🚀 go-pugleaf

On 6 Jan 1998, Russell Leach {78830} wrote:
[regarding spammers' right to send spam around]
> |>> The right to free speech extends only to the limits of the speaker's forum.
> |>
> |>This seems like a circular and peculiarly noninformative statement.  A 
> |>forum is an area wherein a speaker may be heard, no?  
> 
> And which I can bypass, at _my_ choosing.
> 
> I guess I was too subtle for you. By "the speaker's" forum, I meant, for 
> example, a web page, which I can choose to visit or not.  _My_ resources,
> my connect time, my ISP charges are under my control.  When the spammer 
> blasts my mailbox full of crap, he/she is inflicting upon me, and the 
> resources for which I pay, the burden of handling that junk.  My email address
> is not an open invitation to "come on in, waste my time & money".
> By your logic, a speaker would be simply exercising his/her freedom by 
> kidnapping an audience, tying them down, & forcing them to listen.  That's
> not freedom, it's assault.

Sending you email does not force you to listen to it, only to delete it.  
I can easily distinguish spam just by its subject.  
I think your example may be just a *bit* extreme.  :-)  By *your* logic, 
speaking through a loudspeaker in public ought to be unlawful, since the 
people walking by are "forced" to hear it. Do you really want to be 
protected against everything you don't want to hear?  I would suggest 
that such an attitude would be unwise.  
My point is that I don't want the government deleting my mail;  I'll do 
it for myself, thank you.

> |>> Speech that invades my forum (in this case my email account) is not, and
> |>> should not be, protected.
> |>
> |>Why, then, we should be suing junk mailer, including the U.S. senate for 
> |>sending us their insipid mass mailings.  Sound nonsensical?  It is, and 
> |>I'll tell you why.  When you get an email address, you are by implication 
> |>assenting to receive all messages sent their, regardless of who sends 
> |>them.  Your email account, like your postal address, is a publicly 
> |>addressible but only privately accessible portal to the world.  If 
> |>someone sends you a message to your mailbox, it is protected by their 
> |>rights to free speech, whether you like it or not.  Please forgive my 
> |>bluntness.
> 
> Utterly, totally wrong.
> Your postal service example demonstrates a real ignorance of the economics of
> the net.  D

You certainly are fond of the adhominem approach to discussion, aren't 
you?  Please be careful about your demeanor.  Your attacks say more about 
your own character than mine.  Why not consider the possibility that you 
don't know everything  for a moment?  Please.

> Don't you get an ISP bill each month?  Do you pay a monthly bill
> for your mailbox?  Do you put a stamp on each email?  Junk mailers pay for the
> services of the Postal Service.  Spammers are subsidized by each individual
> who owns an account.  Get it?

The spammer pays for his email account, and for the software which he 
uses to spam you.  The Post Office and the Internet are not the same thing, 
logistically, thus each email does not require a stamp.  
But this is all moot.  May I ask, what are your *constructive* suggestions 
to reduce spam without restricting free speech?  It's easy to complain...

> -----------------------------------------------------
> There's nothing right in my left brain.
> There's nothing left in my right brain.
> -----------------------------------------------------

aha!

-Sincerely, Rich Cook 510-724-3564 http://www.bais.com/~rcook
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"When I was a kid, I got no respect. The time I was kidnapped, they sent 
back a piece of my finger. My old man, he said he wanted more proof. " 
--Rodney Dangerfield
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