perfidy

Loyal Reader EDog will be hearing from the Perfidian Coalition of Really Unpleasant and Evil Lawyers (P-CRUEL). He emails me with word that last week, President Bush signed into law a bill making it a felony to annoy anyone via the internets or e-mail. The nugget in question merely extends an older law against harassing telephone calls, but it was attached by my friend and yours Arlen Specter to the "Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act," which hadda pass because, you know, it'd be terrible to vote against a bill that will stop all violence against women forever. And what Senator hates justice? (All of them, it turns out, as long as you frame the question appropriately.)

I'd love to see this enforced. I'm incensed on a regular basis by Powerline, Atrios, spammers, Instapundit, Emperor Misha, Kos, RedState, the New York Times, The Washington Times, mimes, and our own Buckethead, and they all must be stopped using the full weight of the long arm of the law. Which in this case looks more like a big swingin' wang.

So, thanks to Edog, whose email caught me at the low ebb of my blood sugar and was therefore, in fact, deeply annoying. Start stuffing cartons of Marlboros up your fundament, Edog. Them's currency where you're going.

[wik] I have to admit. I wrote this post for two reasons only: to rag on Edog a little, and for an excuse to use the word "wang," which I find inexplicably hilarious.

The truth of the matter is, naturally, far more modest than the linked column above will have you understand. The redoubtable (which means formidable, not "twice doubtable") Orin Kerr makes a strong case that the act in question doesn't do much we need to care about - "speech" is only restricted when it would contravene the First Amendment anyway. It seems like this was merely (merely, ha!) a move to make existing telephone harassment laws apply to the internet and especially to VoIP. The wild west is becoming more like a theme park by the day.