). He too could be sued. Did the Republicans involved realize this? If so, they might be commended for trying to deal with extremist views from people who claim to be on their side. If not, they might have made the amendments and killed it because they collectively went "oops."
As others have said, you cannot legislate for good manners. Besides, notions of what is acceptable change. We can now say "swut", "jujuflop" and turlingdrome" and know we are healthy, well-adjusted and completely un*****-up personalities. So long as we do not say "Belgium"
It is a change to an existing body of law, extending limits on telephone calls to all electronic communication. So at least the lawyers and the courts know what has been classed as "annoying". It may very well not match how we use the word.
One possible example: telephone sales. If the some telephone sales calls have been classified as annoying, under the earlier law, we might have an anti-spam law here.
I don't think this is as crazy as it sounds.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
