Arizona has a law on the books that should replace the old chestnut about King Canute and the tide: they’ve criminalized annoying and offending people on the internet:
Dear Members of the Arizona State Legislature,
By this post, it is my specific intent to use this digital device — a computer — to annoy and offend you.
I do so because you have passed Arizona H.B. 2549, which provides in relevant part as follows:
It is unlawful for any person, with intent to terrify, intimidate, threaten, harass, annoy or offend, to use a telephone ANY ELECTRONIC OR DIGITAL DEVICE and use any obscene, lewd or profane language or suggest any lewd or lascivious act, or threaten to inflict physical harm to the person or property of any person.
OK. I certainly don’t intend to convey any physical threat. And I can’t terrify or intimidate you, even with the prospect of revealing you for a pack of morons who ought to be voted out of office — after all, you’re in Arizona, where prolonged lawlessness, venality and idiocy seem to be sure paths to electoral victory.
I certainly do mean to annoy and offend you, though. You’ve been swept up in the moronic and thoughtless anti-bullying craze and consequently passed a bill that is ridiculous on its face, a bill that criminalizes annoying and offending people on the internet. That’s like criminalizing driving on the road. By so clearly violating the First Amendment, you’ve violated your oaths of office. You should be ashamed of yourselves. What kind of example are you setting for the children of Arizona by ignoring the law to pass fashionable rubbish? It is no excuse that you are merely modifying an archaic law to apply it to the internet — you’re still enacting patently unconstitutional legislation.
That’s Ken at Popehat, inviting the Arizona state legislature to “snort my taint, go to Hell, and go fuck yourselves”.
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