It's Illegal To Annoy People Online

Trolls beware.  See this article.  Fortunately, I blog onymously, so if I happen to annoy somebody, I can't be imprisoned.  That is, the law applies only to people who annoy others without disclosing their identity.  But anonymous blogger friends: take warning.  The government may be seeking your head!  The relevant section of the law:

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.

Strictly, the law criminalizes "intent to annoy...".  But how does one assess whether "intent to annoy" is present, really?  I suggest you head over to Annoy.com and send an anonymous annoying message to someone for the heck of it.  This weak little demonstration, while unnecessary, may be amusing.  And remember, when you're proving that you will disregard the unjust laws of an unjust state, don't be a jerk.  It shouldn't be a criminal offense to be a jerk, but you do know better.  Also, in other news relevant to our unjust state, Senator Bill Alter (R-Missouri) is a genius.  He got the great idea to ban convenience stores from selling cold beer from a fifth grader:

"The only reason why beer would need to be cold is so that it can be consumed right away," said Alter, adding that his idea for the legislation came to him from a fifth-grade student in Jefferson County.

The cold beer contributes heavily to drunk driving, you see, a fact the consideration of which suggests it's perfectly reasonable to inconvienence millions of law abiding citizens with ridiculous legislation.