Political polywater

US law 109-162 was signed by President George Bush, between shots of Bushmill's single-malt to steady his nerves after all the coke he snorted the night before.  This bill includes a part labelled "SEC. 113" which provides for two years in federal prison if you annoy someone via an anonymous online post, thus proving that the entire top echelon of the US government are swastika-licking pig fuckers.  Present at the signing ceremony were Vice President Cheney (who paid Jeff Gannon to beat him up and have sex with him), Senator Rick Santorum (rapes stray dogs he finds in parks), and Judge Samuel Alito (being blackmailed by photos showing him in flagrante delicto with Harriet Myers).  Also attending was the omnipresent Karl Rove, who deserves to fry in the electric chair for outing Valerie Plame, but will probably "get off" with a slap on the wrist that he will find sexually exciting.  (Note to Secret Service: the imagined execution of Karl Rove mentioned above would be performed by official US agents carrying out a duly-pronounced sentence arising from his conviction by a jury in a court of law for the charge of treason under the Espionage Act of 1918.)  A law criminalizing all anonymous communications that "annoy" anyone would be perfectly reasonable in a dictatorship such as Singapore, but seems a bit out of place in the good ole' US of A.  Hey, what if it's a foreign national who's annoyed?  Lee Kuan Yew secretly pisses in elevators!

Hmm, what could this law be used for?  Perhaps John Seigenthaler (litigious nut) could have used it against the guy who annoyed him with an anonymous post at Wikipedia.  The miscreant, Brian Chase (surfs the web on company time) apologized to Seigenthaler in person and convinced him not to sue.  No no no!  We don't want fessing up, we want court cases, and lawyers' fees, and drama for our newspapers!  Making a federal felony out of it will ensure that future Brian Chases will not dare to fess up and ruin our fun.

I claim that my posts on this journal, unlike Chase's work at Wikipedia, are not "anonymous" as far as the government is concerned because my RL name is available via subpoena to LiveJournal.  And anyone can see from my userinfo that I use the email address pyesetz@comcast.net; a subpoena to Comcast would obtain the name of the guy who's paying for that account (which would be me).  In a recent post, I said some things that could reasonably be expected to annoy Marshall Woods and Richard Concepcion.  It seems Woods has decided not to sue, but Concepcion has not yet made his views known.  Also, a certain someone made annoying (to Concepcion) comments on my journal, but her RL name is easily obtained by clicking on a link in her userinfo(gone now), so she's even less "anonymous" than I.  This law simply doesn't apply, so if I say "mrcougar and ka_crow are having an affair!!!", that's just regular old-fashioned libel.

109-162 is called the Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act.  It basically adds "or via the Internet" to the text of the Telecommunications Act of 1934 that already bans annoying phone calls, especially those used for the sexual harassment of women.  Yes, George Bush is the Worst. President. Ever, but this law is not part of his mountain of evil.  Unfortunately for me, the good folks at BoingBoing have already debunked this anti-administration meme before I managed to write a post about it.  Edit: But see opposing view from news.com, which is sticking to their original incendiary position.

Oh, and welcome to my asylum, neonchameleon!