Trolling is now illegal.

[Gary Busey]

I just read up on the bill. It is a joke. IF it is signed into law it will be struck down with the first challenge. It is far too broad. To regulate speech a government needs to prove it has a compelling state interest, and the law has to be narrowly tailored to accomplish its goals. The state has not provided either of these qualifications IMHO.

[submessenger]

I just read up on the bill. It is a joke. IF it is signed into law it will be struck down with the first challenge. It is far too broad. To regulate speech a government needs to prove it has a compelling state interest, and the law has to be narrowly tailored to accomplish its goals. The state has not provided either of these qualifications IMHO.

Oh, we're actually going to talk about this? OK, there are plenty of types of speech which are exempt from first amendment protection; this bill is aimed at those types of speech.

Forget the fact that this is amending current law, and that the current law provides exclusions for "constitutionally protected activity." The new version adds an exclusion "[f]or other activity authorized by law."
http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument....Session_ID=107

Did you actually read the law before you posted, or are you just saying that to qualify your ignorant response?

[It is Fake]

Well you beat me to it. Here is a quick PDF of all the states that have some type of Cyber Bullying laws.
http://www.cyberbullying.us/Bullying...lying_Laws.pdf

[Gary Busey]

Just because something is law does not mean it would stand up to challenge. In my post I went over that, yes, there are some types of speech that are exempt from the first amendment. I just felt this law Would not stand up to strict scrutiny.

[submessenger]

Just because something is law does not mean it would stand up to challenge. In my post I went over that, yes, there are some types of speech that are exempt from the first amendment. I just felt this law Would not stand up to strict scrutiny.

The existing law has stood up to scrutiny. Here's one case I found, and it references others:
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/az-suprem...t/1412470.html

Courts are less likely to entertain overbreadth claims as the behavior a statute seeks to proscribe “moves from ‘pure speech’ toward conduct.”  Broadrick, 413 U.S. at 615, 93 S.Ct. at 2917.   The statute at issue, which applies only if a defendant uses a telephone for the reasons proscribed, clearly implicates conduct as well as speech.   Musser contends that the legislature moved from regulating conduct to proscribing protected speech in 1978 when it amended A.R.S. § 13-2916.A to change the prohibited conduct from “to telephone another” to “to use a telephone.”   Under either version of the language, however, a person must be charged with conduct-the use of a telephone.   While using a telephone usually involves speech, it also necessarily involves conduct.   Because the statute regulates conduct as well as speech, we are less likely to apply the standing exception to permit appellant to assert the rights of others.

Emphasis mine.

The interesting points of argument about the updated law are these, I think:
1) speech on the Internet is generally done so in a multi-party or public forum (general term forum, not specifically sites like bullshido.net)
2) speech on the Internet can be effectively indelible, whereas a telephone conversation is generally only partially recalled by either party
a) indelible speech may have the effect of creating a reputation for the speaker
b) indelible speech may prevent the offended from accessing other content to which he/she would otherwise be entitled to

[Gary Busey]

Nice find Daddy. Thank you for the reading. Very interesting....

[downtime]

So obviously this falls within the realm of Cyber Tort, Im curious though about enforcement if it passes. To procsecute, is it going to be based off of IP address?

[submessenger]

So obviously this falls within the realm of Cyber Tort, Im curious though about enforcement if it passes. To procsecute, is it going to be based off of IP address?

Without getting into the boring and complex details, IP address alone is not a reliable indicator of geographic location, nor that a particular person is responsible for content.

[downtime]

Without getting into the boring and complex details, IP address alone is not a reliable indicator of geographic location, nor that a particular person is responsible for content.

Thats kind of why I asked. Im just not seeing how the law is enforceable...but dude please provide me with a link to boring details if you have one that explains the enforcement of the law, I dont mind reading it, I just haven't found anything on it.

[submessenger]

Thats kind of why I asked. Im just not seeing how the law is enforceable...but dude please provide me with a link to boring details if you have one that explains the enforcement of the law, I dont mind reading it, I just haven't found anything on it.

I'm not aware of a single link that outlines this stuff, although if you google "rules of procedure," and "internet forensics," you'll likely come up with good stuff. In the mean time...

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. But, perhaps Sam Browning (Bullshido's volunteer lawyer) will come along and fill in any holes I leave out.

The first detail is that there are probably not going to be Internet police scavenging forums and facebook and the like looking for violations. Rather, people that feel that they have been bullied will file a complaint, at which point an investigation will begin. This part of the process will not be dissimilar from any other crime investigation.

But, you asked specifically about IP addresses, so I'll try to scope my response to that. There are so-called GeoIP databases, the most notable and respectable from a company called MaxMind. These databases are primarily useful for marketing online (or for otherwise making regional decisions about what content to display). I mention them because somebody at some point will say "hey, what about GeoIP?"

GeoIP has reasonable doubt built in. From the product page:

The database contains our best estimate for the location for every IP address, but may not be accurate or complete in all cases.

The simplest explanation is that your ISP may be in Philadelphia, PA, but you live in Camden, NJ. The IP's "location," will probably at best be coded to Philadelphia.

In more complex scenarios, you have dozens or hundreds of users potentially sharing the same IP address at the same time, through a process called NAT. NAT's primary usefulness is postponing the inevitable shift to a better IP address scheme, because the current scheme is woefully overloaded, and we're quickly running out of addresses for computers (and other devices) that want/need to be on the Internet. Note that this also is not the only scenario where multiple users may be sharing an IP address, but it is the most common.

In order to prove that the offending content was linked to a specific user, multiple points of authenticity will have to be provided - a password-protected login name would be a good start, an IP address that was known to be in use by that login at the time of the offense, records on the offenders computer indicating that (s)he had that IP address and login at the time of the offense, an affidavit / seizure log showing that the offending computer was taken from a physical location or existed at a physical location at the time of the offense. Essentially, all the facts that prove that the alleged offender contributed the offending content to the ether must be cataloged and validated to build the case.

Mods, forgive the derail - please move to another thread if you deem fit.