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

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 ;)

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.

[_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.

[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.

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 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: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: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: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: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.

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::