In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

You’re All Going Down!

Jill

I’m talking to you, XOXO posters and other anonymous insulters — just wait until your asses are in jail. Who’s laughing now, suckas?

Ok, I kid, I kid. I will not try and get anyone sent to jail for e-annoying me. But here’s a good article about a ridiculously stupid law that Bush just signed, which is embedded in the Violence Against Women Act. Thanks a lot, pal.

Now, I agree that we should have laws against cyberstalking and harassment, the same way there are laws against stalking and harassment in real life. But a law against annoyance? Seems a little over-the-top to me.

Thanks to Chris Clarke for the link.

24 thoughts on You’re All Going Down!

  3. Well, you’re distracted what with having to decide whether to get saved or not. (I recommend it. Jesus rules!)

    For sloppy blogging, the Court of Everybody Else Does It Too sentences you to moderate fifty Cialis spam comments and to post a picture of a cute mammal of some non-Anderson-Cooper type. For pedantic commenting, I am sentenced to read Kos for one week.

    *bangs gavel*

  4. Our esteemed politicians can’t seem to grasp this simple point, but the First Amendment protects our right to write something that annoys someone else.

    Amen. Jesus, these idiots.

  5. The First Amendment’s protections when applied to anonymous speech are considerably less vigorous. The law may not be as unambiguously unconstitutional as it is being portrayed.

    But I always sign my real name to things, so I can say whatever I want. Neener, neener.

  7. Somebody at TAPPED argues that the language in the bill is standard for anti-stalking legislation, and that there’s no way it would be used for the kind of stuff people are talking about today.

  8. No offense, but TAPPED is not a source of particular weight on this imo. (I may get mau mau’d for saying this, perhaps, but the sainted Matt Y. revealed the clueless nature of that forum in some respects. Today over there he expressed surprise that neither Blunt nor Boehner were conservative enough to sections of the Republican Party. And then he asked ‘Who is running this country?’

    If the admittedly young and talented Matt doesn’t understand the 40 year history of “the Movement” and its desire to capture and radicalize the Republican Party, then he really has no understanding of what Abramoff and DeLay were really about. And its structural underpinnings.

    Same here, I fear re anything TAPPED might say regarding how this Administration might use this law to target enemies. It is entirely possible career civil servants at DoJ and FBI will operate in their time honored role and as TAPPED is reported to have said, “there is no way” this statute could be used malevolently (from this website’s readership’s perspective)

    From my perspective knowing some of these people, however, assurances of ‘no way’ should not be taken at face value. Certainly not after the radicalism of this regime made clear by the photo op with McCain and then nullifing it with their Executive Statement, etc.

    Don’t mistake my post here. I wish and hope TAPPED was right. And wish the TAPPED oppositionist stance success.

    Just cautioning that Atrios and others are correct to be concerned at least until this plays out. Because when push comes to shove, this Administration has no judgment rooted in consensual politics of pluralism and will always have the instinct of destroying their political enemies, real and perceived.

  10. I hope you recover from your surgery soon, Jill. Your discomfort coupled with the pain medication is producing some interesting side-effects.

    I’ve had my wisdom teeth cut out as well, and I’m glad it’s one of those things I only have to endure once.

    Get well soon.

  13. I don’t think that section of VAWA is going to do what that article said it would do. There are already stalking laws, and I believe there are already laws against cyberstalking. I and other feminists were harassed by someone sending us nasty e-mail a couple of years ago. The guy sent me a death threat. This happened in England, and Scotland Yard convicted him. He was fairly anonymous, but his information was easy to track down. I don’t think stalking will go after people who write annoying things anonymously. I tried to find the section of VAWA the article referred to last night, but after a four-hour drive home from a conference I was too wiped to find it. I did find the stalking section, and it didn’t seem to be about merely annoying people who post anonymously. I really don’t think that section of VAWA will do what that article claims it will do.

  14. A couple of comments:

    (a) I know Atrios is no longer anonymous – merely that he was the first to jump on this issue yesterday that I saw, before even my Slashdot feed did;

    (b) the Solove exchange as posted on Boing Boing is not particularly convincing or well parsed from a simple statutory interpretation of the plain meaning — as a commenter on Boing Boing indicated, there appears to be a three prong requirement: 1) use of the Internet; 2) annonymously; and 3) with a so-called intent to annoy (whatever that means).

    (c) using traditional caselaw and ‘interpretive” approaches are, I repeat, not a good barometer for how this Administration and it progeny could use or interpret this law.

    I repeat, who would have expected that the Executive signing statements at the enactment of law would be used as a White House pretext for ignoring statutory requirements enacted by Congress?

    I have to shake my head — even critics of the Administration do not fully comprehend the radical nature of their alleged target of criticism. It is a profound, profound mistake to asssume that this regime will be bound by traditional readings, usage or even interpretation of statutes (those it chooses to obey, that is).

    You may be right. But until I see evidence for how the “Movement” is going to react to this law and what they may want to do with it, I for one am not assured by non-politically attuned bloggers saying “Move along, nothing to see”.

  15. Can any of you lawyers out there comment on a little paranoia I have about this law? The anti-annoyance clause seems to me to be a law waiting to get struck down by the first court that it encounters. If so, does that invalidate the whole VAWA? In other words, could the inclusion of a bit of text that is obviously anti-first amendment be a sneaky way for the Reps to get the law struck down and blame its absence on “activist judges”?

  16. could the inclusion of a bit of text that is obviously anti-first amendment be a sneaky way for the Reps to get the law struck down and blame its absence on “activist judges”?

    If Republicans have anyone to blame for “activist judges” it would be the party that controls the House, Senate, and Presidency. That said, I’d imagine they’d strike down and/or reform bits of law and not the entire bill.

    Besides, I can’t imagine any politician wanting to take on the label related to being the person who railed against the act, i.e. was for violence against women. Gotta love spin.

  17. The law is broader than just VAWA, though — it was the reauthorization bill for, apparently, the entire Justice Department.

  19. Dianne:

    While I’m no lawyer, I did just stay in a Holiday Inn (sorry, couldn’t resist the bad joke), and from their amazing powers I learned that the Supreme Court can strike down portions of laws while leaving the rest intact. In fact, in the case which established the precedent of judicial review, Marbury v. Madison, the Court struck down a small portion of the Judiciary Act of 1789 which gave the Supreme Court jurisdiction over the Marbury case, saying that the Constitution only gave the Court jurisdiction on a very few certain types of cases. The rest of the Judiciary Act, which established the federal courts system, was allowed to stand.

    So the Court could conceivably strike down the portion of VAWA which criminalizes annoying people while leaving the rest of the law intact.

  20. Shankar, that’s interesting. I have a friend who is a phone phreaker and knows every telephone law in the country, it seems. The harassment via phone law in this state is, essentially, that I’m allowed to call you anonymously or not and annoy the shit out of you all I want. But once you say “stop calling me” I have to quit or potentially face charges. This works for everything from stalkers to telemarketers to prankers.

  21. So the Court could conceivably strike down the portion of VAWA which criminalizes annoying people while leaving the rest of the law intact

    Very good. Thanks for the info. Lazy of me to not look it up myself, no doubt…It’s also a little disturbing to think that I might have just thought up something more byzantine than the actual intent of the Reps.

  22. Dianne, no. Courts (even stupid activist ones) have a strong preference for leaving as much of the law intact as possible.

  23. You folks remember the CDA? It was part of a very big telcom reform act, the rest of which stood. So not only do courts strike down only portions of a law, but the biggest Internet free speech case in history is an example of that.

    The nice thing about the judiciary is that it doesn’t have to deal with “poison pills” in legislation, so the VAWA is definitely safe.

    Got mixed feelings on this bill. Hate the First Amendment implications. Love the fact that the federal government recognizes that cyberstalking is a problem. Here’s hoping for a better-written bill that accomplishes all of the good, with none of the harm. The Supreme Court will help write it in its majority opinion striking down this version.

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