Do you guys think this is unconstintutial?

[Lucandrake]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/12/14/spam.lawsuit.ap/index.html

 

 

ROCKVILLE, Maryland (AP) -- A judge has ruled that the anti-spam law in Maryland -- the first state law to penalize senders of junk e-mail -- is unconstitutional because it seeks to regulate commerce outside the state's borders.

 

I think it's uncontsintutial but it doesnt seem like a bad idea considering the number of spammers increasing day by day.

[Gryph]

Well Congress is working on an anti-spam bill so if it passes it'll be law. But I don't know the constitution so I can't question the judge's decision, he knows more than I do.

Edited December 19, 2004 by GryphonKlaw

[Lucandrake]

Well, tho it is true you may not know more then them, but still, your high enough in intellegence to make a intelegent opiniun.

[Gryph]

Well in this case it is unconstitutional because state law can't be enforced outside of the state.

[KyokugenKiss]

funny thing is i havent gotten spam or pop ups in over a year

[Sturmvogel]

Email and the internet...this is all very new and perplexing for lawmakers to work out....gonna take some time, but we do need some type of spam law on the books.

[Weirdy]

it kinda is unconstitutional. Hell, it's stopping the "pursuit of happiness" which translates to "making money". You know, they gotta advertise, but the way it's being down now is a little malicious kinda

[Agozer]

If they ever find a good and solid way to enforce this anti-spam law, I hope that it will finally cut down (at least a little) the mount of email spams. I don't so much get mad at website ads, but email spam really sets me off.

[Daeval]

As a former employee of a local ISP that dealt with its fair share of spammers, this reeks of BS:

The Maryland law applies to e-mail sent to or from Maryland residents, but it leaves vague the actual location of the resident -- potentially affecting companies who send e-mail to people who live in Maryland, but who might receive the transmission elsewhere via laptop.

There's a really simple solution to this, and either someone is completely ignorant on the issue, is being paid off, or was misrepresented in this article.

 

It goes like this.. The act of recieving junk mail to your account does not occur at the physical location of the end user's machine. It happens at your ISP. The offending mail is "physically" recieved by your account at the location of your ISP's POP3 server machine. You are then free to "pick it up" from wherever you are.

 

Think of it like a post-office box. If I have a post-office box in Maryland, and someone sends junk mail to that post-office box, and junk mail is illegal in Maryland, then that person has commited a crime. If I have a magical device that allows me to read the contents of my post-office box from outside the state's borders, that still doesn't change the fact that the recieving address of the offending letter is in Maryland.

 

The judge concluded that the law unconstitutionally attempts to regulate commerce that may never enter Maryland.

After what we've looked at above, if the recieving ISP's server is located in Maryland, then the "commerce" has "entered Maryland," no bones about it, and both the ISP and the end user should be able to sue.

 

 

Update:

HAH! I checked out a little more info on this stuff, and the law student that initiated this suit (the one fighting AGAINST spam), did it based on emails recieved to this site: http://www.maryland-state-resident.com

 

That site covers pretty much all the bases. It outlines left and right that anyone on the recieving end of the email is in Maryland. To say that junk mail to that domain is commerce that "might never enter Maryland" is moronic. That judge should be lynched by a CAT5 cable.

Edited December 19, 2004 by Daeval

[Lucandrake]

Wow, CAT 5 Ethernet cable huh? I saw one that was like 100 Meters long for 15 dollers at EB games, o well, still, JUNK EmAIL is a biatch to me, alot....I hate recieving them...bunch of phyciatric spammers...

[powuh_of_PIE]

Listen, I just had an idea... if every1 feels as strongly about it as it looks by looking at the posts, then we could set up a petition in this forum and every1 could vote on it. You need 2,000 votes to get a petition into Congress, but I think this site has plenty more members than that, right?

 

I'm not exactly a lawyer or something, so anyone who would know more about how the petition would be drafted might want to write up a rough draft to see how many people it attracts. We could take suggestions on amendments and so forth, too.

 

If we get 2,000 signatures we could conceivably send it to Congress and they would have to try to pass it.

 

I'm only 14, so I guess this only works for you adults out there. *grumbles about waiting 4 more years*