Published October 13, 1999
Laws are good, and criminals are bad. But could the reverse entertain a moment of consideration: Some laws are bad, and some good citizens are labeled criminals?
Remarkably, all residents of the state of Georgia, due to no fault of their own, are unpardonably breaking the law if they use the Internet. Governor Zell Miller signed into law HB1630 in April 1996, authored by legislator Don Parsons. It is now a crime to be anonymous while online.
This is one of countless incidents of individual privacy violations by well-meaning but naive public officials. How do such lawmakers justify the enforcement of their flamboyant creations?
By the nature of the Internet, everyone is de facto anonymous (without identity)! A non-real name is chosen as the front part of your email address. Web addresses are obscure strings of characters that computers understand. The registry of subscribers’ names to a security-conscious Internet Service Provider is confidential and protected from disclosure. So of what are our elected officials thinking?
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) <www.eff.org> is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization (3500 members) committed to defending civil liberties in computer communications. Of this law, EFF said, “This is an incredibly stupid and unconstitutional legislation.”
In another example, a lawsuit was filed by ACLU, and many other plaintiffs, against the Governor and Attorney General of Georgia, challenging their 1996 Net Police law. EFF says, “The new law is unconstitutional because it threatens the free speech of Internet and other communication service users.” The Georgia law identifies as crimes numerous activities in which Internet users routinely engage everyday. For example, to use another company’s logo to link to their Web site is a crime in Georgia.
Mike Godwin, columnist for Internet World, spoke of his lecture to the FBI Academy.
“I began to sense in my audience a rising hostility. And, let me tell you, I take it very seriously when I’m feeling hostility from people who are licensed to carry weapons. But in spite of my nervousness, I pressed on with my criticisms of federal law enforcement’s investigations and prosecutions of computer crime cases. In my experience, I told them, these law-enforcement efforts have all too often infringed on the rights of presumptively innocent citizens.”
The U.S. is not the only government frazzled by the lack of being in control of the world-wide Internet. In Zambia (March, 1996): “Publication editors surrendered themselves to face indefinite imprisonment in maximum security penitentiaries for the crime of criticizing their government. A columnist remains at large.”
The democracy of South Korea is desperate to enforce its National Security Law on anyone who views a pro-North Korean Web site, threatening punishment. Seoul authorities state: “We have yet to find a solution to protect South Koreans from the contamination of the Stalinist propaganda.”
The Seoul Web address has been disabled, but inquisitive viewers can access it indirectly through other international sites. Such is the free and unreined nature of the Internet. Could the Internet be too free, as George Bush Jr. has been quoted saying?
New NCSA policy allows searches and punishment for students, faculty, and researchers who “attack” them in email.
EFF says: “[The NCSA policy] is overly broad and vague, inconsistent with the principles of University policies and Constitutional rights. It should concern anyone who believes that the principles of academic freedom, including freedom of expression and privacy, apply to computers.”
Connecticut state bill HB 6883, March 1995, became law only weeks after it was introduced. Now, sending an email “with intent to harass, annoy, or alarm another person,” is a crime. EFF says, “Few laws ever passed anywhere in this country could be so incredibly dirt-stupid.”
(D-NE) Senator James Exon introduced S314 which made anonymous communications that are “annoying” a crime. And (D-MD) Representative Kweisi Mfume’s HR112 makes harassing electronic communications a federal crime.
Similarly, (D-SD) Representative Tim Johnson’s HR1004 makes transmission of sexually oriented materials, and “annoying” communications a crime. So broad is the general language that it could be applied to pictures of men or women in normal swimwear or the legitimate persistent request by a merchant to the patron for payment of their bill.
In America, our system of jurisprudence has been crafted so that the guilty are more likely to go free than the innocent are to be convicted. However, many exceptions are perpetuated by the popular notion that, “No crime should go unpunished.”
Legislators respond to their constituents for more laws to put away all evil-doers, wherever they may lurk; and law enforcement is expected to solve every case. The combination is a growing threat to all of us who are, on the whole, descent citizens.
Whether the issue is abortion, obscenity, drug trafficking, or terrorism, the snare net is cast to encompass others than the real criminal. Alleged computer crimes can be obvious like embezzlement, or innocuous like encryption (scrambling) to protect one’s privacy. The law applies equally to everyone. Exercising one’s freedoms is not a crime.
The Internet is the tool and the target. Through organizations like the EFF, all of us are better informed and encouraged to live by the Golden Rule.