Almost every day, a writer posts words on the letters page that faces this one — words that annoy people.

Pro-lifers annoy pro-choicers by saying abortion is murder. Democrats annoy Republicans by writing that George Bush should be impeached for war crimes. Skeptics annoy new Spokane Mayor Dennis Hession by questioning his right to office in the aftermath of the Jim West scandal. Cat lovers annoy dog lovers by claiming the superiority of their pets. And on and on. Citizens write in with confidence that their impassioned words are constitutionally protected.

Online, however, the right to protected speech has become somewhat murkier as the result of a sneaky rider placed in a bill to fund the Department of Justice and signed into law earlier this month by President Bush. Passed by a voice vote in the House and by a unanimous vote in the Senate, Section 113 of the bill, titled “Preventing Cyberstalking,” makes it illegal to anonymously annoy someone online, with hefty fines and up to two years in prison for those who do.

The rider sponsored by U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania, and others flies in the face of the First Amendment and the spirit of the Founding Fathers, who sometimes expressed themselves under pen names. If enforced, this new law will have a chilling effect on the vigorous debate that takes place anonymously in chatrooms, online forums and popular blogs – that is, until it’s ruled unconstitutional, as it should be.

The new section of law reads: “Whoever … utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet … without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person … who receives the communications … shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.”

Obviously, the intention of the section was to provide a legal remedy for individuals who are stalked online.

But good intentions, in this instance, made horrible law.

Much of the problem centers around the word “annoy.” Webster’s dictionary defines the word as “to irritate, bother, or make somewhat angry, as by a repeated action, noise, etc.” In Cyberspace, where it’s simple to establish a Web log (or blog) site and there’s no limit to the number of times you can post, it’s easy to be annoying. Some set up sites with the intention of being annoying. David Lat, a federal prosecutor in New Jersey, anonymously operated a Web site for 18 months that provided Web gossip on the judiciary and once included a list of the “superhotties” of the bench.

Lat could be prosecuted under the new law. So could some readers who have posted anonymous comments on many of the in-house and community blogs featured in The Spokesman-Review online edition. Anonymity isn’t welcome on most newspaper letters pages. But it is a staple of the evolving Internet world. Aficionados contend that it fosters frank discussions of topics including political issues.

Maybe that’s what Congress and the president are trying to prevent.