RE: [Asrg] Thoughts so far

At 05:33 PM 3/17/2003 -0800, you wrote:
> --On Monday, March 17, 2003 4:38 PM -0800 Steve Schear <schear(_at_)attbi(_dot_)com> 
> 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.  The 
> > quote you are referring
> > to was from SC judge Louis Brandeis' minority opinion in Olmstead v. 
> > United States (1928), a
> > wiretap case.
> Try the ruling in:
> ROWAN v. U. S. POST OFFICE DEPT. , 397 U.S. 728 (1970)397 U.S. 728
>
> "We therefore categorically reject the argument that a vendor has a right 
> under the Constitution or otherwise to send unwanted material into the 
> home of another. If this prohibition operates to impede the flow of even 
> valid ideas, the answer is that no one has a right to press even 'good' 
> ideas on an unwilling recipient. That we are often 'captives' outside the 
> sanctuary of the home and subject to objectionable speech and other sound 
> does not mean we must be captives everywhere. See Public Utilities Comm. 
> of District of Columbia v. Pollak, 343 U.S. 451 (1952). The asserted right 
> of a mailer, we repeat, stops at the outer boundary of every person's domain."
> as delivered by Chief Justice Burger.
>
> it's closer, but seems to speak to the limitations and lack of certain 
> "rights" of the sender or speaker rather than the affirmative granting or 
> acknowledgement of the "rights" of the recipient or listener...but IANAL 
> either.
Right on the money.  We all get 4th Class adverts in our postal boxes but 
few seem to complain even though we are forced to spend a few valuable 
seconds of our time each day dealing with it.  How is this markedly 
different, financially, from email spam?  Following along the apparent line 
of reasoning of the above decision no commercial entity would be able to 
contact me w/o prior authorization, and we know this will never become the 
law of the land.  Because many spammers may not be repeat offenders to the 
same party, opt-out systems won't work.  Opt-in might but who's laws will 
prevail in enforcing them.
I'm dead center in the sender-pays camp, Proof-of_work initially and 
anonymous bearer stamps later.  Its the same tried and true system that 
limits the spam in my postal box to a small amount, almost all from 
credible parties.  It doesn't require major changes to the email 
infrastructure, though clients would need to be enhanced (web-based email 
could add this almost immediately, plug-ins may suffice for some, like 
Eudora), nor new legislation.  Initial users may find they become less 
"reachable" to casual contacts, but that should only last a short while if 
sender-pays becomes popular.
steve

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