Go Ahead, Comment On This - Then You Can Go To Jail For Two Years

There are a lot of things that I dislike. I'm an optimist, and generally a pretty nice guy, but I use this blog thing to vent about things that I would otherwise yell at people about. In the genius of modern law, the U.S. Federal Government (the people that run this country and take our tax dollars) signed a prohibition that states the following:

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. (content editied by CNet News.com)

What this means, in a nutshell, is that if I blog something that you don't like, and using an alias name post a troll comment or something to otherwise make me feel uncomfortable or threatened (even to the lesser extent of me feeling "annoyed" - heck I get annoyed on a daily basis), you can go to jail and/or be fined. I don't care if you post a comment that calls me an idiot, that's the freedom of the internet. If you're too much of a pansy to put your real name, then your comment really means nothing to me. If you do put your name, then at least I know there's someone out there that doesn't like what I say - big deal; there are enough of them anyway.