No anonymity on the Internet?

[BenGarrett]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned this little piece of legislation from the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

http://www.wtvq.com/content/midatlan...3-05-0011.html

Kentucky Lawmaker Wants to Make Anonymous Internet Posting Illegal

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

By Kellie Wilson

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.

I'm not too worried about my anonymity (obviously ). I am of the opinion that if someone doesn't want a comment attached to their name, they shouldn't post it on the Internet to start with, since there is no such thing as anonymity on the WWW. So I just use my name here. One of these days a national publication may come knocking on my door wanting me to be a political correspondent and these comments on here will come back to bite me, but that's a chance I guess I'm just willing to take. But this opens up a whole host of problems. A teen or pre-teen chat site would become a cyberperp's playground. He could zero in on his potential victims because he'd know their name and address. Not to mention that it would be impossible to enforce and it's just downright stupid to start with.

Cyber-bullying is a real problem, but it isn't too hard to prosecute. It just requires a little time. All of these web forums record all of our IP numbers. If there is an issue, it takes a simple subpoena to the website's owner to obtain those IP numbers, and then a simple subpoena to the IP to which the number is assigned to obtain the identity of the user in question. If someone wants to deter the behavior that the good representative is targeting, why not prosecute a few of these cases and make examples out of some folks?

[etothepii]

whatever would Stealthy Cat do?

[Sylvan]

That would be brilliant! Let's trade cyber bullying for real life physical bullying or worse. Let's give our names and addresses to every psycho nut job so when you say something that upsets them you find one of them on your front porch. No thank you. If a law like that were to pass I think you'd find a significant drop in the use of internet forums. Nobody needs to know my real name and address to read my opinions and either accept or reject them.

[kevin1]

Exactly how would such a law be enforced, and by whom since the internet is international?

[burniegoeasily]

Lol. Good luck enforcing that law.

[Aught Six]

That law would not only be absolutely ineffective, but terribly wasteful as well. It could all be done, but why, and to whom? What's the point of personal indentification on forums and blogs, of all things?

[BigTiny]

The whole idea of Kentucky cyber-cops is funny to me...

[909bowsniper]

That law will never hold water...nor be enforsed in any way.