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FTC seeks powers to smash spam 4

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So this first amendment thingy that the Americans have...does it allow pornography to be advertised to minors? Does it absolve such people from the legal/moral/ethical responsibility of the "consequences" of their actions?


There are some regulations with respect to the internet/pornography/minors. I would imagine there is also a legal out in that the purveyor has to have prior knowledge that the recipient/viewer is a minor.
 
dkediger,

"I think the question in your EU examples are how are the offenders identified, and under what legal criteria are they prosecuted."

Cui prodest scelus, is fecit. The responsible is usually the one who benefits. If someone sends you spam regarding growth hormone pills you can probably trace that company and charge it for it's crime.

If we can at least make spam illegal in the first place then we can actually charge people for it. What today are legitimate spamming businesses will be shut down.

Then if the system doesn't work (it does in France so why it shouldn't in North America evades me) we can talk about harsher means of fighting it.

Once again I stand behind my predicate. Making spam illegal and working together to remove it from existence is the only way to achieve what we want.

Gary Haran
********************************
 
Making things illegal does not make it go away. It just means if you get caught, and the courts have the time, and resources, it is possible you may get prosecuted.
Drug running/pushing is illegal, loitering on street corners with the intention of performing sexual favours for cash is illegal, driving under the infulence is illegal.

Being declared illegal has not made these dissapear.

What will be done once a spammer is caught. A slap on the wrist, a paltry fine, and off free to spam again.
 
PCLine:
The First Amendment is not intended to create an anarchy of free expression -- it is actually intended to limit the power of government. Current interpretation of the Constitution is that the government can limit speech, provided that such speech can be proven to be harmful, and that the need to limit speech substantively outweighs the right to protection of speech.

The Supreme Court of the United States, the ultimate interpreter of the Constitution, has found on numerous occasions that the need to protect children from the detrimental results of protected speech outweigh the right of protecting the speech itself. This includes laws that require a minimum age to purchase magazines such as Playboy or Penthouse, limits on where and how tobacco companies can advertise, and limits on where and how alcohol companies can advertise.

But in your specific example of pornography, the problem is defining "pornography" in a legally meaningful way. There are some Puritans in the United States, for example, that would include the U.K.'s famous "Page 3" girls in a list of pornographic material.

On the other hand, there are also some First Amendment purists who have already stated that should a SARS outbreak similar to the one in Canada happen in the U.S., the government should not be legally allowed to issue quarantine orders, because this would violate another part of the First Amendment, namely that of the right to free assembly.


xutopia:
Saying it does in France so why it shouldn't in North America evades me does not take into account that the U.S. and France do not have the identical legal systems. Some things can be accomplished legally in France but not in the U.S., and vice versa -- but the differences are real.

If you can figure out a way to make spam illegal in the U.S. without violating First Amendment protections, please send your ideas to the U.S. Congress.


Want the best answers? Ask the best questions: TANSTAAFL!
 
I think the problem in the US will be defining illegal SPAM wrt protected speech. As sleipnir214 pointed out, SPAM seems to resemble advertising which is generally considered protected. There are exceptions - tobacco/alcohol are two - but those exceptions seem to have grown out of manufacturer liability concerns rather than ethical/moral foundations.

To get a critical mass past the protected speech stumbling block, I think there will need to be several conditions irrefutably demonstrated:
- A financial cost incurred upon the recipient/receiving systems that is demonstrated to be harmful;
And
- A condition of fraud on the case of the sender.

Somewhere in there, Interstate commerce may come into play, as well as postal/wire fraud regulations.
 
sleipnir214
Thanks for the input.

All the best.
 
So far as I know, free speech is to protect the right to state your point of view. Spam is not a point of view.

An automated email saying "grow bigger breasts" doesn't deserve being protected with your constitution. Anyway I like my chest the size it is, thank you.

Free speech should allow web sites to say what they want if so they wish. If someone wants to sell free air for a fee I'm not to stop them. But when they hijack my bandwith I paid for I'd like them to be punishable by law for it.

Free speech should not protect the right to clog our bandwith with spam. If someone doesn't see the distinction between free speech and spam then that is too bad. Maybe it is time they learnt.

Once again all countries in the EU have different laws. Heck towns hundreds of meters apart have different laws and they are in the same European country.

With less power and money the countries of the EU are capable of working things out so that spam is not a problem for the members that choose it so.

Is the US crippled that it can't write laws to protect it's citizen from bandwith hog? Next people will be allowed to attach a cord to your car and hop on a free ride. After all they have a right to travel across the broad land don't they?

Gary Haran
********************************
 
Unfortunately, (or not), there is a tremendous industry to "grow bigger breasts." Based only on that information, this appears to be a legitimate form of speech. Where it would become illegal is if there is some form of "harm" attached to the message - harm in the form of fraud on the part of the sender, bodily harm to the receiver if they were to act on the message, or harm to the resources of the transmitting/receiving systems.

The first case may be easy to spot, but is difficult to prosecute partly due to the nature of SMTP mail.

The second case is usually difficult to prove and prosecute in a timely manner and usually after the fact.

The third case requires substantiation on the part of network providers/ISPs/hosts. I think there are attempts to at least outline the issue from this angle, but again, the nature of SMTP communication indicates that this was an asssumed risk on the part of these parties, therefore, the cost of damages can be questioned.

I would like to see the SPAM abuse stopped, but short of a rework of SMTP to accurately identify hosts, there will always be spoofed addresses to hide behind. The original article indicates that 66% of SPAM "contained obvious indicia of falsity." If the problem could be reduced that much, I think it would be a success as the rest could be managed.

For the record, I receive 0 SPAM in my two work accounts and one home address - but I know how to guard those addresses religiously. Now the "webmaster" accounts for the domains I'm responsible for are another story.
 
Also just noticed in the BBC article

From October, a European Union directive will make unsolicited e-mails illegal across member states.

From a UK perspective, I really don't understand how the First Amendment has been interpreted. It looks like very smart lawyers protecting people who are basically up to no good. Have there ever been any movements to reform it back to what it was in the first place? No offence intended, I know the US gets very protective about this issue.

 
xutopia:
petermeachem:
Again, the direct intent of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution is to specifically limit the power of the U.S. government. The thinking of the authors of the Bill of Rights was that if a government has control over what you can read or say, then it can control criticism of the government itself.

If the citizens of other nations trust their governments enough to give those governments the power to control what can be said, that is their prerogative. The founders of the United States thought otherwise, and the U.S. has yet to have enough people disagree with them to change the Constitution on this matter.

petermeachem:
The protection of speech granted by the first amendment to the Constitution is the one most Americans hold to be the most important of all.


Want the best answers? Ask the best questions: TANSTAAFL!
 
The protection of the freedom to send porn to my 10 year old daughter doesn't seem particularly valid to me.
I've had to start using software to read the headers and delete the stuff at the isp as it is so unsuitable. I've just deleted 65 out of 71 emails. About 40 were for my daughter and all bar 2 were deleted. Some were just adverts which we get repeated day in and day out. There is no way to stop them being sent and most are completely inappropriate such as US mortgages. Many of the others were outright sexual in tone.

Stuff the spammers 'rights'. What about ours?

 
It looks like very smart lawyers protecting people who are basically up to no good.

In a lot of borderline situations, yes. The theory generally applied is to always err on the side of permisiveness. The crux of the matter is "up to no good" isn't good enough to limit the speech. It has to be tangibly harmful in a physical/financial manner.
 

"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."

Seems clear to me what this was directed towards. It's to protect religous groups and people so they are allowed to practice religion and complain about their goverment if so they wish.

If you take the "reasonable man" dogma SPAM does not have any virtue in this instance.

Gary Haran
********************************
 
petermeachem:
If the content of those emails violates the laws in the U.K. (where I believe you reside), I strongly encourage you to report these incidents to your local authorities.

However, the fact that your daughter receives pornographic spam is, without wanting to seem callous, insufficient grounds for repealing the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Or at least that's what you seem to be hinting at as a solution to your problem.


xutopia:
You almost got it right. However, the field separator used in the first amendment is the semicolon -- thus the first amendment is read as:
Congress shall make no law:[ul][li] respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof[/li][li]abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press[/li][li]the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.[/li][ul]

Protection of speech is thus related to, but separate from, freedom of religion.

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions: TANSTAAFL!
 
sleipnir214 but is also insufficient grounds for applauding it. I must say you are very good at extrapolating beyond what is meant.

I presume others than me have the same problem.

A few more jolly adds have arrived. One about confirming an order which we have never made. Is that legal? Good stuff this free speech.

 
Hi Peter,
I use a MailWasher 2.0.21 Beta before they turned their freeware version into an "advertisement" for their "full" version.

MialWasher is fine if you fine tune it ~ that is mark the one's from "friends" as such.

Have you tried it?

All the best.
 
petermeachem

Don't confuse banning free speech with enforcing fraud laws.

The free speech limitations on stopping spam are all focused around whether or not it is legal to ban someone from sending mass unsolicited emails, not the content of said emails. Free speech arguments can be made regarding the content as well, but when that is done it is on a case by case basis, and plenty of examples can be shown on both sides (illicit email to minors/ fraudalent scams etc...).

And also realize that the extension of your argument is that spam which promotes legitimate goods or services would be fine by you. That's no good, especially considering someone can sneak in just enough to make the email legit by those standards then.

-Rob
 
The important point is that it is not stoppable. I cannot see why it should not be made a legal requirement to have a proper means to be able to stop an ad. So I should be able to, for instance, stop ads for 100lbs of lobster. I can't see any legal problems with that? The spammer still has his dubious right to free speech and I have my right not to listen.


 
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