Kentucky Lawmaker Wants to Make Anonymous Internet Posting Illegal

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Kentucky Lawmaker Wants to Make Anonymous Internet Posting Illegal

Wednesday, Mar 05, 2008 - 11:11 PM Updated: 12:40 PM

By Kellie Wilson
E-mail | Biography
Kentucky Representative Tim Couch filed a bill this week to make anonymous posting online illegal.

The bill would require anyone who contributes to a website to register their real name, address and e-mail address with that site.

Their full name would be used anytime a comment is posted.

If the bill becomes law, the website operator would have to pay if someone was allowed to post anonymously on their site. The fine would be five-hundred dollars for a first offense and one-thousand dollars for each offense after that.

Representative Couch says he filed the bill in hopes of cutting down on online bullying. He says that has especially been a problem in his Eastern Kentucky district.

Action News 36 asked people what they thought about the bill.

Some said they felt it was a violation of First Amendment rights. Others say it is a good tool toward eliminating online harassment.

Represntative Couch says enforcing this bill if it became law would be a challenge


http://www.wtvq.com/content/midatlantic/tvq/video.apx.-content-articles-TVQ-2008-03-05-0011.html
 
bahahahahaha let's see them try to enforce that and watch as virtually every single hosting provider in the country picks up shop and moves their base of operations overseas
 
The bill would require anyone who contributes to a website to register their real name, address and e-mail address with that site.
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The mind boggles at exactly how he thinks that will work. Let me see now, someone could use one of the computers at the local library, pick a name out of the phone book, log in...
 
This article is illustrative of the utter arrogance of so-called elected officials. Of course, the infallible "Real ID" will now be necessary to log on to the internet. Problem solved :barf:

I wonder if this turkey ever heard of the Federalist Papers?
 
First I don't see how it could be a violation of 1A. It isn't banning any speech just no allowing you to post anything you want to without being responsible for it.

Second I think that in theory it has merit as you should be responsible for whatever you say.

Third it is totally unworkable and no way to possibly enforce it. The worst part of it is holding the website operators responsible for verifying ID's is worse than holding liquor store operators for verifying fake ID's.

Rep. Couch needs to get back in the real world and go investigate 'roids, ban baggies from drug dealers or something similarly important. Quit wasting time on unforceable and idiotic laws.
 
First I don't see how it could be a violation of 1A. It isn't banning any speech just no allowing you to post anything you want to without being responsible for it.
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In Buckley v. Valeo, the Supremes held that the freedom to speak includes the freedom not to speak. Since there is no compelling state interest in requiring people to disclose their personal information, this sort of restriction should have 1st Am problems.
 
They will be microstamping our computers next and we will all send electronic trails wherever we engage in internet activity. This will become a big anti-gun conspiracy and it will all be blamed on 2nd amendment and freaky gun owners.
 
shows the level of dumbness

even proposing the idea this guy shows he knows nothing about that which he talks. Anyone with such a lack of knowledge shouldn't be allowed to open their mouth in public about the Internet. You would expect the guy knows the existence of SPAM e-mail as a major problem.
 
They will be microstamping our computers next and we will all send electronic trails wherever we engage in internet activity. This will become a big anti-gun conspiracy and it will all be blamed on 2nd amendment and freaky gun owners.
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MicroSoft/Intel tried this way back in about 2000 or so. Had Intel put a unique idnetifier in every processor, so that every transaction would have a unique and tracable identifier.

They said they were doing it for support of secure financial transactions ... but it would have been there for whomever wanted to use it. In any case ... the idea got quashed and people raised hell about it.

This law wouldn't affect me, of course, because I always post under my actual name.
 
Courts have also found an implied right to anonymity in the 1A. I, however, disagree with this. We have the right to say whatever we want, and suffer no harm from exercising that right, but no right to do so anonymously. I am not sure how many of you waste a lot of time on the internet but there is just some truly horrible stuff out there, a lot of which is often aimed at people in very cruel ways. Calling it "harassment" seems to fall short of how depraved some of the activities are. People say and do things on the internet they would never in a million years repeat in the real world. Racism, threats, meddling with families admidst tragedies... no, you have no right to privacy when you extend a malevolent hand. Exercising your freedom of speech inherently waives your privacy, as people must pay attention to you to receive that speech. The internet is the one exception to this, and it has promptly become a blighted race to the bottom because people have no accountability and can act as wholly irresponsible as they so choose without any fear of reprisal. The bigots of yesterday wore hoods; today, society's worst have the internet. While I'm not typically one to advocate changing a structure for the degenerates, I just don't see how this would run afoul of the constitution. Yes, hazy court interpretations say it would, but I tend to take a more textualist approach.

Of course, I agree there is no practical way to implement this. You would need a global initiative (not going to happen) and whole new technologies (that we don't have) to even attempt such a project. But I don't see that as reason to scoff.
 
its actually there

(without getting it pages of explanation I'll just say this:) inside your computer there are one or more parts that have a MAC (Media Access Control) identified number that is assigned at the factory. Every time you use the Interned and send information you transmit several ID's. One is an IP address and a second is a MAC. The MAC is how the information knows how to get back to you. While you can spoof (change them to a bogus one) those to some degree most people do not have the knowledge on how to alter those temporarily. Most people have no idea they even exist. Now that only provides a means of tracking the specific computer used. Access to the computer itself is what the prove in such cases a child pornography on the hard drive.


Maybe the guy just want to start his own version of DHS. They know how to do what he wants when it comes to who email what to where or when. :rolleyes:
 
Good luck enforcing that one Representative Tim Couch. As a Kentuckian, I would hope our government would have more pressing issues to deal with. I would guess those who voted for you are particularly proud of both you and your actions.

Geez.
 
(without getting it pages of explanation I'll just say this inside your computer there are one or more parts that have a MAC (Media Access Control) identified number that is assigned at the factory. Every time you use the Interned and send information you transmit several ID's. One is an IP address and a second is a MAC. The MAC is how the information knows how to get back to you. While you can spoof (change them to a bogus one) those to some degree most people do not have the knowledge on how to alter those temporarily.
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Actually MAC addresses only appear if you are using a NIC and doesn't exist if you use dial-up. Even dial-up caller ID can easily be circumvented by using disposable cell phones. For the IP thing at least 50% of all users are behind some kind of firewall using NAT or PAT so are impossible to trace through that. Then you have the public computers in libraries or Internet Cafe's.

To top it all off the spoofing software can be downloaded and in place in about 5 minutes. Now if I could just get rid of those **** spammers that easily.
 
Calling it "harassment" seems to fall short of how depraved some of the activities are. People say and do things on the internet they would never in a million years repeat in the real world. Racism, threats, meddling with families admidst tragedies...
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Sounds like someone's been to GenMay or Something Awful. :eek:
Now that only provides a means of tracking the specific computer used.
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What PT111 said plus if you're behind a router your ISP only gets the router's MAC address, your PC's never leaves your network and behind a company firewall or at a school this could mean hundreds, if not thousands, of systems. :o
 
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