Antispam Bills: Worse Than Spam?

[Jim Choate]

On Fri, 1 Aug 2003, Earl Cooley wrote:

> Jim Choate wrote:
> >
> > For this to be taken seriously one must be able to -define spam- as if it
> > were a mathematical entity (eg a 'point'). It must be absolutely
> > differentiable from -all- other speech.
> >
> > You can't do that, nobody can.
>
> Well, actually, SpamAssassin calculated that Carl's original post was spam.
> Here's the breakdown:
>
> Content analysis details:   (3.50 points, 3 required)
> MORTGAGE_BEST      (2.6 points)  BODY: Information on mortgages
> HTML_40_50         (0.7 points)  BODY: Message is 40% to 50% HTML
> HTML_FONT_COLOR_RED (0.1 points)  BODY: HTML font color is red
> HTML_WEB_BUGS      (0.1 points)  BODY: Image tag with an ID code to identify you
> HTML_MESSAGE       (0.1 points)  BODY: HTML included in message
> HTML_RELAYING_FRAME (0.5 points)  BODY: Frame wanted to load outside URL
> HTML_FONT_BIG      (0.1 points)  BODY: FONT Size +2 and up or 3 and up
> HTML_FONT_COLOR_BLUE (0.1 points)  BODY: HTML font color is blue
> KNOWN_MAILING_LIST (-0.9 points) Email came from some known mailing list software
> MIME_HTML_ONLY     (0.1 points)  Message only has text/html MIME parts
>
> That's really useful, right? heh.

:) There is an old saying that one becomes what one hates.

Personaly, I'm opposed to any legislative responce. Nada, none, nil.

I don't agree that whatever the cost at the personal level it will be less
than the increase in taxes to pay for the additional officers, legal
support staff, etc. In particular I don't like the aspect of making it a
crime. There is no way you're going to convince me that irrespective of
the level, it's worth sending black clad stormtroopers into peoples lives.
Especially when that includes the potentail for people dying.

No, sorry. Ain't gonna happen.

It violates both speech and press aspects of the first. And to be clear
'press' in the Constitution isn't the news agencies. Thomas Jefferson made
that perfectly clear. It's the right of people to share their activities
with others.

People have a right to speak their mind, and they have a right to share it
with others. To base that right on content is an abrogation of the
fundamental ethos of this nation.

There is of course the concepts of harassment and trespass. Of which we
have sufficient laws on the book already. What we do need is a good case
and a couple of supporting court rulings. In particular people have a
right to ring your doorbell or drop a note on their porch, or ring their
doorbell to talk to the residents. When they do it in a confrontational
manner, by say ringing your doorbell over and over.

This of course is one reason I am completely opposed to blacklists as
well. Not only is there no technical or legal backing with respect to
speech, but their probing of my system after I tell them to stay away is a
form of trespass. Let's not even get into the aspect that this is one of
the primary channels of Open Relay machines around. They do all the work
and then sell the list, to who? Your ISP and spammers. If they didn't
exist each spammer would have to scan the net for relays IP by IP. But no,
for some reason people think it's a good idea.

People have the right to the pursuit of happines, not the attainment or
retention of it. It's simply not the governments job to protect what you
have from simple market alteration. Stability in that respect is a bad
thing. It denies others pursuit of happiness with the goal of the
individual.

There are some things that aren't a question of majority view. Sometimes
that only means all the idiots are on one side. It has no moral or ethic
weight.

Get over it and move on to something more important.


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