Legal ramifications of anonymous posting..

[andrewpfeifer]

Doesn't mean it won't be passed and legislated until the Supreme Court reviews it. Many laws are passed that are Unconstitional, large portions of the Patriot Act, the new Anti-Abortion law in South Dakota, among many others. However they remain laws and on the books until invalidated by the courts.

Many times if the laws are being challeneged in the courts the judges will stop them from going into affect while the court proceedings play out.

[Wayne Luke]

All depends on how long it takes to be challenged as well. Anyway, there isn't any such thing as anonymous posting as it is. IP Addresses can be traced, even if you use an "Anonymous" proxy. Maybe not by the site owner but give a law enforcement officer a couple of court orders and your whole life is in a folder deep in Quantico's basement.

I always consider anything I do on the internet as private as sending a friend a postcard from a vacation spot.

The prudent site owner will simply work with any requests that a lawyer (with court order) or law enforcement agency (with same order) asks for.

[KingSpade]

In many cases, as well, if the website owner will not cooperate, the hosting provider or data center will as they too are under pressure when certain things are concerned. Not to mention, their business is at risk when they do no cooperate given a legal matter.

[RedWingFan]

Disallowing anonymous speech is a violation of the US constitution. There is absolutely no chance this bill will be valid.

I'm not sure if this is true or not. I had thought it was, but my moderators were discussing this with me, and one of them (who knows legal matters and works in corporate environments) mentioned that the idea of "free" or "anonymous" speech does not apply to a forum that is owned by an individual or a company...IOW, a non-public, privately-owned enterprise. "Free speech" is supposed to give us the right to demonstrate and make our views be known in public. As a private entity, visitors agree to go by our rules.

Just ask any forum member of ours who has had a post edited or removed: we get complaints from them that we are violating their free speech rights (as we all roll our eyes), but we kindly remind them that the forum is a private enterprise and as such, subject to the rules we put forth. We also require that forum members register before posting--by that, we are taking away some of their anonymity, and can trace them back to an IP address or e-mail address.

Or to take this to its logical conclusion: posting on a forum is a privilege, not a right. That privilege, if abused, is taken away.

I do not mind collecting private information, but it is impossible to enforce. Think about it: you have no idea if the owner of the forum is going to use your information to spam you, sign you up for postal mailing lists, or park outside your house and stalk you. Are you going to enter the correct information? Probably not. Using vB today, I could force visitors to give me a real name, complete street address, etc., but I cannot force them to put the correct information in, nor can I ever verify that what they enter is correct.

That NJ bill just needs to sink without a trace. Let's hope it does!

[Shining Arcanine]

Jim Crow laws were passed mostly in the Southern states in order to prevent emancipated slaves from exercising their rights to vote, etc. This was not prevalent in the Northern states, who were mainly anti-slavery going into the Civil War.

The Democratic party is the Jackson half of the original Republican party, which supported slavery. Jackson was also the person responsible for the trail of tears that many Democrats tell Republicans that they should feel responsible for, despite the fact that the Democrats' half of the original Republican party split from the original party specifically to endorse the guy who arranged for that. The Whigs (the Adams half of the original Republican party that died around 1840) were antislavery in the north, and pro-slavery in the south. After the Whig party died, the anti-slavery people formed the modern Republican party and the pro-slavery people joined the Democratic party, as it was the popular party that refused to allow morals to obstruct political decisions. Ironically, they still are.

Edit: By the way, if anyone lives in New Jersey, please write to your state legislators asking them to shot this bill down; the last thing we need is a precedent for other states to follow.