Jack Thompson Spams Utah Senate, May Face Legal Action

eldavojohn writes "Yesterday, GamePolitics ran an interesting story about the Utah Senate President threatening Jack Thompson with the CAN-SPAM Act. You might recall Utah being Jack's last hope and hold-out after being disbarred in Florida and more or less made a mockery everywhere else. Well, from Utah's Senate Site, we get the picture of what Jack is up to now: spamming his last friends on the planet. The Salt Lake Tribune is reporting on Senate President Michael Waddoups' statements: 'I asked you before to remove me from your mailing list. I supported your bill but because of the harassment will not again. If I am not removed, I will turn you over to the AG for legal action.' The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Waddoups confirmed on Tuesday that he would attempt to pursue legal action under the federal CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 against Jack Thompson."

Comments

Finally

[thefear]

Will a spammer finally be prosecuted? It seems to me like a lot of these spam suites just don't stick

Re:Finally

[wojtalsd]

Hoping so, Since this is pretty much his last stand and it failed, it would be a relieve to never hear his name again.

Re:Finally

[fictionpuss]

You know, not *everything* written about Jack Thompson is true. A while back I went to the trouble of tracking down his email address to quiz him over some outrageous comment.

I was somewhat surprised, but more disappointed to receive a civil and level-headed response.

Re:Finally

[KDR_11k]

I do assume that a court record describes things that actually happened and you should try reading the record of his disbarrment trial.

Re:Finally

[zoips]

And I wrote him an email asking a few questions and he responded by calling me sweety and ranting off-topic. What's your point?

Re:Finally

[DJRumpy]

This guy isn't a spammer in the typical sense. He's a hack 'lawyer' that's been permanently disbarred in Florida for false statements, disparaging remarks, and humiliating litigants.

He's tried to get music banned due to explicit content, violent video games banned because they incite violence, video games declared as pornography, etc., etc., etc. You know they type. More concerned about everyone else's business rather than minding his own.

He's essentially wants to ensure that everyone else lives to his own moral standards regardless of their beliefs or how they want to raise their children.

He's just a big born-again right wing religious wack job for lack of a better term. This latest spam suit is just his latest 'label' among many.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi Jack! Nice of you to join us!

Re:Finally

[fictionpuss]

My point was summed up quite succinctly in the first sentence. But I forgot to qualify it by the fact that he denied the particular quote attributed to him. As it was by the Daily Mail newspaper, who neglected to respond, I give him the benefit of the doubt.

While I don't suggest that any particular negative account of him is untrue, since he has become such a caricature it's easy, though unfair, to assume that everything written about him is true. In this case, at least, it appeared to be false.

Re:Finally

[nomadic]

This guy isn't a spammer in the typical sense. He's a hack 'lawyer' that's been permanently disbarred in Florida for false statements, disparaging remarks, and humiliating litigants.

It was funny, right after being disbarred he sent a long, impassioned letter to all of the rest of us in the Florida Bar asking us to rally around him. I always wondered if anyone did.

Re:Finally

[DJRumpy]

Guessing from the info online about him, I'd say he's about out of friends, or even anyone that will tolerate him.

Re:Finally

[PitaBred]

That veneer of lucidity is the only thing that got him his notoriety. Most crazy people that aren't locked up can pretend to be sane for long enough to stay mostly out of trouble.

Re:Finally

[space_hippy]

+1

If only I had mod points. Thank you for phrasing this more eloquently than I ever could.

Re:Finally

[kingcobra0128]

To me the real issue is not that Jack Thompson spammed the senate but the fact he is pushing his bill. I think we as a people should be able to decide what our kids play and watch not have and intermediate like the US government. This is bad for consumers, Game developers, Game Distributors, and Stores. Why lets someone like this run our lives.

Re:Finally

[bigbigbison]

I remember Jacko denying that particular quote and it is certainly possible that he did not say that. However, he has lied and exaggerated before so there is no reason to believe that he is not lying about that as well. Jacko's pattern is to appear rational and sane in national media or in isolation and only reveal his true colors online

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, that's uncommon. From his works I've seen online, I'd say he's as you say "civil and level-headed" like 10% of the time.. and a complete nutter the other 90%, whether provoked or not.

          Most of what is said about him online is true and fully deserved.

Re:Finally

[PRMan]

He's just a big born-again right wing religious wack job

Hate much?

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Plenty of complete psychopaths exhibit moments of lucidity where they appear completely normal *IF* you choose to disregard all their disturbing past behavior.

Re:Finally

[DJRumpy]

As a matter of fact, I do. I'm frankly sick of the right wing and what they've done to this country the last 8 years. It's about time the left started getting vocal again so we aren't drowned out by the 'righteous'.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

He's just a big born-again right wing religious wack job

Or to put it another way, an american.

Re:Finally

[commodore64_love]

Don't confuse the "right wing" with the religious nutjobs. They are control freaks, whereas most of us in the right wing don't care if you smoke marijuana while watching tv, have orgies in your bedroom, or worship pagan gods.

We believe in small government and lots of individual liberty.

Re:Finally

[DJRumpy]

Holy crap where have you guys beenand why did you let them take over your party so completely. I actually like a lot of the ideals in the republican party but I haven't seen any of them in years. It's become a total lip service to their ideals while they are jerking everyone off with the other hand.

Hopefully they'll get back to making sense and leave this other nonsense behind them.

Re:Finally

[Darby]

It's about time the left started getting vocal again so we aren't drowned out by the 'righteous'

Hell, it's about time the center started getting vocal to drown out the "righteous" scumbags *and* the left wing loonies. This country was founded entirely on the principles of Liberalism. The left and right are *by fucking definition* the sworn enemires of Liberalism, therefore people on the left or the right are the enemies of America.

Re:Finally

[Darby]

Don't confuse the "right wing" with the religious nutjobs. They are control freaks, whereas most of us in the right wing don't care if you smoke marijuana while watching tv, have orgies in your bedroom, or worship pagan gods.

We believe in small government and lots of individual liberty.

Oh good lord, the insane idiocy of some people, sorry, but your statement *is* both insane and idiotic, so don't blame me for pointing it out.

The right is *by definition* control freaks. By definition the right are fans of big government. Hell, theocratic feudalism is the canonical right wing government. You can not have a small right wing government. You can have a *Liberal* government which is what you are attempting to describe as "right wing", but that's the center.

Here's the breakdown so hopefully you quit repeating this idiotic nonsense which is pure fox news propaganda:

Liberalism: "We hold this truth to be self evident, that all men are created equal".

Left: Fundamentally agrees with that one sentence description of Liberalism, but goes further and thinks the power of the state should be used against the individual to enforce that equality.

Right: Fundamentally disagrees with that sentence and feels instead that certain elites are born superior to the masses (generally based on race or religion) and that the power of the state should be used against the individual in order to enforce that inequality.

Liberalism, of course, doesn't think the power of the state should be used against the individual *at all*.

So, no it is not at all in any way shape or form the case that Left = big government and Right = small government. That you would even say something that obviously stupid is really pretty fucking sad.

Hell look at America today. Far extreme right wing government since the 80s and we're robbing the citizens blind to pay the already wealthy and powerful for their *incompetence*. That is pure 100% right wing in every aspect by definition. That's what the right wing is, Sparky, and that's what ther right wing has always been. That you've been duped into pretending that Liberalism is magically the right now and that the right just fucking vanished into thin air as you absolutely are claiming is really deeply pathetic. With your stupid blatantly false definitions, you do not even have a word in your vocabulary to describe your own fucking government. Think long and hard about that fact, Sparky.

Seriously, please pull your head out of your ass and at least learn what the fucking words you use to describe yourself even mean. You're a Classical Liberal through and through if your description of what you believe is honest, and that means that the right is diametrically opposed to everything you believe in by fucking definition.

Re:Finally

[Darby]

I actually like a lot of the ideals in the republican party but I haven't seen any of them in years. It's become a total lip service to their ideals while they are jerking everyone off with the other hand.

I'm pushing 40, and that Republican party hasn't existed at any point in my life. If you've ever seen it, you must be pretty old by now, Grandpa ;-)

Re:Finally

[DJRumpy]

lol..actually I'm over 40, and yes I'm a grandpa.

Re:Finally

[mdwh2]

The right is *by definition* control freaks. By definition the right are fans of big government. Hell, theocratic feudalism is the canonical right wing government. You can not have a small right wing government.

Nope, right wing economically simply means things such as capitalism, private control of the means of production and so on - as opposed to left wing, which is ideas such as socialism, state funded production, and so on.

Quite how you get from that to "big government", I frankly I have no idea. Laissez-faire capitalism and libertarianism are right wing with small Government. Communism would be an example of left wing with big Government.

You can have a *Liberal* government which is what you are attempting to describe as "right wing", but that's the center.

Liberal - as opposed to authoritarianism - is a independent axis to being economically left or right wing. You could be liberal centre, liberal left wing, or liberal right wing.

I suspect you are confusing concepts such as right-wing and liberal, with the fact that some people have overloaded these terms to mean very specific things. So some people use right-wing to mean authoritarianism - but other people use left-wing in the same sense.

I know it's nice to pretend that everyone's views can be pigeon-holed into a one dimensional axis, so that you can argue against straw men, but the real world doesn't work that way.

Left: Fundamentally agrees with that one sentence description of Liberalism, but goes further and thinks the power of the state should be used against the individual to enforce that equality.

And that isn't "big government"?

Right: Fundamentally disagrees with that sentence and feels instead that certain elites are born superior to the masses (generally based on race or religion) and that the power of the state should be used against the individual in order to enforce that inequality.

That's one description of "The Right" as used by some in the United States, but it certainly does not cover right wing views in general, especially outside of the US.

Liberalism, of course, doesn't think the power of the state should be used against the individual *at all*.

This is getting more towards anarchism, which can be left wing (e.g., anarcho-communism) or right wing (e.g., anarcho-capitalism).

Re:Finally

[Darby]

Nope, right wing economically simply means things such as capitalism, private control of the means of production and so on - as opposed to left wing, which is ideas such as socialism, state funded production, and so on.

No, it does not. You described *Liberalism*. The right is diametrically opposed to liberalism.
Right wing economically means corporate control of the government, the current bailout scam we're seeing, feudalism, threocracy, corporatism, fascism etc.

If you're that far out of touch with reality, that you not only think something that stupid, but you spout it out in public forums then I doubt you'll actually have nay interest in knowing what you're talking about though, so I doubt this is worth my time to even try and help you learn to think.

Quite how you get from that to "big government", I frankly I have no idea. Laissez-faire capitalism and libertarianism are right wing with small Government. Communism would be an example of left wing with big Government.

I don't You described *Liberalism* That is not the right wing. In your deeply ignorant and stupid set of definitions, there isn't a word left to describe what actually is the right wing. Hell, where do the massive corporate bailouts fit into your ignorant idiocy? Hot tip, idiot, you've defined our current reality out of existence..or at least left us with no word to describe our current form of government.

Now, pull your head out of your ass for a minute and think that through. Now think about the fact that it's easily described using those words as if they actually meant what they've always meant.

Seriously, it's that easy to realize how fucking stupid your redefinitions of these concepts are.

Nazi Germany, Franco's Spain Mussolini's Italy are all examples of right wing big government. You can't have an authoritarian pro elite small government, idiot. That requires a big government to rob the masses of the people to further enrich the already rich, idiot. That's what the right wing is, you fucking ignorant fool. Pull your head out of your ass and go figure out where the terms left and right came from you ignorant fool.

Liberal - as opposed to authoritarianism - is a independent axis to being economically left or right wing. You could be liberal centre, liberal left wing, or liberal right wing.

Only if you go with the Nolan chart which is an idiotic way to look at things as it takes Hitler and Stalin and lumps them together as the same thing, when they are polar opposite extremes in reality.

Again, you are using definitions that do not map at all to reality. That is idiotic.

I suspect you are confusing concepts such as right-wing and liberal, with the fact that some people have overloaded these terms to mean very specific things. So some people use right-wing to mean authoritarianism - but other people use left-wing in the same sense.

No, that would be you who is doing that.

I'm using the terms for what they mean. Left and right *are* both authoritarian by definition and always have been, neither can achieve their goals without authoritarianism. So anybody, like yourself, who tries to redefine these terms to pretend that one of these evils is good and the other is the only evil (Think, Sparky. This is what you are doing, and it is all that can be accomplished by what you're doing. You sure as hell cannot have a rational discussion about the current state of the US government using your definitions as you have redefined the necessary terms) has proven themselves to be deeply ignorant.

I know it's nice to pretend that everyone's views can be pigeon-holed into a one dimensional axis, so that you can argue against straw men, but the real world doesn't work that way.

It's not one dimensional, idiot. Pull your head out of your ass, and actually try applying the definitions of those terms to reality. You will see immediately that your de

Re:Finally

[Rip Dick]

Although that is somewhat comforting to hear, it's disingenuous of the right wing to try to distance themselves from the same groups they pander to so fervently during election years.

Re:Finally

[Darby]

;-)

Low lifes

[Pig Hogger]

Is there any lower life form than a spammer?

We used to think that Thompson was lower than a spammer, but we're not so sure nowadays...

Re:Low lifes

[Shakrai]

Is there any lower life form than a spammer?

Rapists, murders and Yankees fans all come to mind ;)

Re:Low lifes

[TheLinuxSRC]

I think the problem is that not only is this guy Jack Thompson, but he is also a spammer. That is akin to a division by zero or adding multiple infinities - the human mind simply cannot comprehend that level of low.

Re:Low lifes

[Anonymous Coward]

Pittsburgh fans. Oh wait, you already said rapists and murderers...

Re:Low lifes

[Amazing Quantum Man]

No, Yankee fans are merely cocky and arrogant. You're looking for Red Sox fans.

ObDisclaimer: IANA Yankee Fan.

Re:Low lifes

[BigDork1001]

You made a mistake... Yankees fans should be first on that list.

Mets are by far the better NY team. B-Mets home-opener day is tomorrow! Too bad I'm not in Bingo to go cheer them on.

Re:Low lifes

[Anonymous Coward]

it was once said that the greatest threat to a cause is the followers of that cause.

Re:Low lifes

[Idiomatick]

Not really relevant but adding multiple infinities is perfectly acceptable and sometimes useful. I take it you've never had an advanced Calculus class.

Re:Low lifes

[icannotthinkofaname]

Disclaimer: We in Pittsburgh are only rapists and murderers in the sense of how we play our football games. During football games, our team rapes and murders the other team, but only in the figurative sense. We do not condone literal rape or murder, and both are criminal actions in our city.

Re:Low lifes

[icannotthinkofaname]

Is there any lower life form than a spammer?

Yes. Those users who actually care that your penis and breasts are too small, and actually want to sell you enhancement products.

Also, there's that one Nigerian guy who is really offering you the money for real.

Re:Low lifes

[Anonymous Coward]

That kind of humor is just uncalled for... The quality of this site has really gone down.

You probably use Emacs.

Re:Low lifes

[WCguru42]

Ah, advanced Calculus, where some infinities aren't quite as big as other infinities. That, like much of semiconductor physics, I take on faith and trust that smarter people have done their work correctly.

Re:Low lifes

[DeskLazer]

amen brother. I thought the fans in philadelphia and boston/NE were worse. NY does take the cake though.

Re:Low lifes

[RedHelix]

Clearly you've never been to Boston. Red Sox fans are just drunks, but for the most part relatively harmless.
Meanwhile, you can't put on a Sox hat and walk three blocks in NYC without being accosted. I know from firsthand experience; last time I was in NYC, a complete stranger bloodied my nose in front of the Roosevelt, screaming "Go back to Boston." So I did!

Re:Low lifes

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that adding multiple infinities doesn't even get you a larger infinity.

Re:Low lifes

[Shakrai]

Mets are by far the better NY team. B-Mets home-opener day is tomorrow! Too bad I'm not in Bingo to go cheer them on.

I'll be there :)

Re:Low lifes

[Thinboy00]

cardinality (~size) of the set of all natural numbers (counting numbers) == cardinality of the set of all integers. All natural numbers are integers, but not vice-versa.

Re:Low lifes

[Shakrai]

last time I was in NYC, a complete stranger bloodied my nose in front of the Roosevelt, screaming "Go back to Boston." So I did!

The last time that happened to me I pepper sprayed the bastard before he could bloody my nose ;) I was also the asshole that wore a Red Sox cap (even though the Mets are really my team) to the local Yankees bar when the Yanks were in the process of blowing Game 7 after a 3-0 series lead. That didn't win me any fans either. 26 (or is it 27?) world series rings and they still can't take a joke....

Re:Low lifes

[osu-neko]

Not really relevant but adding multiple infinities is perfectly acceptable and sometimes useful. I take it you've never had an advanced Calculus class.

I take it you're badly in need of a remedial reading class. GP never said adding infinities was unacceptable or not useful, he was talking about the human capacity to comprehend levels of high/low. People can add trillions, too, and it's frequently required in economics. It's still a number too large to really comprehend, in the way one can grasp a dozen or a hundred. Taking an advanced Calculus class does nothing to change this, so assuming GP hadn't taken calculus would seem to indicate you simply failed to grasp what he was saying...

Re:Low lifes

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Angels fan...

No. What I'm talking about is Yanks fans come into your stadium and cheer the Yankees. They're not drunk and obnoxious, and if the Yanks win, they're like, "We won. Deal with it".

Red Sox fans come into your stadium and cheer the Sox. They're drunk and obnoxious, and if the Sox win, they're like, "We won! Why aren't you happy for us?"

Re:Low lifes

[Shakrai]

Angels fan...

I'm sorry ;) (j/k)

No. What I'm talking about is Yanks fans come into your stadium and cheer the Yankees. They're not drunk and obnoxious

You've obviously never been to Shea Stadium (may it RIP) during the Subway Series. Yankees fans can be pretty obnoxious in sufficient numbers with a sufficient supply of beer.

Red Sox fans come into your stadium and cheer the Sox. They're drunk and obnoxious, and if the Sox win, they're like, "We won! Why aren't you happy for us?"

As a Mets fan I can silence this with one word: 1986 ;)

Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.

Amen.....

Re:Low lifes

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there any lower life form than a spammer?

Rapists, murders and Yankees fans all come to mind ;)

Yankee Fans, eh? I'm with you on that.

Re:Low lifes

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is fine until the LHC creates a black hole that swallows the solar system because of a rounding error...

Re:Low lifes

[sloth10k]

Well, we need something to do during baseball season...

Re:Low lifes

[Anonymous Coward]

You probably use Emacs.

Vi FTW!

Re:Low lifes

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. I was walking through Boston with a Yankees shirt(I am a Yankees fan, but will cheer the Mets on as well), and got harassed by a group of superfans which escalated into one of those fuckers throwing a bottle at me. Said bottle struck me in the head.

Of course, they're still less frightening than Patriots fans, whom I will not even approach.

Despite all this, if the Cubs ever make it to the series, I want them to win. They really need it.

Re:Low lifes

[Hurricane78]

Imagine 10 years from now. Jack Tompson is on drugs, looks like this, is hunted for raping and murdering, and gets caught, because he spammed the very police squad that chased him.

Wait for it. I will say "I told ya so!". :D

Re:Low lifes

[slimjim8094]

True that. When the Yankees won the series, like all twenty times, nobody went absolutely nuts (at least, not in public).

But look, the Red Sox win one lousy time and they're out flipping cars over.

(Yankees fan, but wondering about the choice...)

Re:Low lifes

[FiveDozenWhales]

Not really calculus, but algebra.

Re:Low lifes

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, JT will look like Amy Winehouse?

She's hot, even when she's off her face.

Re:Low lifes

[lord_sarpedon]

Seriously - what the fuck is wrong with you people?

People getting attacked on the street for wearing the wrong cap? Dying by a team that has nothing to do with you, save for being the closest? I'm sure I'll catch you all in another thread pontificating about the evils of that "us versus them" mentality so pervasive today - but only in those lesser monkey-folk. Oh, those wretched tribal instincts. Quaint even! And what are you, then, but a mass of liquored hypocrites.

I see the same shit with street gangs -- at least they thrash about in some kind of actual competition, not a vicarious chest-pounding.

Re:Low lifes

[Anonymous Coward]

I take on faith and trust that smarter people have done their work correctly.

Your doomed to failure.

Re:Low lifes

[Darby]

Ah, advanced Calculus, where some infinities aren't quite as big as other infinities. That, like much of semiconductor physics, I take on faith and trust that smarter people have done their work correctly.

Set Theory, not Calculus. The fact is used in every branch of mathematics, but it's a fact of set theory.
Oh, and by "advanced Calculus", you probably really mean Analysis.

Hope this helps you have a more pedantic day!

Re:Low lifes

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Despite all this, if the Cubs ever make it to the series, I want them to win. They really need it.

Are you insane? One of the two signs of the Apocalypse has already happened (twice -- the BoSox winning). If the Cubs win, then the end of the world is at hand!

Now that I think of it, I guess that means I have to predict the Cubs winning the Series in 2012. You heard it here first, folks!

Re:Low lifes

[Shakrai]

Dying by a team that has nothing to do with you, save for being the closest? I'm sure I'll catch you all in another thread pontificating about the evils of that "us versus them" mentality so pervasive today - but only in those lesser monkey-folk.

I didn't think it was possible to play the race card in a conversation about sports rivalries. Well done sir.

Also, fuck you ;)

Re:Low lifes

[lord_sarpedon]

It's a little sad that you managed to interpret it that way. I'll chalk it up to some level of localized prejudice - a unique flavor, in fact. I still haven't figured it out after several searches.

Re:Low lifes

[Shakrai]

How else should I interpret it?

I'm sure I'll catch you all in another thread pontificating about the evils of that "us versus them" mentality so pervasive today - but only in those lesser monkey-folk.

Hmm....

So, what was it?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Did he manage to spam them with anything interesting? I figure that, if this guy can somehow think that putting porn in a court filing is a good idea, anything is possible when he gets on the internet.

Re:So, what was it?

[gmack]

These tactics remind me of a trick on how to check out other girls with your significant other present: feigned outrage.

"Wow look at her shes wearing almost nothing at all. Will you look at that top? You can almost see right down her shirt. And look at those pants! They are so tight they show everything. Disgusting isn't it?"

The simple fact is, if you don't like something, the natural human tendency is to stop looking at it.

Meanwhile this guy has played enough GTA to find the lap dance clip and went browsing through the adult section of a gay website to find a picture to include in his legal filings?

Re:So, what was it?

[WCguru42]

These tactics remind me of a trick on how to check out other girls with your significant other present: feigned outrage.

"Wow look at her shes wearing almost nothing at all. Will you look at that top? You can almost see right down her shirt. And look at those pants! They are so tight they show everything. Disgusting isn't it?"

And that actually worked for you? No offense, but you need to find smarter women to date.

Re:So, what was it?

[nevillethedevil]

Not if he wants to keep looking at other women he doesn't.

Re:So, what was it?

[mooingyak]

And that actually worked for you? No offense, but you need to find smarter women to date.

.... or not.

Re:So, what was it?

[SpecBear]

You can't overdo it, and you have to tailor your approach to the woman your dealing with. My previous girlfriend responded quite well to me making snide comments about other women, but she would have seen right through feigned outrage.

My current girlfriend is bi. That's a much better solution to the problem.

Re:So, what was it?

[Foobar of Borg]

I figure that, if this guy can somehow think that putting porn in a court filing is a good idea

It wasn't just porn, but gay porn. He was basically trying to shock the judge. Of course, considering that he actually took the time to collect and organize a collection of gay porn says a lot about the guy. Not that there's anything wrong with it, mind you. It's just that he really should come out of the closet.

Re:So, what was it?

[karnal]

Two words: train wreck.

Re:So, what was it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot. Date. Does not compute.

Re:So, what was it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oops... as stupid as this sounds I meant to mod you +1 Insightful but clicked the wrong mod choice.

Re:So, what was it?

[Anonymous Coward]

No offense, but you need to find smarter women to date.

 
Err...why?

Re:So, what was it?

[JustNilt]

My current girlfriend is bi. That's a much better solution to the problem.

An excellent point that bears repeating. There is nothing in the world quite like having your wife point out a beautiful woman and verbally rating them as to how do-able they are. It's good to be lucky, sometimes. I keep worrying I'll have to pay back this particular karma in a really bad accident or something.

Re:So, what was it?

[martas]

"The simple fact is, if you don't like something, the natural human tendency is to stop looking at it."
That's not true. Every time I blow my nose, I have to stop and admire the stuff that came out of there. And trust me, I don't like looking at it... I just can't look away.

What a nice thought

[courtjester801]

Wish I could sue Waddoups for being such a douche.

Only in Utah

[FlyByPC]

A guy sends out spam with images of scantily-clad women -- and THIS, not his Quixotic crusade against everything that offends him, is a reason for using the Can-SPAM act against him?

Jack Thompson actually went up a notch in my estimation, now that I've heard he's sending out pr0n emails. (His approval rating in my book is now at 1%. Way to go, Jack!!)

...but yeah, sic 'im, guys. About bloody time.

Re:Only in Utah

[Abreu]

Jack Thompson actually went up a notch in my estimation, now that I've heard he's sending out pr0n emails. (His approval rating in my book is now at 1%. Way to go, Jack!!)

Same here... Hey, that's a 100% improvement! Keep it up!

Re:Only in Utah

[Anonymous Coward]

0% to 1% is an infinite improvement.

Re:Only in Utah

[Thinboy00]

Obviously the GP meant that it was originally at .5% (can't figure out the html entity/charmap entry for the 1/2 glyph, and Slashdot doesn't work well with my compose key).

Re:Only in Utah

[Anonymous Coward]

½ - ½ for reference ;)

It's guys like him who give lawyers a bad name

[jonaskoelker]

Per subject: it's guys like Jack Thompson who give lawyers a bad name.

He has lost his mission, he has lost his friends, and what does he do---piss away the last he had.

Truly this is the time to quote Leia: the more you tighten your grip, the more systems will slip through your fingers.

Soon, all Jack will have left is an empty clenched fist, which he will be free to wave at anyone passing by his soap box.

May it be put on a deserted island.

Now, let's all play a game with tits and guns! :D

Re:It's guys like him who give lawyers a bad name

[Bieeanda]

If he's sending suggestive e-mails, then he's probably going to end up with one thing in his clenched fist...

Re:It's guys like him who give lawyers a bad name

[Chris Burke]

Soon, all Jack will have left is an empty clenched fist, which he will be free to wave at anyone passing by his refrigerator box.

Just wishful thinking on my part...

Re:It's guys like him who give lawyers a bad name

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, let's all play a game with tits and guns! :D

How about guns and naked zombie butts? I love left 4 dead.

Re:It's guys like him who give lawyers a bad name

[Hatta]

No it's not. Jack Thompson is clearly insane. It's the rational and ruthless lawyers that give lawyers a bad name. It's guys like this who give lawyers a bad name.

Re:It's guys like him who give lawyers a bad name

[geminidomino]

I prefer guns and (almost) naked live-chick butts. Onechanbara ftw.

Re:It's guys like him who give lawyers a bad name

[Thinboy00]

No shit!

This is just more proof

[Spazztastic]

This is just more proof that Jack Thompson, much like Steve Balmer, was put on this earth to be an infinite source of entertainment. As long as people like Jack try to attack violent video games and remove them from the shelves, they will never succeed. His tactics of idiocy and harassment don't seem to work.

I wonder if anybody has ever pointed him to /. and everybody who hates him...

Re:This is just more proof

[sheph]

I'm sure he spends all his time worying about what slashdot thinks about him (um, not). Gimme a break.

Re:This is just more proof

[stoned_hamster]

I wonder if anybody has ever pointed him to /. and everybody who hates him...

I wonder. I recently passed some corner preachers who took a passage from the Bible and twisted it all out of context. I stopped and engaged them in a conversation, proving they were wrong in the context they had chosen. They got all flustered and declared me a (direct quote, mind you) "Spawn of Satan, send to this world to corrupt these people of God" and continued to shout out about what they had been preaching about.
Its people like this who believe that what they do and say is right and everyone who believes in different things that are a real problem to society.

Re:This is just more proof

[Spazztastic]

I'm sure he spends all his time worying about what slashdot thinks about him (um, not). Gimme a break.

You'd be surprised. Often people who are such narcissists do care what the public thinks of them. He may have all of the bible thumpers rallying behind him, but the second that someone does say something poor about him or he doesn't get his way he does seem to react with malice.

He also sent a letter to Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick's attorney, addressed to Zelnick's mother, in which Thompson accused her son of "doing everything he possibly can to sell as many copies of GTA: IV to teen boys in the United States, a country in which your son claims you raised him to be a 'a Boy Scout'. ... More like the Hitler Youth, I would say."

Re:This is just more proof

[Anonymous Coward]

What a bizarre comparision. As much as you may hate him because of your personal issues, Steve Ballmer is one of the richest guys on the planet, therefore by most definitions is pretty successful. Jack Thompson is just a criminal who's not quite been caught yet.

Re:This is just more proof

[Spazztastic]

What a bizarre comparision. As much as you may hate him because of your personal issues, Steve Ballmer is one of the richest guys on the planet, therefore by most definitions is pretty successful. Jack Thompson is just a criminal who's not quite been caught yet.

I compared them in a sense of their antics and how hilarious they are. Anything from Jack Thompson asking a judge to declare the Florida Bar unconstitutional to Steve Ballmer throwing a chair and declaring he's going to "Fucking kill google."

Re:This is just more proof

[Idiomatick]

I got called "the scum of the earth! Lower than scum! It is people like you that are ruining this world for good GOD fearing people." This was while volunteering at a church and fasting for charity. Apparently someone found out I was 'an atheist infiltrator'. This was at the easy going Protestant church, I worry what might have happened had I volunteered at the hardcore Catholic church across the street.

Re:This is just more proof

[Utoxin]

He also sent a letter to Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick's attorney, addressed to Zelnick's mother, in which Thompson accused her son of "doing everything he possibly can to sell as many copies of GTA: IV to teen boys in the United States, a country in which your son claims you raised him to be a 'a Boy Scout'. ... More like the Hitler Youth, I would say."

Wait... he triggered Godwin's Law? No wonder he's having all these problems!

Re:This is just more proof

[Ogive17]

I think Jack Thompson should co-write Kevin Smith's next movie...

Re:This is just more proof

[wiredlogic]

Every Catholic service I've been to has been pretty easy going. As long as you don't participate in the eucharist (that would be a little rude) you should be welcome regardless of your beliefs. That should be the way for all Christians to behave but as you have experienced, some of them don't have a clue about their own religion.

Re:This is just more proof

[Anonymous Coward]

Beyond that, I think at this point Jacky boy is causing more harm to his cause than good.

The more of a fool he makes himself out to be, the less credible anyone else that takes his side is going to look.

Re:This is just more proof

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as you don't participate in the eucharist (that would be a little rude) you should be welcome regardless of your beliefs.

As I Roman Catholic, I think the term you are looking for is "sacrilegious", not "a little rude". Another helpful hint for the visiting non-religious slashdot crowd would be don't wash anything or dip your comb in the little bowls of water you may find by the doors.:)

I also agree with wiredlogic's main point, most Catholics value the concept of "good works" far too much to insult someone who is actively helping a charitable activity. Unfortunately, there probably are a few that despite both reason and docturine would reject a well-meaning, but non-religious, volunteer. Such is the human condition...

Re:This is just more proof

[bendodge]

I'm a "Bible thumper", and I have never "rallied behind him", or heard of anyone else doing it. Perhaps I'm just out of the loop...

Now, while I'd appreciate laws that restrict sales of video games like the GTA series (which is plainly pornographic) to minors, I'd never approve of his rude tactics.

Re:This is just more proof

[vic-traill]

Every Catholic service I've been to has been pretty easy going

I must admit I've heard lots of words associated with the Holy Roman Catholic Church (disclosure: raised Catholic, current status lapsed), but this is the first time for 'easygoing'.

I don't know whether I should be relieved or suffer a stroke.

Re:This is just more proof

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe he's actually pro-violence and -sex in video game and this is all an extremely convoluted effort to show local governments just how pointless it would be to attempt legislation against it? Sure, odds are incredibly infinitesimal, but he COULD actually be a secret hero of ours.

Nah, nevermind.

Re:This is just more proof

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not what you do, but what you believe that gets you into heaven. You can sin your entire life but if you accept Jesus on your deathbed, you will go to heaven.

You can try do good deeds your entire life but without being reborn with the belief of Jesus Christ as your personal savior, you will spend eternity burning in the lake of fire.

Re:This is just more proof

[Anonymous Coward]

What a bizarre comparision. As much as you may hate him because of your personal issues, Steve Ballmer is one of the richest guys on the planet, therefore by most definitions is pretty successful. Jack Thompson is just a criminal who's not quite been caught yet.

*cough* Bernie Madoff *cough*

well 12 months ago at least

Re:This is just more proof

[Bryan K. Feir]

I must admit I've heard lots of words associated with the Holy Roman Catholic Church (disclosure: raised Catholic, current status lapsed), but this is the first time for 'easygoing'.

Compared to some of the American Evangelists, the Catholics are easy-going. These guys are Dispensationalists. Have you ever seen the Jack Chick tract where he accuses the Pope of being in league with the Devil? There honestly are people who firmly believe that the Pope is a False Prophet sent to tempt people away from true Christianity.

True, there are several Christian churches more easy-going than the Catholics, but the Catholics aren't even close to being the most straight-laced of the lot...

Re:This is just more proof

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry

Re:This is just more proof

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah. Catholics put a lot more credence in good works over faith.

My personal experience has been that Catholics tend to be more tolerant of atheists/agnostics/doubters than Protestants.

People that support abortion on the other hand...

*sigh* Pick your poison when it comes to intolerance I suppose.

God Dammit!

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

Why couldn't he have given us some warning before doing that?

Now we have to arrange for confetti and parade floats and marching bands all on short notice!

Does he have any idea how hard it is to get a 500ft Master Chief balloon in just a couple days?

How does this work?

[digitig]

I don't know the politics behind this -- am I correct in reading it as Waddoup being fine with everybody else being spammed, and only objecting when he discovered that he could get spammed too?

Re:How does this work?

[orclevegam]

I read it more as most spam comes from random relays over in China which we can't really do anything about, but here is an instance where it's trivially easy to point out exactly who is sending the spam. It gets even easier from a prosecution standpoint because Jack is too simple (read boneheaded) to even consider trying to deny sending the e-mails, rather he's going to try to argue that the e-mails constitute protected speech under the first amendment (oh the irony), and just to dig himself a bit deeper start throwing allegations of corruption, bribery, and conspiracy at anyone who disagrees with him (as if the only way someone might not have exactly the same views as him is if they've been bought by some megacorp).

Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[mrchaotica]

Spam is commercial email. This is email about a pending legislative action, and thus Jack Thompson has the right to send it because he has a right to free speech.

But all that means is that the CAN-SPAM act isn't the appropriate law to attack him with: instead, the Senator should just go for plain-old harassment.

Besides, there's nothing that says the Senator has to listen to him -- that's what filters are for! Let Jack Thompson write to /dev/null to his heart's content.

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[drinkypoo]

IIRC CAN-SPAM (might as well just add some words to the name and call it the CAN-HAS-SPAM act, but whatever) makes specific exemptions for political advertisements and solicitations by nonprofits, but says nothing about whether the content is commercial or not.

Further, there is no reason why I or my ISP or any other email provider should have to bear the cost of accepting spam. That is pure crap, and arguably theft of services, though obviously IANAL — it might not hold up in court, but I think I can construct a fairly logical argument along those lines.

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[Anonymous Coward]

since when does "logic" have any place in the law?

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[_Sprocket_]

Spam is commercial email. This is email about a pending legislative action, and thus Jack Thompson has the right to send it because he has a right to free speech.

Just to clarify...

Spam is not always commercial email. However, I believe the CAN-SPAM act is only concerned with unsolicited commercial email. So in that sense, you're probably right that the CAN-SPAM act doesn't apply to this case.

As for filters - that's what spammers say. I don't buy the argument. At some point, the harasser will attempt to bypass filters and you end up inducing a cost to keep ahead of the filtering arms race.

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, asdf1n@asdfjkasdf.com is blocked... bkdjfkdjfj@dkdjjdf.com is blocked. Now what?

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[Hatta]

Spam is commercial email.

No. Spam is Unsolicited Bulk Email. Content does not enter into the equation.

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[geobeck]

It's time to create a new term for the reasoning used by lawyers: lawgic. It's just like logic, except that... well, actually it's nothing like logic; that's why we need a special term.

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[master811]

No, SPAM is NOT necessarily commercial email. SPAM can be commercial, but it does not have to be so to be classed as SPAM.
 
I could email you 100 times with a blank email, that would not be commercial (and yet it would still be SPAM).

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[b4dc0d3r]

Michael Waddoups should be put in jail. You do have a point here, but I'll go one better. He previously supported Jack's bill, but now because Jack is exercising his right of free speech, however annoyingly, Michael is not going to support the bill. This is not commercial, and it is only unsolicited in the sense that they did not expect it. But of all people lawmakers should be accepting input on pending legislation. Claiming this is SPAM is clearly abuse of the laws they made, and they should know better. Utah State Senate President should absolutely know better.

He is deciding his vote on the personal actions of one of the parties - not whether the bill is good for the people. Better still, he is deciding on his opinion of the actions of one of the parties. He is guilty of not doing his job, which is to represent the people. I read his comments as "You have to go through me, I get to choose the laws."

I don't know which bill this is, and can only assume it's as idiotic as Jack Thompson has proven himself to be. But Michael should not be playing this game in public. I will shut down your bill if I don't like you, regardless of whether it is good for the people.

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[mrchaotica]

"Bulk?" Well in that case it still wasn't spam. "Bulk" means sending identical form-letter emails to a whole bunch of people. That didn't happen here. Instead, this was a situation of Jack Thompson sending an excessive number of emails sequentially, each written from scratch (not a copy of the one before it), to relatively few people.

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[CompassIIDX]

Agreed 100%.

Jack Thompson is hilarious as always. Big deal. Move along, nothing to see. The only real disturbing part is this Waddoups character's behavior. Choosing not to support a bill as some kind of revenge for getting too many emails? Not for, I don't know, the fact that the bill sucks, and is bad for the people?

So, basically, even if this guy wholly supports a bill, you can change his mind by sending him a few irritating emails. Capital.

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[BitZtream]

Uhm, any unsolicited and unwanted mail qualifies as spam, regardless of transmission medium or intent.

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[FSWKU]

...but I think I can construct a fairly logical argument along those lines.

Right there in the last part of your post, emphasis yours, is what immediately disqualifies you from being a lawyer.

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[Animaether]

heh.. I had the same sentinment, but apparently.. and I'll quote the reply poster..

Bills need support to pass, regarldess of their content. People make deals to support each other's bills. Having friends in your court is crucial if you want to get anything passed. Is this right? Maybe not, but that's how it is, and it's not exactly a secret.

~ nmx

Sad that there is apparently no immediate recourse to this type of behavior other than, I suppose, not voting for them / voting for whoever got the man in that position, etc. Which amounts to so much as "that's how it is" and suck it up, I gather. /nokarma, already posted before

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[Improv]

I disagree. When a bill becomes a crusade, and the crusade becomes (or is revealed to be) insane, then that context should make a difference to those deliberating it.

This is one of those "big picture" things, akin to how Lawrence Lessig argued that permitting continual just-in-time extensions of copyright amount to making it indefinite.

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[Anonymous Coward]

"This is not commercial, and it is only unsolicited in the sense that they did not expect it"

Non-commercial doesn't necessarily get him off the hook, even under the CAN-SPAM act. The CAN-SPAM act (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing) also covers unsolicited bulk *pornographic* e-mail, which is supposed to be labeled "SEXUALLY EXPLICIT" in order to enable filtering. It's kind of like the labeling on a game saying "mature/adult", but for bulk e-mail. I'm no lawyer, but the implications seem pretty obvious to me. Jack allegedly bulk e-mailed images HE personally considered "adult" to these representatives as an example of what shouldn't be in video games available for children, but apparently neglected to label the e-mail messages appropriately as required in the CAN-SPAM act.

The level of irony if the AG decides to prosecute on those grounds should blow most irony meters within a thousand miles.

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[Anonymous Coward]

um they currently are working on lawgic... just not the one you want:

laws + magic = crap

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[Utoxin]

Michael Waddoups should be put in jail. You do have a point here, but I'll go one better. He previously supported Jack's bill, but now because Jack is exercising his right of free speech, however annoyingly, Michael is not going to support the bill. This is not commercial, and it is only unsolicited in the sense that they did not expect it. But of all people lawmakers should be accepting input on pending legislation. Claiming this is SPAM is clearly abuse of the laws they made, and they should know better. Utah State Senate President should absolutely know better.

You're missing one key fact: This legislation is NOT pending! It was already passed and vetoed.

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[Sj0]

Jack Thompson is an ambulance chaser who has been paid to be on TV.

This theatre is his business. Any e-mails he sends regarding it are commercial in nature.

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[42forty-two42]

Lawyerly logic is perfectly logical. It's just their system of axioms (laws and precedent) that sometimes seems illogical.

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[b4dc0d3r]

Laws are not enforced in context, nor are people judged in context. Once the law is written, context is out the window... and this is another problem with legislators. You can only enforce or interpret what's written, not the intent. Sure legal scholars compare the Virginia constitution with the federal one to clarify what the right to bear arms means, but we don't do that in your local circuit court. I agree that we should have extra scrutiny for requests that come from nutjobs, but that means someone has to decide who the nutjobs are.

If I am requesting a "heterosexuals only" marriage law, it doesn't matter if I am extremely religious, a homophobe, a republican trying to score points with religious conservatives, following Groupthink, or whatever else. If this type of thing comes from someone like Fred Phelps or Jack Thompson, it's even MORE important that you separate your views of the group from your views of the proposal. In general, I agree with EFF and similar organizations, but I don't give their causes a blank check - I have to decide whether I support each issue on its merits, not based on who is pushing for it. If Microsoft suggests something I automatically assume it's going to be bad, but still needs a proper rebuttal instead of just "Microsoft ergo bad."

In fact, I think I would say that considering the context and origination of the movement is dangerous. I won't vote for something that helps education because the idea comes from a Libertarian? Every idea Jack Thompson has is bad?

Lawrence Lessig's ideas need to stand on their own merit, out side of any context, just like everyone else's do. At one time, racial equality would have been considered a bunch of nutjobs, subversive, and back when we had slavery it would be seen as a tremendous economic black hole due to people essentially having their paid-for, valuable property rendered valueless. We can consider big-picture and the impact, and weigh the pros and cons, and not need to consider if the source is a nutbag or not.

Who decides who is insane?

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[DRJlaw]

IIRC CAN-SPAM (might as well just add some words to the name and call it the CAN-HAS-SPAM act, but whatever) makes specific exemptions for political advertisements and solicitations by nonprofits, but says nothing about whether the content is commercial or not.

Nothing?

15 U.S.C. 7703-7705 focus primarily on "commercial electronic mail messages." 15 U.S.C. 7702(2)(a) defines a "commercial electronic mail message" as (in part):

any electronic mail message the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service (including content on an Internet website operated for a commercial purpose).

The act also regulates "transactional and relationship messages." 15 U.S.C. 7702(17) defines those in far more detail, but each portion of the definition references a commercial transaction, a commercial product or service, a commercial relationship, or an employment relationship.

In fact, CAN-SPAM uses the word "commercial" 105 times. The very title is "Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing." IAAL, and I'd say it has quite a bit to say about whether the content is commercial or not.

I'm not picking on you specifically, but rather this comment, which has inexplicably been moderated up to +5 Insightful despite absolutely wrong. The theft of services argument also has significant problems -- such as the fact that you and/or your ISP have set up servers in order to accept email -- that any lawyer experienced in this area would be able to discuss.

As a practical matter, a particular act of spamming, or even non-commercial emailing, would have to be egregious before any Federal prosecutor, State prosecutor, or civil court would entertain the notion of some sort of liability. You do in fact have to accept reasonable attempts by others to communicate with you through email, postal mail, the telephone, and the like, especially if it is non-commercial communication.

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[Enigma2175]

IIRC CAN-SPAM (might as well just add some words to the name and call it the CAN-HAS-SPAM act, but whatever) makes specific exemptions for political advertisements and solicitations by nonprofits, but says nothing about whether the content is commercial or not.

Not according to the article:

Waddoups, on Tuesday, confirmed he would attempt to pursue legal action under the federal CAN-SPAM Act of 2003.

While that law carries a punishment of up to $11,000 in fines, it covers "e-mail whose primary purpose is advertising or promoting a commercial product or service," according to the Federal Trade Commission.

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[SCHecklerX]

Right to free speech != right to harrassment. I agree, it's not spam. But the guy asked several times to be removed from the mailing list. I'm not sure the legalities of not being able to send messages to the president of a senate, however.

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[MeBadMagic]

"It's time to create a new term for the reasoning used by lawyers: f`lawgic. It's just like logic, except that... well, actually it's nothing like logic; It's fucked, and that's why we need a special term."

There, fixed it for ya.

B-)

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[John Hasler]

The word you are looking for is "rhetoric".

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[draco664]

No. SPAM is a product that masqurades as food. Perhaps you mean spam. Note the lowercase.

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[Improv]

Laws actually are often enforced in context - mens rea and reasonable person tests are part of how law is interpreted and enforced (see also sentencing discretion). In a common law system, interpretation is very important.

However, I guess we're talking about proposed laws than existing laws, so my above comments might not really be relevant. On the topic of proposed laws, for proposals that come from people who primarily push for ideals of society that I consider harmful (like Thompson or Libertarians), I would want to understand how they believe the proposal helps their cause, and weigh how it actually does versus the benefits it brings. There may be (rare) times when I would find common cause with Libertarians, but I would be *very* careful to make sure I understand the consequences of anything they propose. (I think I'm largely agreeing with you here)

For individuals who violate the norms of society badly (as JT has), I think it's kosher to go further and decide to ignore everything they say. Society cannot function without some kind of a cost for inappropriate behaviour - without such costs, everything becomes effectively appropriate and things fall apart. If JT would behave like an adult, he would probably get further in his goals. We all decide who's insane, it's a muddy consensus, and it roughly works. That's all we can do, and it is what we must do. We can cope with sometimes being wrong because the alternative is worse.

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[RealGrouchy]

I agree. Waddoups can certainly ask Thompson to stop sending him this stuff. He can even filter the messages. But for an elected official to threaten someone with legal action for e-mailing him? That sounds awfully antidemocratic to me. (And to counter the previous reply, it doesn't matter if the legislation has already passed, the legislature can reintroduce it at a later time).

It's also quite insane that this state senator changes his position because the primary lobbyist for the bill is an asshole. Either the bill is a good idea or not. Next election, I hope his opponent(s) give this point high prominence. Glad the jackasses that run my country are at least a bit more subtle about it.

- RG>

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[rahvin112]

Waddoups is an ass. Jack is an ass. When you tell someone to stop emailing you and they continue, the least it can be considered is harassment. Especially when the recipient pays for the delivery. Jack has NO right to talk to Waddoups. Jack isn't a resident of Utah and he has no dealings in Utah. If Jack want's to talk to his lawmakers he's free to talk to the ones in Florida and his national representatives. He has NO right to waste the tax money of the citizens of Utah speaking to their representatives. You're a fool if you believe otherwise.

Now lets clear up some lies in your post. The Utah legislative session ended over a month ago. The Utah legislature will not meet again until next year unless the governor calls a special session. This is not pending legislation, it's DEAD legislation as the bill was vetoed by the HIGHLY popular (won re-election with over 76% of the vote) republican governor. The claim of SPAM falls under the FEDERAL law. By all accounts the continued delivery of unsolicited email to the Utah legislators meets the federal definitions of SPAM. Jack isn't a resident of Utah, he has no right to speak to the them or bulk email them after he was asked to discontinue communication. Waddoups is not a member of the federal congress that passed the CAN-SPAM legislation.

I highly dislike Waddoups, but his actions in recognizing Jack for what he is and realizing that future support for such ill conceived legislation will result in harm to the state of Utah because believing Jack is STUPID. Removing future support because of how Jack acts is actually one of the smartest things he's done since throwing his hat in behind this legislation last year. But more importantly than anything, we elect representatives to represent us. In a perfect world that means they would vote for bills the public supports. In the real world, it means they vote how they want for whatever reason they want. Again, Waddoups is an ass, but this bill was dead dead dead. Jack was trying to get them to call a special session to overide the veto when they couldn't have done it as they didn't have the votes and the Huntsman veto killed much of the support for the bill. Jack was trying to get publicity for himself, not get sensible legislation passed that the public of Utah wanted. Jack tried to throw Waddoups into the fire after Waddoups told Jack the bill was dead. Jack then tried to nail the governor and AGO up. A VERY very popular governor and an AGO that was trying to keep Utah from spending millions defending laws that wouldn't make it through the court review. The AGO was trying to save money on bad legislation and Jack tried to nail them to a cross.

This legislation was never popularly supported in Utah. It passed solely because Waddoups put strong backing behind it and the Eagle-Forum supported it with Crazy Gail and her band of wacko's speaking highly of how "Smart" Jack was. He fell for Jack's BS in initially submitting and backing the bill. Now he's realized his mistake, thank god the governor is a very smart guy and simply vetoed it. My guess is now that it's hit the fan Waddoups has done some research on Jack and realized what a mistake he initially made. I truely believe Jack has been very belligerent, after all this was the first legislature to pass his pet legislation that I'm aware of. To have the governor then veto the bill probably pissed him off to no end. After all he's the self proclaimed expert in video game violence.

- A resident of Utah.

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[Chelloveck]

Does it seem odd to anyone else that you're arguing over the precise definition of a word that was stolen from a comedy sketch about a canned meat product? A word which even in the context of unwanted electronic messages has evolved since its original use regarding a couple of lawyers on Usenet? It wasn't even about email in the first place.

No. Spam is whatever Hormel says it is. If you want to apply the term to email you're going to have to live with a nebulous definition.

Re:Jack Thompson is right: it's NOT spam.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you read the article? The message was sent to the entire state senate, minus possibly the senate president; that's a minimum of twenty-eight people, which is a "bunch of people". Maybe not quite the massive number of recipient that other spammers send their crap to, but it's still what most ISPs would regard as unreasonably large (I know the mail servers for many of the ISPs I support hedge if anyone tries sending to more than twenty email simultaneously).

Not his first time.

[kramer]

Not long after being disbarred, Ol' Jack spammed the entire membership of the Florida Bar (all Florida lawyers) asking for personal stories about how other members have been "unfairly" targeted by the Florida Bar. I presume he wanted to start some sort of class action suit, but I haven't heard anything further about it.

Re:Not his first time.

[mrchaotica]

Ol' Jack spammed the entire membership of the Florida Bar (all Florida lawyers) asking for personal stories about how other members have been "unfairly" targeted by the Florida Bar.

Similarly to what I noted above, that is likewise not spam -- at least in the legal "CAN-SPAM Act" sense -- because the emails weren't sent for a commercial purpose. Instead, it would be a different sort of offense (e.g. regular harassment via email).

The only way it would have been spam is if he'd asked for the purpose of collecting the stories into a book (and then selling it) or something like that.

Re:Not his first time.

[orclevegam]

Didn't Jack make some sort of statement prior to being disbarred that he was going to file a class action lawsuit against the Florida bar? Lawyers may be sharks, but they look after their own, one lawyer tries to go after another one (let alone an entire body like the Florida bar) and he'll find himself rather quickly taking a long walk off a short pier, as Jack found out.

Re:Not his first time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Unsolicited bulk e-mail is spam in the general sense. Whether they are clearly asking for money or not doesn't matter to most people. It's annoying and wasteful of resources. As you point out, the CAN-SPAM act defines a much narrower scope (i.e. "commercial"), but that's not all that qualifies. The title of the "CAN-SPAM" act includes a "P" for "pornography" ("Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act"). Arguably, the image Jack sent could qualify for that aspect, because the CAN-SPAM act specifies that any such message must include the phrase "SEXUALLY EXPLICIT" in it, ostensibly to allow easy filtering.

So, you may be right it is non-commercial, but could be wrong about the CAN-SPAM act applying. It hinges on what qualifies as "pornography" and whether Jack sent it in bulk. But I'm not a lawyer.

I'm still laughing at the prospect that Utah's AG might charge Thompson for not properly labeling his e-mail as sexually explicit, though :-)

Re:Not his first time.

[dkleinsc]

Just think about how much of an unethical jerk you'd have to be to piss off an organization of lawyers.

Re:Not his first time.

[KDR_11k]

Lawyers are snakes and follow the hivemind.

Re:Not his first time.

[orclevegam]

Which reminds me, where did I put my plasgun...

Re:Not his first time.

[geminidomino]

It's in your mouth, Shlock, where it always is.

Hint for spammers:

[Opportunist]

If you flood someone with spam, they may turn against you, even if they were on your side originally.

In other words, way to shoot your own foot.

Re:Hint for spammers:

[Chris Mattern]

In other words, way to shoot your own foot.

Jack Thompson has so repeatedly shot himself in the foot that I don't think that there's any feet left any more.

Re:Hint for spammers:

[Farmer Tim]

I propose this be called the "Thompson Effect" in his...um, honour?

Re:Hint for spammers:

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the hint. Now I know to spam what I don't believe in to those do.

First Amendment

[internic]

If I understand this correctly, Thompson was petitioning elected representatives for a particular change in law. No matter how annoying his tactics or the fact that he was asked to stop, I have to believe that any prosecution of him for these actions would be thrown out on first amendment grounds. Recall that the first amendment reads as follows (emphasis mine):

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Of course, in usual Slashdot fashion, IANAL.

Re:First Amendment

[Sockatume]

Given Thompson's track record, his petition was probably anything but peaceable. He killed someone's fax machine in one of his previous crusades.

Re:First Amendment

[mrchaotica]

You're not the only one who realized that. I suppose you got modded up instead of me because I titled my post "Jack Thompson is right." Oh well.

Anyway, I think all that means is that the Senator would be incorrect to prosecute him under the CAN-SPAM Act. I bet Jack Thompson could still be prosecuted under some other anti-harassment law. Even if it is about legislation, if it's more harassing than it is political then it stops being protected speech.

Re:First Amendment

[UnknowingFool]

True his actions are considered free speech; however, Jack Thompson doesn't really practice restraint when communicating. An endless amount of communication, especially when his recipient asked him to stop, could be considered harassment or stalking.

Re:First Amendment

[LordEd]

Of course, in usual Slashdot fashion, IANAL

Neither is Jack anymore.

Re:First Amendment

[SBacks]

You have a very interesting point. However, he's petitioning the Utah state government, which he is not a constituent of. Does the 1st apply to just your local/state/national government, or to every local/state government?

Any lawyers around to clarify?

Re:First Amendment

[Animaether]

I'm no big fan of Jack Thompson, but in addition to what you said about any CAN-SPAM bits, this (if true) caught my eye..

Senate President Michael Waddoups' statements: 'I asked you before to remove me from your mailing list. I supported your bill but because of the harassment will not again. If I am not removed,

"Stop sending me spam or I will not support your bill" sounds dangerously close to "send me $ or I will not support your bill". I realize that word on the street is that all politicians are corrupt anyway, but a public admission to in my opinion a less-than-honorable ethic? Yikes.

If Thompson's bill was worth supporting before, then his bill should still be worth supporting after annoying e-mails, spam or for all I care: murder. If it was only worth supporting because he liked the guy, then it was never worth supporting to begin with. Either way, Senator President Michael Waddoups needs to take a real close look at what he said.

We're not writing off ReiserFS just because Hans Reiser was convicted of murder - this should be no different.
( ReiserFS is being written off for technical reasons in many situations, but that's a different story on a different website. )

Re:First Amendment

[nmx]

If Thompson's bill was worth supporting before, then his bill should still be worth supporting after annoying e-mails, spam or for all I care: murder.

Clearly you don't understand how the Senate works. Bills need support to pass, regarldess of their content. People make deals to support each other's bills. Having friends in your court is crucial if you want to get anything passed. Is this right? Maybe not, but that's how it is, and it's not exactly a secret. For more information, I suggest reading Fight Club Politics, available at your local library.

Re:First Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

The Bill of Rights is commonly interpreted to the level of "Your rights end where mine begin". Depending on the nature of the email, they could have fallen under "petition" (though a one person petition is pretty flimsy). If the emails were uniquely addressed to the individuals to whom they were sent, then it *could* fall under harassment, as then it is targeted to the recipients, as opposed to the "commercial SPAM" addressed in other threads. As usual IANAL.

Re:First Amendment

[drinkypoo]

"Stop sending me spam or I will not support your bill" sounds dangerously close to "send me $ or I will not support your bill". I realize that word on the street is that all politicians are corrupt anyway, but a public admission to in my opinion a less-than-honorable ethic? Yikes.

I think this is one of those cases where you're mistaking incompetence for malice. To me it looks like he supported the bill because he was thinking of the children, but now he realizes that Thompson is a big fucking idiot and his bill is probably just as stupid. In that case, the only flaw is supporting the bill at all.

Re:First Amendment

[MasseKid]

Yes, and he did petition with the first e-mail. At which point, the govermental represenative said no. He then sent a second e-mail along the same arguments as the first. After being denied he proceeded with a third, at this point you've crossed the line to harrasment of an individual not his political office.

Re:First Amendment

[Chris Burke]

If Thompson's bill was worth supporting before, then his bill should still be worth supporting after annoying e-mails, spam or for all I care: murder. If it was only worth supporting because he liked the guy, then it was never worth supporting to begin with.

In an ideal world of complete knowledge and perfect logic, sure.

In reality, if the Senator's support for the bill was based in part on Jack Thompson's explanation of what the bill would accomplish and why it was important, and the weight he gave to Jack Thompson's opinion was based on the assumption that JT wasn't a wingnut hyper-aggressive narcissistic asshole, then yes it's perfectly reasonable that getting harassed by JT would change his opinion of the bill.

Yes it would be nice if congressman read the bills and voted on them based solely on their own logical analysis of the bill. But realistically even if they always tried, they can't "logically" deduce the effect of every bill, and thus the outcome is a subjective qualitative prediction at best, and thus the opinion of others can in fact be relevant to deciding whether to support it.

Obviously those "others" shouldn't include JT unless you want to be sure of what isn't true, but hey the Senator figured that out with a little help from Ol' Jack himself in due time. :)

Re:First Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

The first amendment probably does not cover sending what can be argued as adult pornography to your representative, does it? Even if it does (it's plausible), if delivered by bulk e-mail the CAN-SPAM act requires that it be labeled as "SEXUALLY EXPLICIT" for filtering purposes.

I'm not a lawyer either.

Re:First Amendment

[Nitage]

What does 'the Government' mean? State? Federal? Does it give residents of Florida the right to petition the state senate of Utah for anything?

Re:First Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Waddoups is saying (paraphrasing here):

I supported your bill initially, but the veritable flood of hate mail I received due to this support has led me to reconsider my actions. Therefore, I will not support you or your bill proposal again...

He then goes on to state that if Jack continues to bug him for support, he'll refer the matter the the AG (Attorney General) for consideration under the CAN-SPAM act. This is a bit heavy-handed (and, as debated above, probably isn't the correct path to pursue, as it's more along the lines of harassment).

So Waddoups isn't making an offer of support in exchange for supporting Jack's bill. This is a notice informing Jack both to stop the email AND that he'll also not have the support of Waddoups going forward.

In more analogous terms: it's a break-up letter, telling Jack to stop calling, and also that it's his own fault the relationship didn't work out. I know it would be all cool and conspiratorial to find a quid pro quo in Waddoups' statements, but I just don't see enough evidence there.

There's truth in your assertion that Waddoups initial support for the bill (and subsequent retraction) was perhaps ethically questionable at best, but it is also possible that he simply didn't understand that a significant subset of his constituents didn't share his initial opinion on the matter. Benefit of the doubt and all... Maybe he simply changed his mind after getting the feedback (that he should have solicited prior to his initial support, but that's something for the voters to punish him for...)

Re:First Amendment

[mrchaotica]

"Stop sending me spam or I will not support your bill" sounds dangerously close to "send me $ or I will not support your bill"

That's an interesting point. However, note that the Senator didn't make it conditional; he had already made his decision before sending that email, and the previous email simply asked Jack Thompson to desist without stating or implying an offer in return. Therefore, I think this is less an issue of bribery and more an issue of spite: what it really sounds like is "I've decided to stop supporting your bill because you pissed me off!"

Re:First Amendment

[Idiomatick]

This is a fallacy most people use. Related to the strawman fallacy I suppose, but since it is slightly less obvious almost everyone falls prey to it. Because doing so is useful in social situations (punishing those who do things you do not like) you become used to it. And then apply it to situations where it is not appropriate.

Bobby was a jerk to me so i'm not going to Jen's (mutual friend) party. This punishes Jen by not having a guest. It is plain rude, breaking with social rules. It punishes you since you miss a party. And only serves to send a small message to Bobby.

Stupid but commonplace.

Re:First Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

If I recall correctly from my classes in government, the rights of the individual are less important than the rights of the few, and the rights of the few are less important than the rights of the many.

You raise a good point, however, harrasment is in no way a form to make a petition. If you constantly nag somebody about something, that is harrasment. If you were to politely ask various representatives on the government, things may be different.

That is just my interpretation. However, in grand Slashdot tradition, IANAL.

Re:First Amendment

[Abreu]

Please note the full stop between "will not again." and "If I am not removed"

I think Waddoups is in the clear

Re:First Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

Political speech is political speech is political speech. The law doesn't care if you're sending political speech to your representative, another representative, or rupert murdoch. However there might be some kind of nuisance claim here.

Re:First Amendment

[BaronHethorSamedi]

Making sure I understand your question (which is an interesting one): can Jack petition the Utah State Government for the redress of a grievance, even if he doesn't live there?

I think the answer is: sure. In fact, he already did. He proposed a bill there, which Utah state legislators backed. It got vetoed by the governor. You have a right to the petition, not necessarily to the redress.

Generally speaking, the First Amendment applies to state governments. So the more pertinent question becomes, can the Utah government prosecute Jack for sending e-mails ostensibly petitioning for the redress of a grievance which the legislator already went to bat for him on?

Evidently, Jack sent Waddoups an e-mail whose header included a picture of a lapdance. CAN-SPAM indeed seems to be the wrong tool for this situation (probably why the AG sort of hedges in the article on whether anything will be pursued).

There may be a charge under Utah law for electronic communications harassment. Yes, Thompson has his First Amendment rights, but those aren't unlimited. You can petition the government for redress of grievances, but there are all sorts of ways you can do that that are offensive or obnoxious enough that the First Amendment won't help you.

Re:First Amendment

[slashqwerty]

The most interesting point here, and one I haven't seen posted elsewhere, is that Jack is protected by the same laws that have hindered his crusade.

Surprise!

[Drakkenmensch]

Well, from Utah's Senate Site, we get the picture of what Jack is up to now: spamming his last friends on the planet.

He still has friends?

Re:Surprise!

[TheLinuxSRC]

Did. He *did* have friends.

Re:Surprise!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hit the road, Jack, and don't you come back no more! No more! No more! No more!
Hit the road, Jack, and don't you come back no more!

Re:Surprise!

[geobeck]

This is the mess that Jack made.

This is the e-mail
that caused the mess that Jack made.

This is the lawsuit
That came from the e-mail
That cause the mess that Jack made.

This is the senator
Who filed the lawsuit
That came from the e-mail
That caused the mess that Jack made.

This is the Act for reducing spam
That was used by the senator
Who filed the lawsuit
That came from the e-mail
That caused the mess that Jack made.

This is the tin of processed ham
That named the Act for reducing spam
That was used by the senator
Who filed the lawsuit
That came from the e-mail
That caused the mess that Jack made.

And after the fine imposed by the court
The only meal that Jack can afford
Comes from the tin of processed ham
That named the Act for reducing spam
That was used by the senator
Who filed the lawsuit
That came from the e-mail
That caused the mess that Jack made.

Poor Jack.

Re:Surprise!

[D Ninja]

He still has friends?

I assumed the quote was referring to Saturn or something...

Re:Surprise!

[Anonymous Coward]

Very, very funny. Thanks, I needed a laugh today.

This use of CAN-SPAM is unconstitutional

[JSBiff]

Ok, well, I really hate to be on the side of Jack Thompson, but. . .

U.S. Constitution - 1st Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Simply put, if you are a legislator, you have no right to ask people to not petition you. Jack Thompson was exercising his contitutionally protected right to petition the government for a redress of grievances. There is nothing CAN-SPAM can do about that. Such an application would be clearly unconstitutional.

Now, that said. . . there's such a thing as an email filter that automatically deletes email from certain senders. . .

Re:This use of CAN-SPAM is unconstitutional

[tim_darklighter]

You bring up an interesting (if partially unrelated) point. By the First Amendment, can an elected official filter email from his/her constituent(s) in their district/state/etc.? I realize Thompson is not a Utah resident, but if he was, would his elected officials have the right to filter out their email, since it automatically would delete anything from Thompson (or other people) that the elected official wants to ignore? Would this constituent the government unlawfully silencing the redress of grievances?

I wouldn't be surprised if this has already been addressed (especially related to postal junk mail), but it might save some lawsuits from people (like Jack Thompson) who just want to hear their own voice and will do anything (however asinine) to make sure that happens.

Re:This use of CAN-SPAM is unconstitutional

[JSBiff]

I dunno. I thought about that, but the thing is, the First Ammendment only states that Congress cannot enact any laws restricting those rights, or punishing people for exercising those rights. An individual Senator deleting your emails is not congress passing a law. You have a right to petition the government, but people in Government, I think, have a certain right to ignore you if they choose.

I mean, is there anything that stops a senator from throwing your mail in the trashcan when he sees it's from you? Filters are sort of the equivalent of looking at who a physical letter is from and tossing it in the trash.

Re:This use of CAN-SPAM is unconstitutional

[nmx]

Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom ... to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

I assume this is the part you're referring to, but I don't agree with your interpretation. I don't think petitioning "the government" in this case means that harrassing one government official in particular is necessarily Constitutionally protected behavior.

Re:This use of CAN-SPAM is unconstitutional

[JSBiff]

Well, there might exist a valid harassment claim, but I don't think you could use CAN-SPAM for this. Ultimately, it's up to the courts to decide, but I just can't see it being valid that an Anti-Spam law could be used to punish people for sending emails to legislators seeking those legislators' support in regards to a matter of governance.

As for harassment, I'd personally have to be seeing multiple emails per day before I'd be inclined to find someone guilty of harassment in a situation like this. Jack sending an email every few days, or even every day, petitioning a state senator, is harassment? I just don't see it.

Re:This use of CAN-SPAM is unconstitutional

[_Sprocket_]

Can you imagine if a Congressman was legally required to read every piece of correspondence and listen to every speaker? You could paralyze a government by hiring enough speakers / writers to take up every available moment of the Congressman's time (and then still file a lawsuit because your hired army never got their time due to waiting in line behind all the other hired armies).

Re:This use of CAN-SPAM is unconstitutional

[billsnow]

If there's nothing wrong with hiring a secretary to read/filter your mail for you, there can't be anything wrong with utilizing software to do the same for email.

Are there actually specific laws saying that legislators must represent their constituents' interests?

Re:This use of CAN-SPAM is unconstitutional

[KDR_11k]

Law, not request, contract or court order. Telling Thompson to STFU is not passing a law. Any individual has the right to tell another individual to shut the fuck up. If JT keeps pestering the politicians he can be subject to many laws that cover person to person behaviours like harassment.

I think one point that must also be kept in mind is the appropriate means. Petitioning the government is not done by building a brick wall around the exits of their building with your demands written on it, petitioning is not done by barging into the room and screaming at the top of your lung, petitioning is not done by flooding someone with emails he has specifically requested not to receive anymore. You can convey your petition with appropriate means and spamming is not one of them. By being prevented from spamming you are not prevented from petitioning, just from using some means to petition. You still have the option of using reasonable means instead.

Re:This use of CAN-SPAM is unconstitutional

[BitZtream]

Its also illegal to harass a legislator. Freedom of speech does not grant you the right to hurt someone else.

If you go by your logic here then there is nothing illegal with calling in bomb threats or screaming fire in a crowded movie. You should go try it sometime and see exactly how far you get.

I realize common sense is hard, but sometimes its useful.

Re:This use of CAN-SPAM is unconstitutional

[BitZtream]

This is a retarded question. The legislator can simply not read your message, are you going to go after them for silencing you? No, because its stupid.

If they want to ignore your email by automated means you might as well accept it, they aren't going to read them anyway. If you 'force' them to read your message, they are just going to be pissed off and even less willing to listen to anything you say.

I realize that common sense is hard, but try it some time and remember legislators are people too and they get annoyed by shit like this that wastes time JUST like you and I do.

Re:This use of CAN-SPAM is unconstitutional

[JSBiff]

Yeah, but what Jack Thompson is described as doing is sending an email, then a day or two later, sending some more emails. I'm sorry, but I don't see any harassment there. Maybe if he were sending 10+ emails a day, every day, flooding the Senator's mailbox. Where are you getting harassment from? Simply because the Senator asked him to stop sending emails? A senator can ask me to stop sending him emails, but I have no legal requirement to stop sending emails to him - if I did *have* to or else face legal sanctions, that would violate the 1st Amend.

Yes, the state senator is claiming harassment, but there is a particular legal standard for harassment, and I don't think that in this case, it applies - I am not a lawyer, so I can't say for sure, but getting an email every few days from a lobbyist hardly seems like harassment. The Senator appears to be claiming that because he asked Thompson not to send him any more emails, that constitutes legal harassment. If he were a private individual, that might be the case, but because he is an office holder, Thompson should be free to ignore the request, and keep sending emails (granted, in this case, he's defeating his own cause by making his allies P.O.).

Yeah, I guess you're right - common sense is hard. After all, wouldn't it make more sense to FILTER the emails, instead of getting all prissy about it and threatening legal action?

Re:This use of CAN-SPAM is unconstitutional

[tim_darklighter]

That's the real crux of the problem isn't it? You and I think the same, but people like Jack Thompson don't. If the Utah Senate filters him out and ignores him, then it is possible (maybe even likely) that he will start personally attacking them because they don't see his way. I seem to remember him sending lewd pictures of an attorney he was arguing against to a judge in order to discredit that attorney, for example.

In some ways I kind of hope something like that happens so that he gets canned and is told that he must shut up or get locked up. Granted we might lose a lot of entertainment (and possibly the 'best' advocate for video game violence out there).

Re:This use of CAN-SPAM is unconstitutional

[An ominous Cow art]

If they want to ignore your email by automated means you might as well accept it, they aren't going to read them anyway. If you 'force' them to read your message, they are just going to be pissed off and even less willing to listen to anything you say.

Common sense and well said. And yet spammers and 'regular' advertisers can't grasp it.

Re:This use of CAN-SPAM is unconstitutional

[Anonymous Coward]

"You could paralyze a government by hiring enough speakers / writers to take up every available moment of the Congressman's time "

That sounds like a good idea....

Re:This use of CAN-SPAM is unconstitutional

[(H)elix1]

Can you imagine if a Congressman was legally required to read every piece of correspondence and listen to every speaker?

I'd be happy if they were required to actually just read all of what they are voting on personally. Not that any of them, Congress or Senate, seem to do that today.

Re:This use of CAN-SPAM is unconstitutional

[wiredlogic]

The thing is, good ol' Jack isn't a resident of Utah. The Legislators of that state have no obligation to serve him.

Re:This use of CAN-SPAM is unconstitutional

[Sj0]

I agree with you, but hate the irony of using the first amendment to protect his attempts to push unconstitutional laws that will limit speech he doesn't like.

Re:This use of CAN-SPAM is unconstitutional

[Tycho]

I'm sorry, but I don't see any harassment there.

Asking someone nicely to stop sending you email and then if sender continues, is harassment. Any number of e-mails sent after that, are unwanted harassment. Especially if they are a form letter or if sent in bulk.

A senator can ask me to stop sending him emails, but I have no legal requirement to stop sending emails to him - if I did *have* to or else face legal sanctions, that would violate the 1st Amend.

Harassment is not speech, again for the slow people, harassment != speech. Laws that make it a crime for one to send e-mails in order to harass or otherwise obstruct the normal functioning of an elected official or even a normal person are entirely constitutional and have been upheld. Also, the First Amendment has not been interpreted to mean that you have a right to a response, be listened to, or even to be heard while exercising your right of free speech by any government official whether elected, appointed, or a regular government employee. In other words, do not attempt to construe this snippet from the First Amendment: "petition the government for a redress of grievances" as a right to even be heard. Read it in context with the rest of the sentence.

Re:This use of CAN-SPAM is unconstitutional

[JSBiff]

Again, for the slow people: If you are a public office holder, you have no right to ask me to stop sending you correspondence. Harassment is a completely LEGAL CONCEPT defined BY LAWS, not your opinion of what you feel is harassment. As stated in the first amendment, Congress shall make no laws which restrict the right of the people to petition the government.

Therefore, if (hypothetically speaking) there is a law which says that if you continue to send mail or email to someone after they have asked you not to, that constitutes harassment, such law could not apply to the specific case of people sending mail or emails to public office holders, because of the First Amendment.

No matter how much you repeat harassment != speech, it doesn't mean anything, since harassment is defined by law, and the Constitution trumps laws, and says that you have the right to petition the government. I would agree that there is such a thing as speech which is not protected, and constitutes harassment, *but* simply petitioning an officeholder after they have asked you not to cannot ever be harassment - that is explicitely why the Bill of Rights says that Congress can't restrict the right of the people to petition the government. I mean, that is the whole purpose of that last clause of the first amendment. By your logic, that part of the 1st Amend would have no meaning at all.

Re:This use of CAN-SPAM is unconstitutional

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly the correct response to large armies of petitioners is more taxes so we can have more legislators to deal with the large numbers of petitions. The government exists to keep passing laws until everyone is happy.

Memo to Jack Thompson:

[Sooner Boomer]

Please, please, please, please, please ignore the rantings of those less enlightened than you. You need to keep up the crusade! Don't stop your actions just because of some idle threats! Keep sending them email until they relent! You know so much more than they do! You're the one that's right!

for those of you that don't understand the above post, please consult your dictionary under the heading "Sarcasm"

Re:Memo to Jack Thompson:

[drinkypoo]

for those of you that don't understand the above post, please consult your dictionary under the heading "Sarcasm"

I would have suggested browsing slashdot under the tag "itsatrap"

Get down from there Jack!

[Sockatume]

You are not a lawyer. You can't even file legal actions.

Re:Get down from there Jack!

[corbettw]

You are not a lawyer. You can't even file legal actions.

The due process clause laughs at your feeble understanding of the legal system.

Re:Get down from there Jack!

[geminidomino]

I don't think GP meant those two statements as cause-effect ("Non-lawyers can't file legal actions.") Wasn't Thompson declared a "Vexatious Litigant?" and banned from filing complaints without another lawyer signing off on them?

His punishment should be...

[VinylRecords]

...to complete GTA3, VC, SA, and GTAIV (with DLC) 100%. Story modes, hidden packages, unique jumps, taxi rides, you name it *.

He can't leave the mental institution they place him in until he beats those games.

*Gameshark or other cheats no allowed

Re:His punishment should be...

[Pop69]

*Gameshark or other cheats no allowed

He's allowed hot coffee now and again isn't he ?

Re:His punishment should be...

[Creepy Crawler]

mmMMm.. Hot coffee.

Hopefully, with a touch of cream and loads of sugar :D

This is great!

[mc1138]

I remember a time when Jack Thompson angered me for his ignorance, but now, its better than daytime soap opera drama! He's like the Al Sharpton of video game violence or something, and at this point no one is taking him seriously anyway. I love a good Jack Thompson headline these days, makes me feel better about myself.

Ob. XKCD

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there an appropriate XKCD to help me understand this Jack Thompson entity?

Re:Ob. XKCD

[SharpFang]

http://xkcd.com/556/

Just not even half as awesome.

I'm on Thompson's side on this one...

[nedlohs]

As dirty as that feels.

Of you can't petition your representatives you don't have a democratic system.

And if I was the senator I'd certainly prefer random lunatic emails then Thompson making a personal visit to my office each and every day to complain about some damn video games.

Re:I'm on Thompson's side on this one...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is Mr. Thompson a citizen of Utah? What right can he claim to petition *SOMEONE ELSES* representative?

Re:I'm on Thompson's side on this one...

[JSBiff]

Well, if you want to play the Jurisdiction game, one could ask what Jurisdiction the Utah AG has over a case involving interstate communications? Anything related to interstate comm automatically becomes Federal jurisdiction, I thought? IANAL.

Re:I'm on Thompson's side on this one...

[Anonymous Coward]

You have the right to petition, but it doesn't give you unlimited access to the government. Just like there are limits on free speech (the whole "fire" thing for example), there are limits on petitioning. Jack is way way past those limits by any sane definition.

Re:I'm on Thompson's side on this one...

[nedlohs]

Yeah, that's true his from Florida. I feel cleaner already.

What about access to our elected officials?

[gruber76]

While I'm no fan of Jack Thompson, I'm suddenly a little scared of the CAN-SPAM act. It's one thing for an elected official to stop accepting my calls, return my mail unread, and filter my email into the trash. It's another, much scarier, thing for that official to threaten me with fines and imprisonment for trying to influence legislation in the most accessible method available. We're not talking about fraud or bribery here, just annoying, obnoxious, and protected speech.

Re:What about access to our elected officials?

[BountyX]

I believe he was sending automated mailing-list type emails although he was asked to stop. This would be different than constructing multiple emails for a single recipient; furthermore, you are more likely to run into allegations of harassment rather than prosecution by AG using CAN-SPAM. Just like with excessive calling, if such actions become harassing, a restraining order can be awarded.

Circling the Drain

[gzine]

So how long until Jack's career is reduced to fetish porn to support his drug addiction?

Re:Circling the Drain

[Red Flayer]

So how long until Jack's career is reduced to fetish porn to support his drug addiction?

Give the man some credit, he's not that bad.

He'll be peddling drugs to support his fetish sex addiction.

Re:Circling the Drain

[Anonymous Coward]

He's not that bad...
Yet...

Pl0y 13ible \/\/ars!

[Chlorine Trifluoride]

Get y0ur c0py for cheep from candian stoes!

Re:Pl0y 13ible \/\/ars!

[Chlorine Trifluoride]

Way to not get the joke, mods.

Re:You're a fucking moron.

[mrchaotica]

What the fuck does "free speech" have to do with harrassment and theft of service?

What part of "But all that means is that the CAN-SPAM act isn't the appropriate law to attack him with: instead, the Senator should just go for plain-old harassment" did you not understand, dumbass?

Failing at reading comprehension and embarrassing yourself by wrongfully insulting the writer while you're at it -- who's the moron now? LOL!

Re:You're a fucking moron.

[gruber76]

This is just funny. I think "If you think that ANYONE has the right to harrass and intimidate people, for any reason, you are a complete fuckwad" is a wonderfully self-referential phrase that should not soon be forgotten.

Re:You're a fucking moron.

[Anonymous Coward]

Spam is commercial email.

No. Spam is unsolicited bulk email.

This *IS* spam.

This is email about a pending legislative action

I don't give a flying fuck what the content is - it's still spam.

Uhm? So you think spam is any email of which the contents you don't want to flying fuck? By that logic, my boss and certain co-workers spam the shit out of me daily, time to sue?

Email Past It's Prime

[kenp2002]

Email has become a victim of its (or is it it's) own success. Now we are moving to invite only systems like IM. What we really need is a replacement electronic messaging platform with some form of "postage". I for one suggest teaming up with Stanford and get folding@home a form of postage. Sender must complete 1 work unit for every message sent to a non-registered recipient (a.k.a 1 WU = 1 unsolicited message.)

In addition the government should provide each citizen an official goverment mailbox for non-critical information [INFO] level messages that are from goverment to citizens. Attached to that mailbox is your current legal residence location for automatic filtering and routing Senator and House member email, never forgetting who your represenatives are!

Anyone wanna help put a demo together?

Re:Email Past It's Prime

[xerxesVII]

In answer to your question, you were correct in using "its". Although an apostrophe usually denotes possession, it always indicates contraction.

Re:Email Past It's Prime

[jdgreen7]

Email has become a victim of its (or is it it's) own success.

It's its. :-)

Re:Email Past It's Prime

[Anonymous Coward]

it's its

Re:Email Past It's Prime

[earlymon]

Its is always possessive - it's always means it is. Its was correct.

Re:Email Past It's Prime

[Anonymous Coward]

You asked so I'll reply, it is "its". When dealing with a possessive, one would use "its", when dealing with the contraction of "it is", one would use "it's".

Re:Email Past It's Prime

[mooingyak]

Email has become a victim of its (or is it it's)

Easiest way to remember:
ours
yours
hers

given that pattern...
its or it's?

Re:Email Past It's Prime

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: postage: Seen HashCash?

Re:Email Past It's Prime

[Chris Burke]

No, the easiest way to remember is with a song (starts about 10s in).

Re:Email Past It's Prime

[Chris Burke]

I'm an idiot.

Ohhhhh... If you want it to be possessive,
It's just "I-T-S."
But if it's supposed to be a contraction,
Then it's "I-T-apostrophe-S,"
Scalawag.

Re:Email Past It's Prime

[Anonymous Coward]

(or is it it's)

It's (it is) its.

Re:You're a fucking moron.

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, dude, political and religious speech is specifically exempted in the law.

We're not talking about your feelings about the matter, we're talking about facts.

Well....

[Amazing Quantum Man]

That's because you followed the Gourd instead of the Shoe!

Of course

[Anivair]

Yet another user who can't follow the links at the bottom of his email. Why can these people never remove themselves? Jack Thompson is a slug, but i doubt he's using magic email lists that you can't remove yourself from.

Re:Of course

[The Redster!]

Jack Thompson is a slug, but i doubt he's using magic email lists that you can't remove yourself from.

They make ones where you can?

Re:Of course

[Kabuthunk]

Of course! All of those completely unwanted emails can just be replied to with something along the lines of "remove" in the subject line.

It completely works, and won't fulfill the sole purpose of confirming that your email address is valid and active.

I've been doing this with every spam message I receive. On a completely unrelated note, I think spam is getting worse nowadays. But no worries, I set up an auto-reply to send a kind response to each one of them, requesting my removal. But I'd swear, I think spam volume is going up exponentially since I started doing that. Strange...

Re:Of course

[deraj123]

I have several email lists that the recipients cannot remove themselves from, and they're hardly magic. They're saved in my mail client, and thankfully nobody else has access to modify them. If I were repeatedly petitioning congressmen, I'd most likely use one of those for that purpose.

Re:Of course

[Anivair]

Jack Thompson may not have more innate value than a phishing scam, but I doubt very much that he is one. he's probably using some run-of-the-mill announce list program. Any list i'm on gets emails that sound just like that every week. "I said remove me!@ You are demons!#%" and the response is always "just follow the remove link at the bottom of the email".

Re:You're a fucking moron.

[nmx]

"But all that means is that the CAN-SPAM act isn't the appropriate law to attack him with: instead, the Senator should just go for plain-old harassment" did you not understand, dumbass?

I think the part he was actually responding to was "Spam is commercial email. This is email about a pending legislative action, and thus Jack Thompson has the right to send it because he has a right to free speech." Spam isn't necessarily commercial, and no he doesn't. The fact that the CAN-SPAM act in particular may not apply doesn't change the widely accepted definition of spam.

Re:You're a fucking moron.

[Anonymous Coward]

This *IS* spam.

Saying it louder doesn't make it so.

This is email about a pending legislative action I don't give a flying fuck what the content is - it's still spam.

Speaking of morons, that statement is moronic. Sending "unsolicited" communication about topical issues to senators and congressmen is an important part of the political process.

If you think that ANYONE has the right to harrass and intimidate people, for any reason, you are a complete fuckwad.

I doubt the senator was intimidated. And I doubt that you think so. So why did you include it? Do you think it makes your "argument" sound stronger?

If you disagree with me, please post your address here, and I will come by your house and scream at you with a bullhorn 24 hours a day. After all, I have the right to free speech.

See if you can come up with some non-fallacious arguments. Of course Jack Thompson is pain in the ass nut-job. But subverting some law to deal with him, as amusing as it is in this case, is just weasly-politician behavior.

Well, maybe

[Sycraft-fu]

As with anything in terms of the Constitution and your rights, it isn't a black and white, set in stone thing. You have the right to petition the government, of that there is no question. However that doesn't mean you have the right to be a pain in the ass. You cannot, for example, follow your representative around all day long and scream at them. You aren't allowed to harass them any more than you are allowed to harass me.

So this is the kind of thing where you enter a gray area. Clearly you are allowed to send the government e-mails, letters, etc telling them your point of view. However there are lines you can cross where it again just becomes harassment. If you were to go and send your representative the same letter hundreds of times a day just to flood their office with mail, that might just be harassment. Same sort of thing if you got a group to call in all the tiem and try to tie up their phone lines so nobody else could reach them.

I'm not saying they are necessarily right in this case, I'd have to know more about it and then my opinion doesn't really matter, the court's does, but just because he's contacting his representatives doesn't mean any and everything is ok. You have a right to contact them and tell them what you believe, how you want them to vote and so on. You don't have a right to try and flood them with your point of view to try and drown everyone else out.

Re:Well, maybe

[QuietObserver]

just because he's contacting his representatives

Utah's representatives aren't Jack's representatives. He has never, to my knowledge, been eligible to vote for any of them as he has never (that I know of) been a resident of Utah. I'm not saying this changes the validity of your arguments, by the way, just pointing out that he is not a citizen of Utah, so that statement is not based on fact.

hmm

[immakiku]

"I supported your bill but because of the harassment will not again". Why is this senator publicly letting personal affairs affect legislation? I hope he is never re-elected.

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

He probably supported the legislation because he was under the impression that JT was a sane, rational, concerned citizen. Upon discovering otherwise, he withdrew his support for the measure.

Please don't make this mistake again ...

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Truly this is the time to quote Leia: ..."

Truly, there is never a time to quote Leia. Not even on Slashdot. Truly.

Re:Please don't make this mistake again ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I find your lack of faith in Leia quotes disturbing...

Re:Please don't make this mistake again ...

[Chris Burke]

Truly, there is never a time to quote Leia. Not even on Slashdot. Truly.

I know. Somehow, I've always known.

Re:Please don't make this mistake again ...

[Sethus]

"Truly this is the time to quote Leia: ..."

Truly, there is never a time to quote Leia. Not even on Slashdot. Truly.

I don't get it >_>

Re:Please don't make this mistake again ...

[jonaskoelker]

Truly, there is never a time to quote Leia. Not even on Slashdot. Truly.

So this is how Star Wars quoting dies: with thundering applause.

One Word

[Anonymous Coward]

Botnets.

Re:One Word

[KDR_11k]

Gonna be noticed much quicker if they keep using your WUs. Botnets persist in part because people don't realize their computers are infected.

New Job for Jack...

[sherpajohn]

He should become Michael Jackson's lawyer...then it would be a total nut-job defending a complete wacko.

Re:New Job for Jack...

[Anonymous Coward]

Michael Jackson + Jack Thompson = The Double Jack Legal Team!

Jack Thompson is a good person

[rwwyatt]

Next to him, I appear to be sane. I can always point to the fact that Jack Thompson hasn't been committed yet when they come to take me away!

Re:You're a fucking moron.

[Jaysyn]

1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20500

Have fun!

Jack Thomson is simply amazing

[erroneus]

He never quits because he believes in his mission. His mission is more important to him than the time it takes to consider appropriate action and working on strong possibilities and better angles. He's a giant clown on the outside, but within himself, he is a fearless crusader. He is rather like a cartoon character.

Re:Jack Thomson is simply amazing

[Real1tyCzech]

SPOON!!!!

It is Spam in the "Is this Spam?" sense, though

[Anonymous Coward]

So it really is spam.

Nope, he's DEMANDING to be heard

[Anonymous Coward]

And that isn't part of the first ammendment.

Jack can write as many snotty emails but when he continues to pester someone, it's harassment.

And that's illegal.

See also: "stalking".

And you can petition the government, but the person is not the government. It also doesn't say "and petitioning can mean continually harassing the government until you get your way" (cf "can we go? can we go? can we go? can we go? can we go? can we go? can we go? can we go? can we go? can we go? can we go? can we go? can we go? can we go? can we go? can we go?" from a four-year old)

Re:You're a fucking moron.

[mrchaotica]

The fact that the CAN-SPAM act in particular may not apply doesn't change the widely accepted definition of spam.

But the "widely accepted definition" isn't the one that's relevant to this discussion. The Senator threatened to invoke the CAN-SPAM Act, which means that definition is the relevant one.

Eh, not so much

[Weaselmancer]

It's not surprising when a pig gets dirty. He's just found a new way to do it is all. I wouldn't be surprised if he started cold calling people on their cell phones next, or sending unsolicited faxes.

The guy has absolutely no clue when it comes to tech issues. None. This whole spam thing is yet another demonstration of that.

Nothing he does is really surprising.

Re:Eh, not so much

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't be surprised if he started cold calling people on their cell phones next

He's actually done this at -least- once. He called and left a message to a friend of mine who had left an (unrelated) comment in one of the various gaming forums that was talking about him. Apparently checked his account bio and from there found his website that happened to have his phone number listed. I suppose this is still a step above just taking out the phone book and calling everyone alphabetically, but still.

Re:Eh, not so much

[Chris Burke]

It's not surprising when a pig gets dirty.

I'll have you know that Chief Engineer Piggi La Forge is a most fastidious pig, and it would be most shocking to find him anything but immaculate. Even your insinuation has sent him squealing off in dismay. Fortunately he didn't realize who exactly you were comparing to a pig, or I'd never be able to coax him from the shower.

It DID happen to a bunch of people

[Anonymous Coward]

"Please take me off your list".

A list of names (a whole bunch of names).

Spam.

I've said it all along...

[CompassIIDX]

Jack Thomson is actually a hardcore gamer.

Think about it. He's arguably done more to marginalize the anti-videogame movement than anyone else in history. His over-the-top, histrionic antics absolutely destroy any credibility his arguments might have.

I never understood why gamers cheered for his downfall. Imagine if there was someone competent in his place? ::shudder::

I hate him too...

[Anonymous Coward]

but lets get one thing straight, he was sending emails to a state senator, when the day come you can be prosecuted for sending email to an elected official who's job it is to listen to the people and act on their behalf I am moving to Quebec.

I don't care if he was sending links to child porn
(If the senate was trying to knock down sites hosting such material would a list not be appropriate) he should either just ignore them (a lot of politicians do anyways)

Lets not even talk about what a bad president it would set if he was actually able to prosecute Jack under the CAN-SPAM for sending what amount to an anti-advertisment.

That'll teach anybody to pay attention to him

[sirwired]

This episode serves the Utah Senate right. It was their bright idea to take up his bill, despite the fact that it's chief proponent is a 100% Pure, Unadulterated, Nutcase.

SirWired

unfortunately

[GregNorc]

As much as I dislike Thompson, it's already well accepted that we have the same right to e-mail legislature as we do to write them letters. I remember there was a lawsuit over a similar issue (in California I think) where someone in government was getting a ton of emails about a pending bill, and they set up a filter to delete them as they came in.

I know he's an asshat, but this doesn't seem right

[BitwiseX]

'I asked you before to remove me from your mailing list. I supported your bill but because of the harassment will not again..'

That's not a good reason to NOT support a bill. That's kinda childish.
I've known a few people that were complete and utter TOOLS, but had some damn good ideas. Poor presentation shouldn't affect his judgment, the CONTENTS of the bill should.

Re:You're a fucking moron.

[geminidomino]

I dunno if it's that self-referential. You have to be mighty cowardly to consider "you are a complete fuckwad" to be intimidating. Insulting, sure, but I'm not sure that saying it once would be harassing either...

Uh

[mikkelm]

"I asked you before to remove me from your mailing list. I supported your bill but because of the harassment will not again. If I am not removed, I will turn you over to the AG for legal action."

So this guy bases his political decisions on his personal opinions of the people who present the bills? I pity his constituency.

Re:You're a fucking moron.

[Sj0]

If Jack Thompson started e-mailing me, I'd be intimidated as hell, knowing he's got a long history of harassment, libel, slander, and generally making life a living hell for people he doesn't agree with.

As I mentioned earlier, Thompson's career for a decade has revolved around chasing the ambulances after school shootings. He's been paid repeatedly to show up for interviews on television on this subject. This is his commercial business at this point, which I'd argue makes these commercial e-mails. Sacha Baron Cohen sending hundreds of e-mails saying "PLEASE PASS THE BILL GIVING ME A SUBSIDY FOR GYPSY TEARS TO PROTECT ME FROM THE AIDS" should be considered commerical e-mail as well, since they're made in pursuit of commercial interests.

cardinality

[Tetsujin]

For those who don't get it: the set of integers isn't larger than the set of natural numbers. You can define a mapping function which creates a 1:1 mapping between the set of all natural numbers and the set of all integers. (f(x) = x/2 for all even (x), f(x) = -((x-1)/2) for all odd x). Since there's a 1:1 relationship between the elements of the two sets which covers all the elements of both sets, the sets are the same size.

By way of contrast, the set of all real numbers is larger than the set of natural numbers. You can't map the set of natural numbers onto the set of real numbers because the set has both infinitely large range and infinitely small granularity. Both sets are infinite, but one's bigger than the other.

Re:cardinality

[Golddess]

So... the set of integers contains some non-natural numbers (for lack of a proper term), and the set of natural numbers contains only integers, but they are the same size?

*head explodes*

Re:cardinality

[jadrian]

Actually Rationals just like the Reals also have infinitely large rage and infinitely small granularity and yet, unlike them, they are the same size as Naturals.

Re:cardinality

[jadrian]

It's actually easy to understand. Start with a simpler example like N0 {naturals with 0) and N (naturals without 0). Take the set N0, now rename all the elements to it's successor. So now 0 is called 1, 1 is called 2, 2 is called 3... etc. So you just obtained N. But the result must be the same size, you just renamed stuff. And you can do similar renamings to the Integers or Rationals. So they are all the same size.

Re:cardinality

[Tetsujin]

Actually Rationals just like the Reals also have infinitely large range and infinitely small granularity and yet, unlike them, they are the same size as Naturals.

Huh, yeah, I guess you're right... I knew there was something wrong with my statement of why (informally speaking) reals were uncountable... So, what, I wonder, would be the correct statement? What is it about real numbers that makes them uncountable?

(Explanation of why rationals are countable, for anyone curious:
treat the numeric space of rationals, m/n, as a two dimensional grid of points - (m, n) where n>0. Now create a spiral starting at (0, 1) which goes through each point, and map natural numbers to those points in the order the spiral touches them. Eliminate the redundant ones if you like - they're countable either way.)

(Also, I made an error in my function mapping natural numbers to integers: I mapped both 0 and 1 to 0... off-by-one error in the odd case.)

Re:cardinality

[WCguru42]

So, what, I wonder, would be the correct statement? What is it about real numbers that makes them uncountable?

The simple explanation (and I'm leaving out a lot of detail) is to use a base-2 expansion of the real numbers. You can construct a countable set of numbers defined as x(k) such that the k-th digit is the only non-zero number.

x(0) = 0

x(1) = 1

x(2) = 10

x(3) = 100

...

x(10) = 10 0000 0000

This set is infinitely-countable but there still remains the set y(k) that is constructed similarly except with the y-th digit being the only non-1 number. This still will not cover the entire set and by expansion it is impossible to construct a complete cover of the set of real numbers with the set of natural numbers (the definition of Aleph-0). This results in the cardinality of the real numbers being defined as Aleph.

Re:cardinality

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually Rationals just like the Reals also have...infinitely small granularity....

Oh, really. So, pi is a rational number, now? And the square root of 2? Or did you mean "infinitely small granularity, except where it's not?" :P

Re:cardinality

[Thing 1]

Actually Rationals just like the Reals also have infinitely large rage [...]

Thank you for reminding me of those fierce college days spent screaming at my Calculus textbook. :)

Re:cardinality

[Anonymous Coward]

Granularity? You just made that up. Your reasons for the set of real numbers being uncountable would apply equally well to the rationals, which are countable. Anyone interested in a justification that doesn't involve the word granularity should look up Cantor's diagonal argument on Wikipedia.

Also, treating this as a philosophical issue about "sizes of infinity" is misguided. It's just a statement about the existence of certain kinds of functions.

Re:cardinality

[Workaphobia]

It's all because of George Cantor. He had the crazy notion that one could compare the size of infinite sets using a generalization of one way you might compare two regular finite sets: Try to find a one-to-one mapping between them. If you succeed, they are of the same size, but if one exhausts before the other, that one's smaller.

So |{1, 2, 3}| = |{a, b, c}| because there exists a one-to-one mapping between them, for instance, {(1, a),(2, b),(3, c)}; but |{1, 2}| |{a, b, c}| because there is no such mapping. We know which one is the smaller one because {1, 2} can be mapped to a subset of {a, b, c}.

In the same way, there are one-to-one mappings between the set of natural numbers {1, 2, ...} and the set of integers {0, 1, 2, ...} U {-1, -2, ...}. Here's one example: {(1, 0), (2, 1), (3, -1), (4, 2), (5, -2), (6, 3), (7, -3), ...}, counting up the natural numbers and alternating back and forth between positives and negatives on the integers. The mapping is correct because 1) No number from either set is listed twice in the mapping; and 2) every number from both sets will appear somewhere in that mapping.

We say the set of natural numbers is "countable". Any set that has the same size, or cardinality, as the set of natural numbers is also countable. Any set smaller than the natural numbers is considered countable too, but those sets are finite as the natural numbers are the smallest infinite set.

A good many sets are countable. The natural numbers, the integers, rational numbers, any k-tuple of integers for a fixed k, the set of all finite strings from a finite alphabet...

The first interesting uncountable set you would come across are the real numbers, which are pretty much every number you could form using as many decimal digits as you like, even an infinite number of non-repeating digits (like pi), with the technical detail that any infinite repeating sequence of 9s is actually redundant (9.999... = 10).

Cantor showed that the reals are uncountable with a proof technique he created known as diagonalization. This idea was later adopted by Godel for his Incompleteness Theorem, and shortly after by Turing to show that the Halting Problem is undecidable. This post is long enough so I won't go into it unless you ask, but the idea is simple enough: suppose the reals were countable, then they could be listed in an enumeration. But there's a way to construct a number that could not possibly appear in the enumeration, so we have a proof by contradiction.

Is your head still in one piece?

Re:cardinality

[Workaphobia]

On two different levels, what are you talking about?

First of all, rationals do have infinitely small granularity, in the sense that you can pick any two distinct rationals and find another rational that lies strictly between them.

Second, how does that rationals having a particular property say *anything* about pi or the square root of 2, since both of those are irrational?

Re:cardinality

[Workaphobia]

So, what, I wonder, would be the correct statement? What is it about real numbers that makes them uncountable?

Think of it in terms of the powerset. If you apply the powerset to anything, even an infinite set, you get a result with greater cardinality. For instance, the set of natural numbers is countable, but the powerset of natural numbers (set of all sets of natural numbers) is uncountable.

A real number is basically just a potentially infinite sequence of digits. There's a small technical matter that an infinite string of 9s redundantly expresses another number (9.999... = 10), but let's ignore that possibility, as it doesn't impact our intuition.

Choose base 2 instead of base 10 to represent a real number. Then any such number is basically a choice of which powers of two to accept (1) and which to reject (0). 110.01 (decimal 6.25) is the subset {4, 2, 1/4} selected from the powers of two. Well, selecting which of these elements to use to form the subset is the same thing as choosing an element from the powerset of the powers of two. The powers of two are an infinite, countable set, so their powerset is uncountable. This gives you the intuitive reason why real numbers are uncountable.

It comes down to the fact that you have essentially arbitrary choice over an infinite selection of digits, which is not true of rational numbers.

Granted, I relied on the fact that the powerset always strictly increases cardinality. Wikipedia says this is proven by the Cantor diagonalization argument when extended to general sets (instead of just the integers).

Hope that helps.

Re:cardinality

[Miseph]

No, the set of integers is larger, but they are both infinitely large.

There are also an infinite number of values between 0 and 1, and a larger infinite number of values between 0 and 2.

Re:cardinality

[colinrichardday]

There are also an infinite number of values between 0 and 1, and a larger infinite number of values between 0 and 2.

What do you mean by "larger infinite number"? The cardinalities of the two sets are the same.

Re:cardinality

[MikeBabcock]

They're equally infinite, the list of real numbers simply reaches very large proportions at very small apparent values compared to natural numbers.

Just because there are infinite numbers in between each of the values of the other infinite set doesn't make either more infinite than the other.

Re:cardinality

[Anonymous Coward]

Rational numbers have unbounded extent, like real numbers. Also like real numbers, there is a rational number strictly between every pair of rational numbers, however near they are. Yet rational numbers are equinumerous with natural numbers.

Re:cardinality

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm both surprised and pleased that all of this is immediately familiar to me even after a 25-30 year gap...

Re:cardinality

[Workaphobia]

I assume "equally infinite" means of equal size.

Then that statement's incorrect for the commonly accepted definition of what it means for one set to be bigger than the other, namely, that they share the same cardinality.

There exists no bijective mapping between the set of natural numbers and the set of real numbers, and since the latter is a superset of the former, this means the set of real numbers if bigger ("more infinite") than the naturals.

See my posts elsewhere in this thread, or search wikipedia for countability and cardinality.

Re:cardinality

[martas]

Yes, Cantor is the father of set theory, which makes his work important in pretty much any field in mathematics (including computer science; yes, that IS a branch of mathematics. anyone who doesn't agree can go sodomize themselves with the 4 coloring problem). Unfortunately, because he was so ahead of his times, the religious fanatics at the time (i.e. pretty much everyone) drove him insane. He was pretty much fucked over by everyone because they couldn't decouple the idea of infinity from god.

He really deserves to be remembered a lot more than he is.

Re:cardinality

[Anonymous Coward]

ever heard of girls?

Achievements of The Contradictor

[Scrameustache]

"Stop sending me spam or I will not support your bill" sounds dangerously close to "send me $ or I will not support your bill".

"be polite" is not close to "pay up".

If Thompson's bill was worth supporting before, then his bill should still be worth supporting after annoying e-mails

No, if Thompson's word was believed before, it is not to be believed after he has shown his true colors.

No

[Anonymous Coward]

Once you say "remove me from your list", Can-SPAM doesn't care whether its commercial or not.

That is the issue here, not Thompson's stupid agenda or porn fetish. He was specifically told to stop, multiple times, and persisted anyway. At that point he is in violation.

Re:No

[mrchaotica]

I wish you weren't an AC, and had posted earlier -- you sound like you're a lot more correct than I am!

Waddoups is sort of a poster boy

[weston]

... for crazy in Utah politics, and this wouldn't be the first time he's operated on a grudge (albeit a political one rather than a personal one).

Re:Low lifes trying to make amends

[Anonymous Coward]

Jack's just trying to regain the respect of his Idaho lover.

Got to hand it to Larry Craig, he sure knows how to get under a man's underpants!

Those tactics worked for Republicans for 20 years

[Benfea]

It was entirely reasonable for him to assume that such tactics would continue to work in the face of that. Unfortunately for him, I think times have changed.

Technically, the word you want is "facetious"

[Benfea]

Just sayin'.

Yes

[Zalminen]

Yes, it is. Although there's also a secondary requirement that she's not the jealous type....

Heh, I'm usually competing with my wife who can spot any short skirts first :)

Re:Yes

[SpecBear]

My girlfriend is a bit of the jealous type, but she's also as lecherous as I am. She can't catch me looking if she's too busy looking herself. ;)

No, actually. The cat does not "got my tongue."

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

As much as he doesn't deserve it, I hope a court throws out any legal action against him with the words, "The government, seriously, wants it to be illegal for people to mass-email their elected officials? Bzzzzzt! Guess again and thanks for playing!"