Lying on the Internet could soon be a federal crime.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

Is this for real????

Prosecuting for violating TOS agreements?!?!

I, for one, welcome or new Skinner overlord!!!

Lying on the Internet could soon be a federal crime
http://news.yahoo.com/lying-internet-could-soon-federal-crime-232406135.html

The US Department of Justice wants to make it a federal crime to violate the “terms of service” of any website, reports Declan McCullagh at CNet. According to this interpretation, breaching the terms of service of websites — which can be done by simply using a fake name on Facebook, lying about your weight on a dating site, or using Google if you’re under the age of 18 — could make you a criminal.

According to a leaked statement that Richard Downing, the DoJ’s deputy computer crime chief, will reportedly deliver to Congress on Wednesday, the DoJ will argue that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) — an amendment to the Counterfeit Access Device and Abuse Act generally used to prosecute hacking and other serious cyber-crimes, and which went into effect way back in 1986 — must give prosecutors the ability to charge people “based upon a violation of terms of service or similar contractual agreement with an employer or provider.”

According to Downing, the expansion of this law is necessary for law enforcement to prosecute individuals for identity theft, privacy invasion or the misuse of government databases, among other infractions. Limiting “prosecutions based upon a violation of terms of service… would make it difficult or impossible to deter and address serious insider threats through prosecution,” Downing is expected to say.

Just to reiterate, in case you didn’t catch that sly turn of legalese, the DoJ is saying that not allowing them to prosecute people for violating websites’ terms of service would make it “more difficult or impossible” to scare people with the threat of prosecution. Yay, America!

[msongs]

1. so who thinks obama & co. cannot be as bad bush or worse raise your hand nt

[tridim]

2. LOL

:rofl:

[apocalypsehow]

3. Bye-bye to at least two of DU's sub-forums if this becomes a law!

If lying about political affiliation/ideological affinities, i.e., a blatant violation of DU's TOS, is made a crime, they'll just have to shutter at least two sub-forums here, or see 85-95 percent of their "regular" participants liable for Federal charges.

Still, the law is stupid and I hope it doesn't pass for all sorts of good reasons.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. RELEASE THE LYING BOTS!! RELEASE THE SCHIZOPHRENIC

BOTS!! LET THE BOTS TAKE THE HEAT... KEEP 'EM BUSY DON'T YOU KNOW. I THINK BOTS ARE THE ANSWER, ONES THAT DON'T KNOW WHAT TOS MEANS.

[madinmaryland]

5. Wow. That will shut down Free Republic in a matter of seconds!!!

:rofl:

[Fire Walk With Me]

8. And every politician!

[dixiegrrrrl]

31. And the Faux news site.

[WinkyDink]

6. From Day 1, Obama has expressed disdain for the Internet. First, by making like those "iPods,

iPhones," etc. are beyond his ken; and

Secondly, by iterating that the Internet bombards us with "too much information."

[JuniperLea]

11. Ahhh... I see...

So this too is Obama's doing.... gotcha.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

15. do you have any fucking idea who the DoJ works for?

Try not to be obtuse.

[Downwinder]

7. But it is all right to lie under oath to Congress.

[arcane1]

9. Regarding "identity theft, privacy invasion or the misuse of government databases"

Aren't these already against the law???

[JuniperLea]

10. I'm okay with it...

As long as it includes newspaper publications as well.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

12. are we still compelled to pretend on DU that he's on our side?

Barack Obama and Eric Holder appear for all the world to be enemies of common people. They keep proving it over and over again. A federal crime to lie online? George Orwell was an amateur punk, as it turns out--no imagination compared to these deathweasels.

[cyberpj]

13. ... But it's okay if you do it on Fox News or Clear Channel Radio or Wall Street Journal or ANY of

the Murdoch Empire's media formats.

[RKP5637]

16. They write their own TOS, so they are OK. This is all pretty strange. n/t

[0rganism]

14. is Faux News going to take down their website?

at this point, The Onion has more credibility -- albeit perhaps unintentionally...

[frazzled]

17. This article is kind of stupid

The DOJ wants to have legal ways to prosecute real criminals who use the Internet to commit their crimes. (Sort of like being able to catch Al Capone on tax evasion.)

Honestly, they have neither the time, interest, nor resources to ever care if you are lying about your weight on a dating site. Jeebus folks.

[customerserviceguy]

23. I seem to recall

the same line of 'reasoning' used to justify the Patriot Act.

[Sgent]

32. That makes sense

make everyone a felon, then the DOJ can pick and choose who to put in jail....

What could go wrong?

[AngryAmish]

50. We are a nation of laws, not men.

(or at least that is the aspiration)

If everything is illegal then any prosecutor has unlimited discretion to jail people they do not like. It makes the law meaningless and dependent on a person's whims. That is unAmerican.

[Initech]

18. Wikipedia will be shut down in 1/2 a second.

[RKP5637]

20. Along with over 1/2 the Internet! n/t

[deucemagnet]

19. They can't possibly expect to police and prosecute all of this.

It sounds like they just need grounds for witch hunts.

[Turbineguy]

21. Wow!

That will free up a lot of bandwidth!

[virgogal]

22. Damn----no more saying that I'm a 19 year old,georgeous redhead.

[MilesColtrane]

24. Federal prosecutors tried to convict someone using a TOS violation as their basis.

It was overturned and thrown out.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10278483-36.html?tag=mncol;txt

I have a feeling that even if this expansion of the CFAA finds its way into US code, the courts will strike it down.

[marmar]

25. So no more FoxNews.com? (Or CNN.com, CNBC.com etc etc)

nt

[bemildred]

26. Damn, we're all going to go to jail.

:rofl:

[IDemo]

27. Does that mean we will get an "Alert Agent Mike" button? n/t

[applegrove]

28. But it is okay to lie on the news in the USA. That's messed up!!

And the neocons in Canada were trying to loosen Canada's laws about no lying on tv news a month ago. Grrrrr.

I personally wish they could somehow get rid of the paid gop role players and trolls. I wouldn't miss them a bit.

[StarsInHerHair]

29. K&R toZERO-wtf is going on??

[meow2u3]

30. A jail full of teabaggers? Nice

A jail full of people telling the truth and taken for teabaggers? Chilling.:scared:

[Politicalboi]

33. All this just to shut down Faux?

How will they survive if this becomes law. I don't see how they could track all the bullshit thrown out on the internet.

[BiggJawn]

34. I'm 6' 6", 265 pounds, full head of thick brown hair...

27" biceps and 11" where it counts.

OK, so come and arrest me for lying... None of it's true.

[roamer65]

35. Delete.

[roamer65]

36. 1984.

Orwell was a prophet.

[krispos42]

37. So, no more Free Republic?

:D



By the way, I'm not really a 6'4" stacked ex-Marine veterinarian with wide shoulders, narrow hips, rock-hard abs and delts, with craggy good looks and awesome hair.


Just... wanted to get that out there.

[astral]

38. And I'm totally HAWT!

Oh, wait, .... you said you're **NOT.** Missed the not part, there . . .

They are making laws that it is legal to lie to us about what's in our food, genetically food can be organic, fetal material can be artificial flavors, pizza sauce can be a vegetable, it is illegal to talk about the disinfecting powers of thymol, unless you have your own million-dollar study to prove it (and there is only one legal botanical cleaner in the USA)

I am just throwing out random things that I learned recently to go along with this thread waking us up to the new reality ... black IS white, up IS down, inside IS out and good is bad, the truth is a lie except when a lie is the truth. And if you see people's consitutional rights being violated and try to document it, you are going to JAIL. I guess you'd be charged with interfering with the New World Order.

So off to see what other exciting news has developed in the last ... day.

[AsahinaKimi]

39. This is very scary

I don't like it..not one bit.

[hootinholler]

40. Making a contract violation a criminal offense?

Hmmmm. I wonder what the courts will do with that one?

[Hassin Bin Sober]

41. Yeah, I wondered about that.

[Laelth]

47. We abolished debtors' prisons when we created the Constitution.

We have a long-standing tradition in the United States of refusing to allow contract breaches to be criminally prosecuted.

This is a very stupid and dangerous idea being promulgated by this "Democratic" administration.

-Laelth

[pacalo]

42. I'd like to see this extended for lying on the airwaves -- radio & tv.

[slay]

43. We, the people, have to stand up and take back what is ours

mainly - our freedom. The internet MUST stay free from corporate rule and corporate rules. Long live #OWS!

[southmost]

44. but lying on tv and radio is a.o.k.

[No Joe]

45. Thank God I'VE never Lied on the Net!

I really do have a Greek god-body, 340 IQ, and a 15-inch penis. :rofl:

[Laelth]

46. This is a serious issue.

It is entirely inappropriate for the Federal Government to enforce a contract as if a breach of that contract were the same as violating a criminal statute.

-Laelth

[Festivito]

48. Oh, I'd better be careful how I word Santa's arrivals this coming year.

I could become a criminal in a free country with free speech for speaking too freely.

[AngryAmish]

49. It would be a crime to be a republican on DU

nice