Re: Spam laws threaten remailers?

[Tim May <tcmay@got.net>]

At 4:44 PM +0200 5/23/97, Anonymous wrote:
>Two possibilities:
>
>First, the law might not apply to remailer operators.  It only applies
>to originators of messages.  It might make it illegal to use remailers
>to send commercial messages, but that would apply to the users,
>not to the remailer operators.
>
>Even if it does apply to remailers, they can comply with it.
>Put "Advertisement" at the front of each subject line, and put the
>remailer operator's contact info in the message.  Remailer operators
>are not generally hidden, so this does not hurt them any.


Indeed. As this message (the one you are reading now), I have stated who I
am, but the included (quoted) text does not carry this information.

By the definition above, this message is kosher.

By the definition that even included or remailed text must have similar
identification of all text, then any mail message which includes quotes
without full attribution would be illegal. This is clearly an
unconstitutional infringement on speech.

And unenforceable. (In the sense that there aren't enough courts to handle
the load.)

--Tim May


There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws.
Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!"
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."