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Fighting Spam With A 17th Century Law
A reader writes "Here is an interesting article which describes how a law from the year 1610 could make Spam illegal in Australia. The same story in german can be found here." Actually, since the law stems from King James I (the VI, if you are Scottish), as such, could be held British Commonwealth wide.
Why only go back 400 years? Let's fight spam with the Magna Carta:
All Merchants (if they were not openly prohibited before) shall have their safe and sure Conduct to depart out of England, to come into England, to tarry in, and go through England, as well by Land as by Water, to buy and sell without any manner of evil Tolts, by the old and rightful Customs, except in Time of War.
See, spammers are merchants selling stuff, but not by the old and rightful Customs, in peacetime. It works, and the stretch is... just as rubbery.
Bring some 1297 smack down on em. It should be just as effective.
By the same logic, the problem with breaking and entering is not the burglars, but rather the homeowner who doesn't install enough locks and anti-burglar alarms. I don't buy that.
.com domain. It *will* get probes by spammers trying to send a email to "joe@somecompany.com"
Why should I have to make it harder for people to legitimatley contact me, by for instance obscuring my email address on my web page [well, actually my webpage is down, so don't click that link]?
Anyway, spammers can guess your address even if it has never been published anywhere. Try to set up a mail server acting as a MX for some newly registered
I've been suggesting this approach for years (but wihout the bungled reporting). When the spam enters your system, it exerts physical dominion over your chattels (the bits, the head mechanism, draws additional power, etc.). Trespass clearly applies, just as when some dolt lifts you windshield wiper to insert an ad.
The reporting is a bit mish-mashed, though: Common Law comes from the courts, yet it reports trespass as coming from a particular king (and it would have to have been a king *and* parliament).
I've always assumed trespass to chattels to be Common Law, not a statute, but I'm not willing to spend a half a day looking it up . . . my guess is that the seminal cases in the courts date to his reign, and possibly were decided by the high court known as "the King's Bench," which followed him about England hearing cases & appeals . .
hawk, esq.
There was this thing called a "Revolution" a few hundred years ago, which means the American colonies threw off Brittish rule and formed a new government, with new laws and such.
No shit, really?!?
Look. Just because we've formed a new country and disconnected ourselves from England doesn't mean that we don't accept some of her principles of law. I believe, for example, that much of US property law is derived from English law, though I'm having a devil of a time verifying any of this online right now. Which is why I asked if anyone here could comment on it.
No, we are not *bound* by England's laws. We certainly can't point to new laws in the British Commonwealth as precedent for our own. But we grew out of the British system -- our colonial laws were British laws, and our Constitution was written by people who'd grown up accustomed to those laws. It's my understanding that, in cases where current law is unclear or ambiguous, the courts have looked back to pre-colonial laws and practices for prececent.
Sheesh.
in cases where current law is unclear or ambiguous, the courts have looked back to pre-colonial laws and practices for prececent.
Supreme Court rulings cite common law all the time, sometime where existing law is ambiguous and sometime to reinforce existing interpretations.
See, for example, WASHINGTON et al. v. GLUCKSBERG et al.. In this case, which asserted a 14th Amendment right to assisted suicide, Judge Rehnquist wrote: "More specifically, for over 700 years, the Anglo American common law tradition has punished or otherwise disapproved of both suicide and assisting suicide." He cites a 13th century legal treatise and Blackstone Commentaries from the 18th century.
Justice Scalia, concurring, writes: "We now inquire whether this asserted right has any place in our Nation's traditions. Here ... we are confronted with a consistent and almost universal tradition that has long rejected the asserted right, and continues explicitly to reject it today, even for terminally ill, mentally competent adults. To hold for respondents, we would have to reverse centuries of legal doctrine and practice..."
In effect, he makes an appeal to common law to justify a narrow interpretation of the 14th Amendment instead of broadening it.