IL Lawmakers Draft Bill to Prohibit Anonymity Online

Illinois Senate Bill 1614, sponsored by Sen. Ira Silverstein, from Legiscan:

Creates the Internet Posting Removal Act. Provides that a web site administrator shall, upon request, remove any posted comments posted by an anonymous poster unless the anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post and confirms that his or her IP address, legal name, and home address are accurate. Effective 90 days after becoming law.

Here is the top comment on the site:

We may have an early candidate for Worst Illinois Senate Bill of 2013.

First of all, Illinois does not have jurisdiction over the entirety of the internet. Illinois has jurisdiction over Illinois. Geographic location isn't all that important to the web hosting industry - for the most part, a datacenter in Chicago is just as good as one in, say, Dallas or Seattle. This means that the only thing this bill would actually succeed in doing is driving internet-related business (both individual online businesses, as well as the infrastructure that supports them, ie, webhosting companies and datacenters) out of the state.

Good job representing our interests there, Ira.

More importantly, though, this is plainly unconstitutional. It's absolutely embarrassing that any elected representative of US citizens would suggest that there should be a host of state-defined rules that must be met before one is allowed to exercise their first amendment right to free speech.

Source:http://blog.agupieware.com/2013/02/il-lawmakers-draft-bill-to-prohibit.html