Did you know?

It's illegal to annoy…
A new federal law states that when you annoy someone on the Internet, you must disclose your identity. Here's the relevant language that was hidden in a non relevant bill that W signed last week. (Remember, this is a man who has never vetoed a bill.)

"Whoever...utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet... without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person...who receives the communications...shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."

(Why stop at the internet? I think everyone who annoys me should identify themselves! That rude clerk at the store…what’s his name? And the person delivering the newspaper that throws the paper into the bushes…that annoys me and I have no idea as to who that person is. That’s just plain wrong!)

Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, and the section's other sponsors slipped it into an unrelated, must-pass bill to fund the Department of Justice. The plan was to make it politically infeasible for politicians to oppose the measure and it worked. So what’s Specter’s problem?