A Word To The Unwise

I see by the attempted comments and e-mail that it's time to re-post this warning from last February. Predatory lending shills and mouthpieces are not only classless, they're clueless. No wonder they're so bereft of support from anyone other than those politicians they purchase.

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I'll take another brief breather from the "Bank" portion of this blog's title, and respond to a discussion about blogging and the law that I recently observed on another blog that I read. No, it wasn't written by Ana Marie Cox, the former Wonkette, although all serious-minded bank lawyers occasionally must cruise the blogosphere to see if Ana Marie's wandered into more faux-lesbian escapades of the sort so well covered by The Calico Cat way back "in the day," before Ms. Cox hit the big time. No, it was the blog of another female blogger who was being harassed and annoyed by an anonymous troll who was plaguing her in the comments section of her blog. One of the readers wondered if this sort of harassment might be illegal.

Actually, it is. A little over a year ago, Congress struck a blow against the right of vermin to exercise free speech. As Declan McCullough, chief political correspondent of CNET News, ranted at the time, on January 5, 2006, President Bush signed the "Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005" that incorporated some changes to a federal law that was originally designed to combat stalking by making it a crime to make harassing or obscene telephone calls. The amendments to the law (Section 113) extended the definition of "telecommunications device" to include your home computer or a similar device or software used to access the Internet. Thus, the use of your computer to communicate with another person (whether or not the communication takes place), without disclosing your identity, "with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person" who receives the communication, is a federal crime.

Think about it: an anonymous troll who leaves a comment on your blog "with the intent to annoy" you has committed a federal crime. Notwithstanding the First Amendment.

Is this a great country, or what?

The same "annoy" language has been on the books for awhile, but only in connection with "telecommunication devices" which, until last year, did not include your computer. I think that  instant messages, emails and blog comments appear to be covered. Therefore, you can still attempt to annoy me, dear troll, but do so in your own name or I'll turn your sorry IP address into the G-Men, who can use your ISP to track you down and indict you.

I doubt that federal prosecutors are going to be going overboard on this. On the other hand, if a blogger-for instance, a lawyer who blogs-happens to have contacts with the U.S. Attorney's office and/or the FBI, he or she might be able to make things warm for the troll. At the very least, it's nice to know that a blog owner has additional legal recourse, especially for egregious cases. He or she will also have grounds to advise a troll's ISP that one of their users is violating federal law, as well as the ISP's acceptable use policy, which may very well spur some action on the ISP's part to stop the troll.

Another nice deterrent is to report trolls who harass bloggers from work to their employers. That information is also readily available form the blogger's server logs. Right wing attack dog Michelle Malkin did that to a law firm's employee and he was subsequently terminated. Actually, his employment was terminated, not his life, but you get the picture. I did the same to a State of Texas employee last year who spent hours of time during the work day attempting to harass me through blog comments. I didn't follow up to determine whether or not he'd been terminated for violating employment rules and the State of Texas General Services Administration's Internet acceptable use policy, but I haven't heard from the fellow since, so, like Fredo Corleone, he's dead to me.

I guess what I'd tell any cowardly twerp who can't control the demons in his head that tell him that he must attack, is that he should at least use his correct name and e-mail address. Also, as side note to trolls, if you're coming to a gun fight, come strapped with something larger than a cap pistol.