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More boneheaded legislation
As Henry Louis Mencken observed back in 1920, "There is always a well-known solution to every human problem--neat, plausible, and wrong." [Prejudices, Second Series]
Thus, it is hardly surprising to learn, from WTVQ, Lexington, KY that a state legislator wants to make anonymous posting online illegal (in the words of reporter Kellie Wilson). Wilson continues,
"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."
The first problem with this proposal is its naïve oversimplification. "The Worldwide Web" (remember, that's what those letters "WWW" mean?) is not the entire Internet. E-mail is an almost entirely separate operation, and there remain other, less well-known portions of the 'net such as Usenet, Telnet, and all manner of private servers. So this bill, if indeed reporter Wilson has recounted it accurately, would be the equivalent of making it illegal to swear while you are in a Starbucks shop, but leaving matters entirely unregulated in all other coffee shops and convenience stores.
"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.
"[And even the lawmaker who introduced it] says enforcing this bill if it became law would be a challenge."
Then, of course, there are the tiny matters of jurisdiction, legal conflict, and unintended consequences.
My wife operates her computer in a basement office, two floors downstairs from where I sit as I write this. But if I send her an email--even though we share an account with the same ISP--it's not the same as shouting down the stairwell to her. Emails sent between us are routed through a server in Columbia, MD, more than 20 miles away. If I get a message from my next-door neighbor Robbie, who could shout fifty feet across the side yard, her message arrives here via Sunnyvale, California! This is generally true of all "internet" communications, as well as most telephone communication. If Robbie phones me via landline, it's possible--although not a dead certainty--that the message traveled from her house, a half-mile down the road to the nearest AT&T switch and directly back. But if one or the other of us uses a cell phone, the call could end up bounced off several orbiting satellites before arriving here. Of course, none of the Deep Thinkers at the TV station thought to ask Couch how he would deal with this perennial problem with online communication--if a legal offense takes place, WHERE has it happened?
Then too, the content of the message might matter. Let's say I am looking at a web site that's a support group for some medical condition. For the sake of argument, let's not think sexually-transmitted diseases; assume I am seeking information about emphysema, or sleep apnea. Nowadays we occupy a world in which a federal law called HIPAA dictates who knows what about someone's medical condition. For example, we've had to sign waivers with our family physician, expressly permitting his receptionist to leave a message on our answering machine to verify an appointment. When the nurse takes your vital signs, she no longer does it in her anteroom, but has to do it in the privacy of an exam room, behind a closed door, lest some snoop learn that my blood pressure was 115/70 on that particular occasion. If HIPAA is to be taken that seriously, anyone who had to disclose his identity to ask a medical question, or participate in an online support group, might be violating the federal law.
Last but not least, there is the potential for squelching discussions--perhaps nothing more sinister than inquiring about a want-ad--due to the necessity of immediately identifying oneself.
Regarding "online harrassment," I gather that this is a problem existing mainly with children below the age of 18. The resolution would seem simple enough. If my child were being harrassed via web sites, text messages, emails, the technological appliance enabling the harrassment would simply go into the nearest dumpster. In any event, people would do well to teach their children to be a bit less emotionally fragile. Life only gets more angry and difficult with adulthood.