In yet another vivid demonstration of why scissors and other sharp objects should be kept away from members of Congress, our esteemed lawmakers have passed a bill that *seems* to make being annoying illegal. A bill passed to protect women from sexual harrassment has language in it that was apparently added to address online harrassment as well (e.g. repeated unsolicited email). But according to this article, the language got watered down somewhere along the way and now seems to say just being annoying could be illegal.
Among Internet pundits, this is getting a lot of discussion this morning, and is likely to make a big splash in the mainstream press as well. There are conflicting opinions on the wording of the law, with some arguing that the statute is written narrowly enough not to be problematic. One issue being debated is just how one defines "annoying." I daresay many of us are annoyed whenever we get one of those happy talk emails from the CEO about "synergy" and "convergence of optimized customer relationships," but can we now have our boss arrested? Disclaimer: I'm a CEO, so perhaps I need to be worried.