Note that in the door-to-door solicitation case, the court said that "Residents may post a 'No Solicitations' sign at the door". This is precisely analogous to a DNC list.
What the ruling (correctly) did was to prohibit governments from requiring that people get a permit before speaking. It did not create an alleged "right" to pester people who have put the world on notice that they aren't interested in your sales pitch.
I don't believe in any basic principle by which a company is never allowed to call you just because you don't want them to.
Your straw man is aggrivating my sinuses. The relevant principle is that I want telemarketers off the phone line I am paying for. If they want to offer a deal where they pay my phone bill and I let them make X number of calls per month, I'd consider it.
All of these seem like reasonable situations in which to enforce a "don't call this number" rule. But, who gets to decide which numbers qualify and when, etc? That's tricky.
It's not the slightest little bit "tricky". The person who is paying for that phone number to remain in service gets to decide.
Quite simple, really. You don't have the right to appropriate my property without my permission in order to facilitate your free speech. Thus, limitations on telemarketing, spamming, etc. are a perfectly appropriate enforcement of property rights, so long as they are enforced in a manner consistent with other rights (e.g. there must be due process for the accused, enforcement must not be arbitrarily selective).
Essentially, from what I gather, the DMA opposes HR 718 because it gives the ISPs the right to define their own spam policies and enforce them legally (as opposed to allowing individuals to determine what spam they would like to opt-out of).
Translation: The DMA opposes HR 718 because it enables effective action by someone who actually has the time and resources to pursue it (ISP support staff), instead of limiting itself to non-action by people who have neither of the above (individual spam targets).
The government has no right to tell telemarketers that they can't use their phones as they wish.
[DAFFY DUCK] Aha -- PRONOUN TROUBLE! [/DAFFY DUCK]
Certainly, the telemarketers have the right to use their phones as they wish. This right guarantees that they may call one another to their heart's content. However, they do not have the right to appropriate the use of my phone line.
But I know of at least one ISP which has been SPEWS-listed due to the fact that they host hosting companies that host freehosting-providers that host an endless stream of small companies that gets replaced as quickly as they get kicked out for spamming.
Other ISPs host subsidiary ISPs without becoming similarly infested. Thus, the problem is clearly with the policies and management of this ISP. Cutting them off until they solve the problem seems fair enough to me.
The counter-argument would be that the entertainment industry has a more powerful position now that both houses of congress are republican-controlled.
Not likely -- Hollywood has a (justified) reputation as a liberal bastion and a money machine for the Democrats. Unless the Republicans are as dumb as rocks (which can't be ruled out, to be sure), they'll turn a deaf ear to their concerns and might even be willing to whack their pee-pees a bit.
Motion Picture Association of America President Jack Valenti says part of the problem is a perception that his industry is anti-consumer.
In other news, Osama bin Laden issued a statement saying that part of the problem is a perception that his organization is a band of murderous thugs.
In both cases, the statements are being subjected to sophisticated high-tech analysis to determine whether they are the work of a live speaker, or have been patched together posthumously from old clips.
As anyone who's ever stayed in a hotel knows, politicians love to shift as much of your tax burden as possible to people who can't throw your sorry ass out of office. Given that such a law would only be enforceable on Oregon residents, this tax works in just the opposite direction.
And I shall certainly take legal advice on whether I can sue companies who bounce my mail with any rejection message containing the word 'spam' for libel or something similar.
Are you also taking legal advice on whether you can sue the/. posters who post a reply containing the word 'idiot' for libel or something similar?
Since spamming have near-zero cost, anti-spam measure must attack the revenue stream of spammer. The revenue stream is people buying into spam.
The problem is that the relevant "people" are not necessarily the ones stupid enough to respond to spammed come-ons. Even in the (unattainable) case in which nobody ever responds to spamvertising, spammers will still make money.
Large-scale spammers don't sell their own crap; they sell the "service" of spamming advertisements for other people's crap. Even if nobody responds to the spam, the spammer still has the money. Eventually, some of the clients get tired of flushing their money down the toilet, but there will always be customers for the spammer's snake-oil pitch.
Let us not lose sight of the point here: what you object to is not the method of communication, or the nature of the communication.
It's rather too late for you to not lose sight of the point, which is that "spam" is defined in terms of its method (the flooding of large numbers of e-mail connections without permission) and nature (the theft of other people's bandwidth).
You object to the content of the communication
I see that you have some reading comprehension issues. My original post specifically rejected the notion that content was at all relevant.
The argument that spam, including this kind of spam, is stealing your bandwidth only makes sense if your ability to use your Internet connection is materially harmed by it.
So, you're of the school of moral philosophy that holds that it's perfectly OK to steal a penny from just about anybody, ten dollars from a typical middle-class American, or a thousand dollars from Bill Gates (as none of these examples will cause any material harm to the victim). Most of us grownups don't agree with you.
Bandwidth isn't something you own
I guess my ISP is going to have to come up with some other rationale for charging me money to use it.
If spam, in any form, prevented you from being able to use your Internet connection
Irrelevant. Not even spammers (who routinely lose in court) have dared try the absurd argument that they should be held harmless so long as they stop short of the utter destruction the victim's internet connection.
This isn't really a free speech issue -- commercial speech isn't covered by the same rules that govern other forms of expression
The fact that some (not all) spam is "commercial speech" is irrelevant. What is relevant is that spam violates the property rights of the recipients and the transmitting ISPs.
what you're basically saying is, "Some people are saying something that I don't like. I know that I can just stop listening to them, but I want to do more. How can I fight back to ensure that they have to stop saying what they're saying?
No, what we're basically saying is, "Some people are stealing my bandwidth. How can I fight back to ensure that they go to jail just like people who get caught stealing anything else?"
Don't get me wrong, I believe that the **AA's hold a deathgrip on their products and want to strip us of our fair use rights.
Why do you insist on asking questions to which you already know the answer?
The **AAs' statements are dismissed out of hand precisely because they have repeatedly demonstrated bad faith (infringing fair use rights, installing extraneous features such as fast-forward lockouts under color of copyright protection, etc). Like the Boy Who Cried Wolf, they have no one but themselves to blame when they can't get any help against the real wolves.
Fortunately, anti-spammers have been more careful. If they behaved like the **AAs, they would ignore evidence that a suspect was actually the victim of a joe job, blackhole domains just because references were forged into spam headers, etc.
Should we argue for taking away the wealth of the Kennedys and Rockefellers as well?
Yes, actually, we should. Power should not be hereditary, and wealth is power. Inheritance taxes should be confiscatory above a certain level; millionaireship, say, should not be hereditary.
That is not "taking away" the power -- simply transferring it to a far more dangerous entity (the government).
If they are as uncsrupulous as you claim, they could do this anyway, TIA be damned.
Nonsense. Under the existing system (in which the relevant data is scattered amongst various merchants, agencies, etc), the Feds need to get warrants or else take multiple risks of getting caught breaking the law. Under TIA, the information is right at their fingertips.
We need to allow the government a little more lattitude then we are giving them.
It wasn't me who wrote the Constitution and Bill or Rights. It was a bunch of dead white guys. Take it up with them.
Let the government collect all the data they want and run ultra-sophisticated analysis software to profile, BUT don't let them have access to the information UNTIL a judge approves.
As I have already pointed out, insuring that the Feds can't get the information until they get warrants for it is precisely the reason it needs to be kept dispersed, so that the Feds have to show the warrants to various outside parties.
It does no good to know that someone, somewhere violated their visa restrictions, or that someone else though that a certain person was acting in a suspicious manner or asking odd questions.
WTF?? The first is grounds for arrest and deportation in and of itself; the second is grounds to start an investigation (which will turn up further causes for suspicion if the target is indeed up to something, eventually firming up into grounds for arrest and prosecution).
The advantage of keeping the data dispersed is that it raises the bar high enough to discourage casual and illegal snooping. If a Fed has to make a few visits and involve a few other people (some of them outside the government) every time he wants to put together a dossier on a target, he's less likely to do it without legitimate reason than he would if he could just pull it up from the comfort and privacy of his office.
Slashdot Mirror
What the ruling (correctly) did was to prohibit governments from requiring that people get a permit before speaking. It did not create an alleged "right" to pester people who have put the world on notice that they aren't interested in your sales pitch.
Your straw man is aggrivating my sinuses. The relevant principle is that I want telemarketers off the phone line I am paying for. If they want to offer a deal where they pay my phone bill and I let them make X number of calls per month, I'd consider it.
All of these seem like reasonable situations in which to enforce a "don't call this number" rule. But, who gets to decide which numbers qualify and when, etc? That's tricky.
It's not the slightest little bit "tricky". The person who is paying for that phone number to remain in service gets to decide.
Quite simple, really. You don't have the right to appropriate my property without my permission in order to facilitate your free speech. Thus, limitations on telemarketing, spamming, etc. are a perfectly appropriate enforcement of property rights, so long as they are enforced in a manner consistent with other rights (e.g. there must be due process for the accused, enforcement must not be arbitrarily selective).
Translation: The DMA opposes HR 718 because it enables effective action by someone who actually has the time and resources to pursue it (ISP support staff), instead of limiting itself to non-action by people who have neither of the above (individual spam targets).
[DAFFY DUCK] Aha -- PRONOUN TROUBLE! [/DAFFY DUCK]
Certainly, the telemarketers have the right to use their phones as they wish. This right guarantees that they may call one another to their heart's content. However, they do not have the right to appropriate the use of my phone line.
Other ISPs host subsidiary ISPs without becoming similarly infested. Thus, the problem is clearly with the policies and management of this ISP. Cutting them off until they solve the problem seems fair enough to me.
Not likely -- Hollywood has a (justified) reputation as a liberal bastion and a money machine for the Democrats. Unless the Republicans are as dumb as rocks (which can't be ruled out, to be sure), they'll turn a deaf ear to their concerns and might even be willing to whack their pee-pees a bit.
In other news, Osama bin Laden issued a statement saying that part of the problem is a perception that his organization is a band of murderous thugs.
In both cases, the statements are being subjected to sophisticated high-tech analysis to determine whether they are the work of a live speaker, or have been patched together posthumously from old clips.
As anyone who's ever stayed in a hotel knows, politicians love to shift as much of your tax burden as possible to people who can't throw your sorry ass out of office. Given that such a law would only be enforceable on Oregon residents, this tax works in just the opposite direction.
Are you also taking legal advice on whether you can sue the /. posters who post a reply containing the word 'idiot' for libel or something similar?
The problem is that the relevant "people" are not necessarily the ones stupid enough to respond to spammed come-ons. Even in the (unattainable) case in which nobody ever responds to spamvertising, spammers will still make money.
Large-scale spammers don't sell their own crap; they sell the "service" of spamming advertisements for other people's crap. Even if nobody responds to the spam, the spammer still has the money. Eventually, some of the clients get tired of flushing their money down the toilet, but there will always be customers for the spammer's snake-oil pitch.
You forgot "You can't untraceably dial a spammer's 800 number from a cell phone."
It's rather too late for you to not lose sight of the point, which is that "spam" is defined in terms of its method (the flooding of large numbers of e-mail connections without permission) and nature (the theft of other people's bandwidth).
You object to the content of the communication
I see that you have some reading comprehension issues. My original post specifically rejected the notion that content was at all relevant.
The argument that spam, including this kind of spam, is stealing your bandwidth only makes sense if your ability to use your Internet connection is materially harmed by it.
So, you're of the school of moral philosophy that holds that it's perfectly OK to steal a penny from just about anybody, ten dollars from a typical middle-class American, or a thousand dollars from Bill Gates (as none of these examples will cause any material harm to the victim). Most of us grownups don't agree with you.
Bandwidth isn't something you own
I guess my ISP is going to have to come up with some other rationale for charging me money to use it.
If spam, in any form, prevented you from being able to use your Internet connection
Irrelevant. Not even spammers (who routinely lose in court) have dared try the absurd argument that they should be held harmless so long as they stop short of the utter destruction the victim's internet connection.
Think of it in these terms
Nope -- the terms in which people familiar with the issue think of it are quite good enough for me.
The fact that some (not all) spam is "commercial speech" is irrelevant. What is relevant is that spam violates the property rights of the recipients and the transmitting ISPs.
what you're basically saying is, "Some people are saying something that I don't like. I know that I can just stop listening to them, but I want to do more. How can I fight back to ensure that they have to stop saying what they're saying?
No, what we're basically saying is, "Some people are stealing my bandwidth. How can I fight back to ensure that they go to jail just like people who get caught stealing anything else?"
Why do you insist on asking questions to which you already know the answer?
The **AAs' statements are dismissed out of hand precisely because they have repeatedly demonstrated bad faith (infringing fair use rights, installing extraneous features such as fast-forward lockouts under color of copyright protection, etc). Like the Boy Who Cried Wolf, they have no one but themselves to blame when they can't get any help against the real wolves.
Fortunately, anti-spammers have been more careful. If they behaved like the **AAs, they would ignore evidence that a suspect was actually the victim of a joe job, blackhole domains just because references were forged into spam headers, etc.
He was turned to stone?
Yes, actually, we should. Power should not be hereditary, and wealth is power. Inheritance taxes should be confiscatory above a certain level; millionaireship, say, should not be hereditary.
That is not "taking away" the power -- simply transferring it to a far more dangerous entity (the government).
Puh-leeze. I suppose that the ACLU was also manipulated by some shadowy right-wing Dr. Evil into denouncing Clinton's FBI file scandal.
***BZZZTTTT*** I'm sorry; the correct answer is "It's called theft of service".
Thank you for playing, and don't forget your lovely consolation prize.
Nonsense. Under the existing system (in which the relevant data is scattered amongst various merchants, agencies, etc), the Feds need to get warrants or else take multiple risks of getting caught breaking the law. Under TIA, the information is right at their fingertips.
We need to allow the government a little more lattitude then we are giving them.
It wasn't me who wrote the Constitution and Bill or Rights. It was a bunch of dead white guys. Take it up with them.
Let the government collect all the data they want and run ultra-sophisticated analysis software to profile, BUT don't let them have access to the information UNTIL a judge approves.
As I have already pointed out, insuring that the Feds can't get the information until they get warrants for it is precisely the reason it needs to be kept dispersed, so that the Feds have to show the warrants to various outside parties.
Fess up -- you cribbed this from a Royal Minister's report on the Boston Tea Party, right?
WTF?? The first is grounds for arrest and deportation in and of itself; the second is grounds to start an investigation (which will turn up further causes for suspicion if the target is indeed up to something, eventually firming up into grounds for arrest and prosecution).
The advantage of keeping the data dispersed is that it raises the bar high enough to discourage casual and illegal snooping. If a Fed has to make a few visits and involve a few other people (some of them outside the government) every time he wants to put together a dossier on a target, he's less likely to do it without legitimate reason than he would if he could just pull it up from the comfort and privacy of his office.
Gore... Gore... Oh, yeah, wasn't he with the administration that illegally pulled all those FBI files on their political opponents?
Do they also maintain honest swindlers, virginal prostitutes, and pacifistic terrorists?
Since, after all, crack heads can't get their hands on illegal contraband....