Dumping chapter and verse on someone's private life online may be outlawed in Utah Legislators in Utah have proposed a law that would bring serious criminal penalties for those who post others' private information online with the intent to harass. HB 225 would amend the state's existing cybercrime laws to add provisions against the distribution of personal information. The bill, floated by state …
The first use of this proposed law, will be by a legislator whose work email, address and phone number is published by some random activist calling for everyone to demand an explanation from the relevant congress-critter.
I'm not an USAian nor a lawyer, but one might hope this would be thrown out as unconstitutional.
What I'd hope is targetted, is the sort of cyber-harassment that has in the past driven some people to commit suicide. Is the word "repeated" really not in this legislation somewhere? Is there really no intention to distinguish between a one-off disclosure and repeated disclosures after a doxxer/stalker has been told to stop?
A quick reading of the bill suggests that it is quite similar to many of the Apple patent, in the sense that it is trying to criminalise "using a computer" to do something that one might reasonably want to be criminal no matter how it is done. And part of Eugene Volokh's point seems to be first, that some of what is proposed in the bill would be questionable irrespective of the method, and second, that making crime or not contingent on intent also is questionable.
Oh $<DEITY> how often have we heard "remember the phone book!!!!!"
There is such a huge difference between a BOOK, you know paper pages you can look at one at a time, and a phone number & address database that you can search and sort through in seconds.
DON'T start with the "PHONE BOOK" crap, it's the refuge of a simpleton.
</rant>
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