Re: More on digital postage

[snow <snow@smoke.suba.com>]

Mr. May wrote: 
> At 11:40 AM -0600 2/15/97, snow wrote:
> >Mr. Bell wrote:
> >> However, you connect that fax machine to a phone line, when you know full
> >> well that should it be enabled to do so, it will automatically pick up the
> >> phone when it "hears" a ring, and will print out a fax based on information
> >> provided.  It isn't clear why sending a fax is any "wronger" than mailing
> >> junk mail, or making a (voice) phone call to somebody.
> >	That is a ridiculous argument. The door to my home is connected
> >to the street,m and I know full well that that makes it easy for anyone
> >to come wandering in to my home. Is it legal, just because I have my
> >home hooked to the street, for someone to come in and help themselves to
> >a beer out of my fridge?
> 
> The proper parallel is to _knocking on the door_. Talking about "unwanted
> phone calls" or "unwanted faxes" as being equivalent to entering a house
> and wandering around is incorrect.

	With phone calls, yes. With unwanted faxes no. With Phone Calls, 
and knocks on the door I have the option of simply not answering. Faxes
(in certain enviroments) you can't do that with. 

> Our society fairly reasonably allows tort relief for, say, having one's
> doorbell rung frequently or at odd hours. On the fax issue, similar tort
> relief could be obtained if a person or business was truly "under attack."
> (Purists, like me, would probably prefer technological solutions even in
> these cases. Leave a phone on answering machine mode, only switch on the
> fax mode when a fax is expected, etc.)

	Or simply a societal acceptance of retaliation(sp?) Someone who
constantly wakes you up in the middle of the night, well you just arrange
it so they get no sleep. 

> These tort actions are a far cry from proposals that anyone whose knock on
> the door, or phonecall, or e-mail, or fax is subject to criminal
> prosecution under proposed new laws.
> (I think the courts are already clogged enough, and I have faith that no
> court in the land will accept a case where no real harm was done. A friend
> of mine got mailbombed with 25,000 e-mail messages in one day, shutting
> down his account until the mess could be cleaned up, and it's not even
> likely he'll ever get any relief.)

	I (I think like you) feel that almost no one will get convicted
of these "crimes" unless the attacker simply goes too far. 

> What CompuServe did was quite different, as CompuServe decided that some
> e-mail would not be delivered. This is essentially comparable to the Postal
> Service deciding that mail from the National Rifle Association is, to them,
> "junk," or to the phone company deciding that phone calls from Libya or
> Iraq or some other unfavored nation will be fed to a dead number.

	Not really. The US Postal service is a regulated monopoly, and 
is the only game in town. If they weren't a regulated monopoly, I wouldn't
care if they refused to carry certain peices of mail, the mailer would have 
the option of simply using a different service.

	Thus with compuserve, they have the right (as a private company)
to refuse to deliver what ever they wish. And their users have the right 
to go elsewhere. 

> Getting the courts and the regulators involved in deciding what speech is
> junk and what is not junk is unconstitutional, which was my earlier point.

	Which I argee with.