California outlaws online impersonation

It's hard to believe that a federal law against buying too much Claritin-D passed before even a single state passed a law against impersonating folks on the Internet. But after the hard frost of 28 years of Republican misrule, here we are.

California has a new law making it illegal to fraudulently impersonate other actual people online. This long-overdue legislation carries fines of up to $1,000 and up to a year in jail.

Actually, malicious impersonation should have already been covered by existing laws against fraud, harassment, and racketeering. But impersonators and their apologists cried that this would have violated their True Free Speach Now (tm). Judging by the way they've acted in years past, they truly believe they have a birthright to carry out such fraud, so who truly expects the new law to be enforced with the gusto it deserves?

Either way, if California lawmakers hadn't procrastinated so much, this law could have come in mighty handy if it was on the books years ago. But I guess enacting punitive welfare "reform" laws was more important to them.

(Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/01/02/businessinsider-california-makes-it-illegal-to-impersonate-people-online-2011-1.DTL)