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."

Comments

sure anti-spam but...

[eenglish_ca]

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?

Re:sure anti-spam but...

[KC7GR]

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.

What is this going to do?

[Blaine Hilton]

How is this going to stop them in OTHER countries? How much spam is really sent from within the US of A?

Re:What is this going to do?

[Zeebs]

Well two words, Regime Change. Countries who posess weapons of mass annoyance will be DDOS'd off the political map.

Re:What is this going to do?

[villain170]

Let's just get Carnivore to take out all the spam from everywhere!

This is all fine and dandy but...

[cliffy2000]

Well, we (the collective /. crowd, myself included) seem to be in favor of an anti-spam bill. However, we're polarized against the RIAA, another group dedicated to stopping an quasi-illegal act (music theft, if you can call it that). Now, I'm not saying that the RIAA is justified in their methods or anything, but if they are violating first amendment rights, certainly an anti-spam bill would violate said rights. Can someone explain this to me? Because there are certainly moral ambiguities for both issues.

Re:This is all fine and dandy but...

[danoatvulaw]

An anti-spam bill would not necessarially infringe on first amendment rights, provided the government could show enough of a substantial interest in regulating the speech. That I don't think will be much of a problem. Tailoring it sufficiently so as to only encompass spam.. thats another matter. There the goverment might just well run into an overbreadth problem, but if they can show that their way is the only way to accomplish their goal, then it will be upheld. Commercial speech is protected under the First Amendment just like personal speech is, except to a lesser degree.

The RIAA action, at least to me, doesn't implicate first amendment protection in the slightest. The constitution only applies to state actors, and the RIAA isn't one of them. The RIAA is attempting to enforce their rights through the copyright clause, to which the first amendment really isn't going to provide a defense to piracy. Fair use yes, First Amendment No. Trust me, I hate the RIAA just like the rest of us, and I don't think that downloading mp3's is that big a loss to them, but it is violating the law, and is punishable.

danoatvulaw
Villanova Law School class of 04.

Re:This is all fine and dandy but...

[Chester K]

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.

Happy if you get "Moolah"?

[Burgundy Advocate]

Fuck, man. I just want it to stop.

State attorney generals

[OYAHHH]

Basically,

Having SAGs being the only ones who can sue means that nothing will happen. Your elected representatives are crafting a feel good bill.

Now that Iraq's done,

[sstory]

We need Operation Emailer Freedom wherein we shoot tomahawk cruise missiles at spammers, have Delta Force sneak in spammers' houses and 'neutralize' them, and issue sanctions on rogue ISPs which provide safe haven for spammers.

Spam is theft, Senate bill no good

[bratgrrl]

Spam is theft of services; every Internet user subsidizes spammers. We pay for our bandwidth, connectivity, storage, and processing power. Spammers pay minimal fees for sending their crap to millions of unwilling recipients. They do not pay the true cost of distributing their crap, as do senders of paper junk mail.

Spammers do not pay for the millions of dollars spent by ISPs and network admins who have to deal with the floods of spew.

Spam is a denial of service attack; anyone who runs their own mail servers sees relentless probes and re-sends. It's also DOS when you have to wait for a bunch of shit to download before you can get to your legitimate mail.

Spammers are vandals; they ruin every goddam thing they touch.

There are no Constitutional issues here; none of us are required to listen to anyone's speech, none of us are required to fund the distribution of their speech.

This Senate bill is crap, it's no good, it merely serves to legitimize spam. It's not good enough to be able to filter it more easily, it must be stopped at the source. Bigger and better spam filters is like bigger and better water filters; wouldn't it be better to get clean water from the source?

Please read this excellent essay, "Thank The Spammers" http://www.spamreaper.com/thankspammers.html