My point in the other comment was that in the case this legislation is named after, the jury DID find it introlerable, and found the defendant not guilty. However, she was still convicted by a judge, due to arguments that directly contradict the Bill of Rights.
I agree that there's a big difference between true harassment / slander and your average blog, but they're taking way too much power with this legislation. If you think that problems like this don't backfire, I'd refer you to the legal history behind the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990. The Commerce Clause of the constitution was used to argue that Congress couldn't make it illegal to take a gun into a public school. Yes, practically everybody agrees kids shouldn't take guns to school. So doesn't it scare you that lawyers and judges took such a broad interpretation to contradict the obvious, and it worked?
Banning guns in schools works, now we just need to tell the young psychopaths that they must take their violence elsewhere.
"(a) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."
There are legal thresholds for intent and severity which would have to be met before any criminal case would stick. Everyone keeps focusing on the 'electronic means' as if the act of closing a circuit is the focus of the legislation, rather than a sustained campaign of personal attack which a jury would find intolerable.
Those bleating that Sanchez doesn't understand the internet seem to have an extremely poor grasp of the legislative process and the scope and history of the first amendment, which is not invalidated by any given piece of legislation.