Tim May wrote: "...anti-spam legislation." (uh, do I have to explicitly state that May didn't support such legislation in his original post?) Retailiation, like legislation seems pointless to me, though since our troops are now in Afghanistan, Saudi, Iraq, Cuba, Korea, Germany and so on, I see no reason we can't eventually send a local delegation of this defacto worldwide government to crack down on Nigerian spammers, who will soon probably be declared terrorists. What I wonder is why this isn't solved in a cyber-streetfight. If people get sick enough with spam I figure a good big batch of hackers could make some serious trouble for a few of the bigger spammers. -TD

From: Tim May <timcmay@got.net> To: cypherpunks@lne.com Subject: Re: Nigerian Spammers Using TDD/TTY Telephone Relay Service Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 07:01:56 -0700

On Tuesday, May 27, 2003, at 04:23 AM, Roy M.Silvernail wrote:

...

On Tuesday 27 May 2003 03:53 am, Bill Stewart wrote:

...

This weekend I received three or more cell phone calls from 800-855-0000, which said they were the AT&T Relay Service, which relays phone calls from deaf people using TDD or TTY or now internet webform services. They claimed to be a "Dr. Charles Ego" (or some name like that) asking to confirm that I'd received his email, and asking for my email address.

Interesting turn of events. I'd have expected porno spammers to blaze this new territory. But then, it seems that the Nigerian spam crew has more time to waste. Reports like the one at http://www.geocities.com/a_kerenx/ tell of pulling what is essentially the telemarketer timewaster maneuver on the scammers.

Frankly, I'm surprised I haven't yet seen incidents of spammers following up via another comm channel to find out why their spam was ignored and/or repeat their pitch. For that matter, with all the First Amendment blather heard from spammers, I'd almost expect one of them to argue for proactively enforced delivery and some sort of "obligation to read" statute.

No, absolutely _nothing_ in the First can possibly imply any "enforced delivery" or "obligation to read." I assume you are semi-joking, but this bears repeating, especially for those here who seem to be unclear on the concepts.

Secondly, most if not all of the "anti-spam laws" are, in fact, directly in contravention of the First Amendment. (This applies to out of country spammers, such as our friends like Dr. Igaboo Umbalago, Director of Petroleum Resources of Nigeria. Why this is so is not because the Nigerians are Americans but because "shall not be infringed" means that neither Congress nor the cops can set up screening operations to examine the content of mail or telephone calls: there simply is no authority for such things, which means those who send letters or e-mail or who make telephone calls from France or Nigeria or Taiwan are all de facto and de jure covered by the First. The "penumbra," some might call it.)

Several lists or groups I am are consumed by spam and anti-spam debates. Nearly all participants in the debate miss the importance of the First.

The First does not allow government to be in the content examination business. Those who think otherwise need....well, you all know what they need. I am serious. I am fucking sick and tired of bureaucrats, legislators, and even people on lists like this thinking that they have some authorization to examine the letters or e-mails I receive.

Perhaps rather than retaliating against spammers, as many here have written about, we should be talking about mail-bombing and spam-bombing any politician or lawmaker who supports anti-spam legislation.

--Tim May

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