At 04:38 PM 3/17/03 -0800, Steve Schear wrote:
At 04:54 PM 3/14/2003 -0500, Jason Hihn wrote:
IANAL, but the Supreme Court has ruled that we have the right to be left
alone.
Unfortunately, it is not a "right" and I don't think they ever did.
Not to drag us too far into a discussion of U.S. law (relevant, obviously,
to only a subset of the IETF and the world in general), but Steve is
right. Indeed, last year, in Watchtower Bible & Tract Society v. Village
of Stratton, http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-1737.ZS.html, the
Supreme Court rejected a blanket ban on door-to-door solicitation on First
Amendment grounds. The Court hinted that a ban limited to COMMERCIAL
solicitation might have more chance of success.
Of course, spam is different in that it imposes concrete costs on the
recipient, and that will affect the constitutional analysis. But it is
likely that any spam legislation in the U.S. -- to be upheld in the long
run -- will be limited to restrictions on commercial spam. (And I'd
suggest that discussions of the meaning of "commercial" in this context
take place off list.)
John (fwiw, IAAL)
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