on 5/27/2003 8:04 PM Dean Anderson wrote:
<more waffling snipped>
In both of these examples, the verbiage present in the TCPA is
equally applicable to the problem of spam. Your continued waffling on
minor, irrelevant, non-contributory details and detours does not
change that.
No, it isn't, despite your continued assertions. You have failed to
present a case that spam costs any money, or interferes with any
reaonable person's email.
You still don't seem to understand the nature of proof, arguing instead
that the existence of alternatives somehow disproves a matter of fact.
Again, whether or not you think that the proof is significant is a matter
of opinion, not a matter of proof.
Look, there were plenty of "alternatives" to the TCPA as well. Users could
have avoided the cost issues by keeping the fax powered off, and could
have avoided the availability issues by ensuring they had plenty of
supplies or by using a second machine. But rather than saying "lump it and
use a workaround", congress passed a law which recognized and addressed
the violative nature of the canonical problem itself. This is perfectly
demonstrated by the fact that the law affords protection *even to those
people who never had any problems with junk faxes at all*. And this law
has been upheld as constitutionally valid in circuit courts, despite your
equivocating and factually erroneous claims to the contrary.
For those same reasons -- and using the same kind of proof -- a legal ban
on email spam is a demonstrably reasonabe pursuit. There is "proof" of
cost-reversal with email spam at the same cost levels as fax spam
(measured-rate), and there is "proof" of interference with usefulness at
the same levels as fax spam (full mailboxes), even without getting into
the testimony presented to congress in various hearings, and certainly
without exposing ourselves to the common sense that the first amendment
test allows for. Your "alternatives" such as ~don't use PacBell ISDN and
~don't use Hotmail are not only facile waffling, they are also irrelevant
in the face of the proof. Unless you can disprove the proof -- showing
that *NO* communication services charges by the byte or minute, and that
*NO* free mailbox service is filled with spam -- then the proof stands.
Until then, the only part of this that can be debated is whether or not
the proof contributes to the testimony and the common sense towards the
purpose of extending the TCPA. Feel free to claim that it doesn't, nobody
will be surprised.
--
Eric A. Hall http://www.ehsco.com/
Internet Core Protocols http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/coreprot/