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Yet Another Anti-Spam Bill In U.S. Senate
ackthpt writes "Another bill has been introduced in the U.S. Senate, according to CNN/Technology, by Sens. Conrad Burns (R-Montana) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) Yahoo supports it, but DMA and AOL want to polish it a bit more. Version 0.9 beta would require States Attorney Generals to sue spammers on consumers behalf. (So long as I get some moola from these jerks, I'd be happy with that) My wishes are: craft a strong enough bill to stand 1st Amendment challenges and punish violators in the pocketbook enough and a few prosecutions will bring most of the domestic junk to a screeching halt. I tend to daydream about winning the lottery, too. Contact your Senators and Representative with your wishes, maybe this time something will get a move on."
Fuck, man. I just want it to stop.
Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.
Spammers annoy us, so we want them restricted.
We want free music, so we're against restrictive controls on digital media.
We're just like any other special interest group, there doesn't need to be any internal consistency in our stands on various issues.
NO CARRIER
You write...
"Sure I am tired of my spam but its not really an inconvenience, a couple clicks and it is gone. Isn't all this legislation going to start infringing on rights in the future if not now?"
No, because you're missing an important fact, and it can be summed up in three simple words; 'Private Property Rights.'
Contrary to popular belief, the Internet is not now, nor has it ever been, a truly "public" resource. It remains today, as it was in its humble beginnings, a vast collection of privately-owned computers, routers, switches, and data pipes.
The respective owners of all this stuff have, for the most part, graciously allowed others to use the resources in exchange for periodic fees appropriate to the type of usage. Spamming is not 'use;' Spamming is 'abuse.' Period.
Think about it; If the Internet really were a "public" resource, then there would be free or government-subsidized access for everyone, funded by Your Tax Dollars. Under such a setup, anyone who had a system connected to the 'net would likely be required to carry whatever traffic the government says they have to carry, especially if they're drawing government funds to keep their 'net presence operational.
I can state with absolute confidence that no one is paying me to maintain my servers. All the costs associated with maintaining my 'net presence -- electricity, bandwidth, maintenance and repairs -- are coming straight out of my pocket. No one's helping me; I do it because I want to, because I think the 'net can be a very valuable and useful tool in many ways.
As Jim Nitchalls once put it; "Free speech is not free when it comes postage-due," and that's exactly the problem with spam. When someone spams me, or one of my other users, they are literally stealing my resources for their own personal gain. I will not permit that under any conditions.
To that end, I make use of SPEWS, Spamhaus, other DNSBL's, and my own local blacklist to stop spam before it even enters the mail queue. Other Internet providers, motivated by user complaints, are taking the same measures. To many (myself included), the small risk of losing legitimate mail is worth it if it stems the flow of crap that threatens to overwhelm legitimate traffic to begin with.
If you're happy with spammers stealing your ISP's resources, and adding to your monthly costs as a result (it has been estimated that handling spam adds between $3-$5 to each Internet user's monthly bill), well, that's your privilege. However, don't ask me to accept any traffic from ISP's that are weak about terminating connectivity to their pet spammers, because I won't.
My servers, my bandwidth, my rules. Free speech does not apply in this context any more than it would if someone were to attach a big billboard to the side of your house without asking you, or arranging any form of compensation.
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies