Robert A. Costner wrote:

At 10:13 PM 5/30/97 -0700, Tim May wrote:

...

The latest quote is from Marc Rotenberg, on a CNN piece on spam and anti-spam legislation, saying that what the legislators in Congress really need to look into is how the spammers develop their data bases..... ... Incredible. Does he propose investigations of private data gathering?

I'd agree here. Rather than have Congress blindly pass a law, some investigation of the matter should be done first. While I am not supporting a law, any such law should have three parts:

I don't support a new Holocaust, but if we are going to build gas chambers for killing Jews, they should be... When you are on a car lot "just looking" at the new models, the sales person quickly gets you deciding on the color and other features that you would want if you *did* purchase a car. You end up driving home in a car you can't afford and with a vague feeling that the sales person might be the one who is responsible for all that legislation that keeps getting passed for your benefit.

For good or for bad, the current movement in lawmaking is to plug these loopholes that exist for email.

Judging from the governments past success in plugging the "loopholes" that allow people to exercise their right to Free Speech, I am certain they will be able to "save" us from the incredible danger that spam represents to our well-being.

...

Look, I'm annoyed by getting 5-10 "unwanted" spam messages a day.

Then you miss the point. For all practical purposes, the spam industry does not exist in the US. The current spam bills are meant to address the actions of about five people in the entire United States.

If the small number of people affected is the basis for justifying the action taken on the issue, then we could just kill them. If you are going to rob a bank, take *all* of the money. If you are going to rape someone, then put it *all* the way in. {"Your honour, I would like to point out that my client only raped five women, and he didn't even stick his schlong all the way in. That hardly puts him in the same category as a *real* rapist.}

The manner in which the information is collected is invasive. People feel their privacy is being violated. The right to be left alone is a fundamental right.

Somebody forgot to tell the government.

-- Robert Costner Phone: (770) 512-8746 Electronic Frontiers Georgia mailto:pooh@efga.org

If you are in any way profiting from the EFG, whether monetarily or by increased reputation capital, etc., then your post is an Unsolicited Commercial Email. If not, then it is spam. I can say this with absolute authority, because I am the person who decides which of my mail is spam and which is not. Encryption businesses sometimes post announcements of new releases and the like on the cypherpunks list and I don't usually consider it to be spam. DataETR posted an announcement on the list and then complained mightily when cypherpunks asked serious questions about their product. In my mind, that made their announcement just another commercial product spam. Now that they have made an effort to actually participate in the list by "listening" to the list members I no longer consider them to be just another commercial spammer. A few list members who have a product or cause to push do so without adding any real input to the list. In my mind, their posts are usually as interesting as reading about how someone is making "BIG $$$" by spamming me. Tom Weinstein, of Netscape, actually "participates" in the list by discussing the pro's and con's of his product and others, and being generally realistic about his company's product. If his posts were nothing more than claims about how Netscape would get those nasty stains out of my shorts, then I would consider them spam. Jim Bell beat his "Assassination Politics" drum to the point where he beat it to death and his posts became unwanted spam to some on the list. I read privacy related announcements and the like from organizations which are theoretically in alliance with the general aims of the list and consider many of them to be useless spam. "XXXX Organization Fighting For Legislation That Only Fucks Over Five People!" "YYYY Organization Supports Bill That Lets Government Cut Off One Of Each Citizen's Fingers, Instead Of Two!" As far as I am concerned, any organization that is "fighting" for "my" rights by getting involved in political lobbying/activism, etc., holds no interest for me as a cypherpunk. There is not a mother's son among them who isn't soon knee-deep in self-serving "deals" and "compromise." I don't participate in this list to read self-serving missives which attempt to justify career activists' participation in the government's dark comedy. If Bill Clinton posted his announcements in regard to government crypto policy on the cypherpunks list, I would consider it to be spam. If he sincerely solicited my opinion on the policies, then he would be a list participant. There are some list members whose posts are so knee-jerk and unthinking that they amount to nothing more than an unsolicited commercial advertisement for their precious self-image. Please! Don't fight for legislation to protect me from their posts. I would be tempted to support legislation requiring certain list members to put "BORING AND STUPID" in the Subject header, but then I would probably be forced to put "CYNICAL AND PESSIMISTIC" in my own Subject headers. My failure to include a donation to your organization with this post is not an oversight. C&P