Re: (2) More on Digital Postage

["Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net>]

At 8:10 PM +0000 2/13/97, Attila T. Hun wrote:

>+Attila is free to hire agents to screen his mail so he does not receive
>+spam. He is not free, in a free society, to force such screeners upon
>+me.
>
>    very true. if you if define that your freedom includes the free
>    abuse of your freedoms by others.  freedom is a two way street;
>    freedom in my book says that I can do anything I wish which does
>    not infringe on the rights of others. now, that implies that I can

As this relates to "unwanted mail," I think calling this an "abuse of
freedom by others" is misleading, and a slippery slope. On this same
slippery slope lies the claims by some women, as an example, that images in
Playboy "abuse their freedoms" (I'd've thought a different kind of abuse is
involved, but I won't get into that here).

Is unwanted physical mail also an abuse of freedom? How about unwanted
personal letters? How about unwanted conversations in a Cypherpunks meeting?

The answer to all of these issues lies outside the State. Invoking the
power of Men with Guns to stop these "unwanted contacts" is simply wrong.

Attila seems to be arguing that the State has a legitimate role in
censoring certain contacts, whereas I argue that technology and contracting
can almost always do a better job.

I repeat: Attila is free to hire a censor, or nanny, or personal secretary
to screen his calls, to sift through his mail to pass on only the most
relevant stuff, and so on. Many celebrities and busy people do just this.

(In the CompuServe case which triggered this thread, CompuServe certainly
could have offered a "filtering" service to its members. This would be
unexceptionable, and the right way to go, contractually and
technologically.)

Attila is not free, in a free society, to claim (*) that his freedoms are
being infringed when people send him mail he is not interested in.

(* He can certainly _claim_ it, but he cannot bring the State in to enforce
his dubious claim about his freedom being infringed.)

By the way, I think the "junk fax" and "junk phone call" laws are clearcut
violations of the First Amendment. I understand why the herd _wants_ these
laws, as it reduces the costs involved in replacing fax paper, running to
the telephone only to find someone trying to sell something, etc., but it
is quite clearly a prior restraint on speech, however well-intentioned.

(There are technological solutions to these problems as well. The laws
shield people from having to deal with these solutions, however.)

--Tim May





Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside"
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