I hate being sucked into this ongoing spam debate, but there are just
so many deeply wrong-headed memes floating around on this issue, and so
much obvious chance for government mischief and intrusion, that I
cannot resist adding more comments.
Item: State of California has just passed a law criminalizing certain
kinds of speech, that is, something some legislators and judges deem to
be "unwanted commercial messages." Other states passing similar laws.
Talk of RICO prosecutions, seizure of assets, the usual War on Some
Drugs kind of nonsense.
Item: How long before corporations cite spam laws to stop shareholders
and customers from organizing campaigns against the corporations? If
the CEO of McDonald's receives 10,000 letters from angry customers, is
this spam? (I'll bet some of the major uses of the spam laws is along
these lines, a kind of version of SLAPP suits (Strategic Lawsuits
Against Public Participation).
Item: Or is there some exemption for "political and social speech"? (I
haven't consulted the spam laws, but I assume there is some weasel
language about "nothing in this legislation shall be construed to
interfere with political advocacy....") And yet some of the most
obnoxious messages I receive are NRA spam messages--they and other
pro-gun groups have me on their mass mailing lists. Should they be
allowed to send this spam? Or will some causes be judged politically
incorrect? Is it OK to send thousands of spam pictures of aborted
foetuses to abortion advocates?
Item: How about religion?
Item: If either political advocacy or religion is exempted, then
spammers can insert religious messages into their spam. "Hello, I am
Monsignor Ubalong N'fasti, Chief Prelate of the Catholic Church in
Lagos, Nigeria. I am in urgent need of your assistance in continuing
God's work in our country..."
Item: Spammers can exploit _any_ exemption in the legislation for
religion, political advocacy, environmental advocacy, etc. Having
legislators or judges or ministerial-level bureaucrats deciding which
messages are "exempt from spam laws" and which are not would be a free
speech disaster.
And so on. There are no good reasons for letting government decide
which speech is political, which is advocacy, what is truth and what is
not.
--Tim May, Citizen-unit of of the once free United States
" The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the
blood of patriots & tyrants. "--Thomas Jefferson, 1787
