11/24/2003
The House Doesn't Like Spam
"Boob bait for bubbas." I borrow the phrase from the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-New York) to describe the anti-spam legislation which passed the House of Representatives today. It's an idiots' bill for pitchfork and torch carrying crusaders who "gotta do sumtin' 'bout it dammitall!" And they pass an Unconstitutional law.
The Senate passed the bill [BLOG POST and BLOG POST] in the last week of October, 97-0. On Saturday, the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act passed the House, 392-5. The two bills are slightly different, so the Senate is expected to pass the House version quickly and send it to the President for his signature. This being an election year, and Spam being universally reviled, he'll sign it.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-Lousiana) complained that Spam "makes regular email checking a seemingly endless hassle." Ban hassles, ban inconvenience, and the unattractive and the unpleasant.
We have lawmakers who cannot reach near unanimity on whether or not to financially support our troops overseas in Iraq, or to rebuild Iraq to keep it out of the hands of our enemies, but they can unite, pumping their fists and snarling, to attempt to proscribe e-mail marketing.
The bill proscribes using fake return addresses, using misleading subject lines, and clandestinely gathering addresses from Web sites in or for Spamming purposes. It also requires an opt-out mechanism for those who do not wish to receive the e-mail.
It cannot be enforced and there is no one to enforce it, but it looks good to constituents who know only that they don't like Spam, dammit, and mutter-mutter-curse-curse.
Boob bait for bubbas.
