Posted on 05/27/2012 4:18:16 PM PDT by bkopto
All users posting to websites would have to post their real name and address, non-compliant posts would be axed
When people think anonymity, Anonymous and their iconic Guy Fawkes masks often pop into mind these days. But long before the members of that controversial hacker collective were a mere twinkle in their mothers' eyes, another anti-authoritarian rabble-rouser was using anonymous protest to stir up revolt against a totalitarian ruling elite. His name was Thomas Paine, and his anonymously published work Common Sense helped ignite the colonists in revolution against Britain.
I. Want to Post? Put Your Legal Name and Address Here!
Yet today in the country that Thomas Paine's anonymous writings helped to give birth to, a country in which speech is supposedly free, something alarming is happening. Several states are looking to outlaw online anonymity.
New York is among them. The State Senate is contemplating Bill S6779 a measure that would force users to post (and verify) their home address, IP address, and legal name in any post they make online.
That's right; New York is considering laying waste to privacy and anonymous speech in the name of "preventing" online bullying. The bill describes:
A web site administrator upon request shall remove any comments posted on his or her web site by an anonymous poster unless such anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post and confirms that his or her IP address, legal name, and home address are accurate. All web site administrators shall have a contact number or e-mail address posted for such removal requests, clearly visible in any sections where comments are posted.
It's unclear exactly how much support the bill has in the State Senate. It was introduced just over two months ago by Sen. Thomas F. O'Mara (R—Big Flats).
(Excerpt) Read more at dailytech.com ...
Depressing to see that it is an idiot pubbie proposing this.
Isn’t against the law in Iowa to take a photo of an industrial animal raising facility? Free speech phooey...long gone.
What a joke!
I would have to use EGPWS everywhere I interact on the Internet.
Personal freedom and personal rights are disappearing fast.
It’s only for the protection of right thinking people.
Good grief. No one should fear anything online. This isn’t grade school and there aren’t even sticks and stones. It’s printed. You don’t like it, don’t read it. Someone puts something on your facebook that hurts your widdle feelers then unfriend them and get off that stupid site. Someone emails you, block their address and delete it. How simple is that? But noooo, we have to have a Bill!!!! Some little minority of ridiculously stoooopid sheeple mess the internet up for the rest of us.
Wonder if he's friends with Dede Scozzafava
Only on web sites hosted in NYS? And how will it know who those are?
Do not the NYS idiots know how easy it is to move a web site?
Someone needs to remind this ignorant fool that the Federalist Papers were published anonymously.
Statists don't believe in the law of unintended consequences, human economic behavior, or anything other than zero-sum planning.
Instead of this idea, why not focus on voter ID?
Oh, well, silly to bring it up I guess...
Shades of Hussein’s “National User ID”.
So...voter i.d. laws are unconstitutional, but you will have to prove who you are on an anonymous site on the internet to simply post an opinion?
Makes perfect sense to me.
This is a good application for rule .308
Post Office box rentals will soar.
That NC teacher who threatened her student with arrest for criticizing Obama was just a few months ahead of her time...
This is the first step toward a new Sedition Act....
This is about attacks like Joe the Plumber received.
Its about attacking even those who give to any campaign other than Obama’s
This is about harrassment, and attacking anyone who doesn’t enjoy the Kool-aid.
The bill is bad enough on its own, proposed by a Republican, makes me want t vomit.
I’ll post my real name.
KISS MY ASS
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