[TriLUG] Call your Rep. now to oppose S.877 - "CAN SPAM" act
Jeremy Portzer
jeremyp at pobox.com
Mon Nov 17 13:04:19 EST 2003
If you are against Unsolicted Commercial Email (spam), you should call
your representative immediately to register your opposition to this
bill, for the reasons outlined below. It is expected to come directly
to a House floor vote this week. See below.
--Jeremy, speaking for himself
-----Forwarded Message-----
From: John Levine <johnl at cauce.org>
To: comments at cauce.org
Subject: CAUCE NEWS, Vol 7, No 3, November 2003
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 17:23:19 +0000
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
CAUCE NEWS
Volume 7, Number 3
November, 2003
In this issue:
* ACTION ALERT: Call your U.S. Rep to stop the CAN SPAM bill
IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHY YOU GOT THIS MESSAGE: Please see the
"About This Message" section at the end.
- --------------------------------------------------------------
* ACTION ALERT: Call your U.S. Rep to stop the CAN SPAM Act
On October 22nd, the U.S. Senate passed S.877, the Burns-Wyden CAN
SPAM Act. While some parts of the bill would be helpful, its main
effect would be to legitimize most kinds of spam that aren't actively
deceptive or fraudulent. It provides no private right of action for
recipients of spam to get recourse against spammers, and it overrides
any stronger state laws such as the new California law. For these
reasons CAUCE strongly opposes the bill in its current form. As some
have commented, this bill says that big companies CAN SPAM you.
Consumer groups including the Consumer Federation of America and the
Privacy Rights Clearing House have expressed their opposition in
a letter to Congress that CAUCE co-signed. Eight state Attorneys
General have written to Congress expressing their opposition and
their belief that the act would be counterproductive.
Since Congress is planning to adjourn this week, and there is a lot of
political pressure to "do something" about spam, there is a good
chance that the bill will be brought to the floor of the House for a
vote this week, bypassing the usual committee process. If the House
approves the bill, the President will likely sign it into law. The
Direct Marketing Association is pushing hard for the law's passage, to
override the much stronger California state law scheduled to take
effect at the end of the year.
CAUCE wants to mobilize our 50,000 members to speak out against this
bill. We must all do our part. Please, pick up the phone and call your
elected representative before it is too late.
Your U.S. Representative needs to hear that you want an effective
anti-spam law, but S.877 isn't it. A short phone call is much more
effective than a paper letter, e-mail, or fax. Call your Rep, ask for
the legislative assistant, explain that you're calling about the CAN
SPAM act, S.877, explain in a sentence or two why it would make the
spam problem worse rather than better, because it still permits many
kinds of spam, doesn't have good enforcement, and doesn't let states
enforce their own stronger laws. That's why you want them to vote
against it if it comes to the floor. If you don't know your Rep's
phone number, see the directory at
http://clerk.house.gov/members/mcapdir.php
This bill would normally be considered by the Judiciary and Commerce
committees before being brought to the House floor. If your member is
on either of those committees (see below), it's doubly important for
you to call and to point out that the current bill is no good, and the
committee needs to work on it. There's no guarantee they'll make it
better, but at least they'll have a chance to debate and amend it, and
the more clearly you tell them what you want, the more likely they are
to improve it.
IF YOUR REPRESENTATIVE IS IN THE LIST BELOW, he or she is a member
of the Judiciary Committee.
Mr. F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (Wisconsin), Chairman
Republican Members Democratic Members
Mr. Hyde (Illinois) Mr. Conyers (Michigan) Ranking
Mr. Coble (North Carolina) Mr. Berman (California)
Mr. Smith (Texas) Mr. Boucher (Virginia)
Mr. Gallegly (California) Mr. Nadler (New York)
Mr. Goodlatte (Virginia) Mr. Scott (Virginia)
Mr. Chabot (Ohio) Mr. Watt (North Carolina)
Mr. Jenkins (Tennessee) Ms. Lofgren (California)
Mr. Cannon (Utah) Ms. Jackson Lee (Texas)
Mr. Bachus (Alabama) Ms. Waters (California)
Mr. Hostettler (Indiana) Mr. Meehan (Massachusetts)
Mr. Green (Wisconsin) Mr. Delahunt (Massachusetts)
Mr. Keller (Florida) Mr. Wexler (Florida)
Ms. Hart (Pennsylvania) Ms. Baldwin (Wisconsin)
Mr. Flake (Arizona) Mr. Weiner (New York)
Mr. Pence (Indiana) Mr. Schiff (California)
Mr. Forbes (Virginia) Ms. Sanchez (California)
Mr. King (Iowa)
Mr. Carter (Texas)
Mr. Feeney (Florida)
Mrs. Blackburn (Tennessee)
IF YOUR REPRESENTATIVE IS IN THE LIST BELOW, he or she is a member of
the Commerce Committee.
W.J. "Billy" Tauzin, Louisiana Ralph M. Hall, Texas
Tom Allen, Maine Darrell Issa, California
Joe Barton, Texas Christopher John, Louisiana
Charles F. Bass, New Hampshire Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts
Michael Bilirakis, Florida Karen McCarthy, Missouri
Roy Blunt, Missouri Charlie Norwood, Georgia
Mary Bono, California C.L. "Butch" Otter, Idaho
Rick Boucher, Virginia Frank Pallone Jr., New Jersey
Sherrod Brown, Ohio Charles "Chip" Pickering, Mississipi
Richard Burr, North Carolina Joseph R. Pitts, Pennsylvania
Steve Buyer, Indiana George Radanovich, California
Lois Capps, California Mike Rogers, Michigan
Christopher Cox, California Bobby L. Rush, Illinois
Barbara Cubin, Wyoming Jan Schakowsky, Illinois
Jim Davis, Florida John B. Shadegg, Arizona
Diana DeGette, Colorado John Shimkus, Illinois
Nathan Deal, Georgia Hilda L. Solis, California
Peter Deutsch, Florida Cliff Stearns, Florida
John D. Dingell, Michigan Ted Strickland, Ohio
Michael F. Doyle, Pennsylvania Bart Stupak, Michigan
Eliot L. Engel, New York Lee Terry, Nebraska
Anna G. Eshoo, California Edolphus Towns, New York
Mike Ferguson, New Jersey Fred Upton, Michigan
Ernie Fletcher, Kentucky Greg Walden, Oregon
Vito Fossella, New York Henry A. Waxman, California
Paul E. Gillmor, Ohio Ed Whitfield, Kentucky
Bart Gordon, Tennessee Heather Wilson, New Mexico
Gene Green, Texas Albert R. Wynn, Maryland
James C. Greenwood, Pennsylvania
For a copy of the bill, see
http://www.spamlaws.com/federal/108s877.html
For the open letter from consumer organizations, see
http://www.cauce.org/legislation/openletter.shtml
- --------------------------------------------------------------
About CAUCE
CAUCE (Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email,
http://www.cauce.org) is the world's largest Internet-based advocacy
organization, with tens of thousands of members across the United
States and supporters across the world. It supports and works toward
passage of legislation prohibiting unsolicited e-mail advertisements.
CAUCE has no budget, no office and is run by an all-volunteer board
using donated resources.
- --------------------------------------------------------------
About This Message:
This message was written and broadcast by the Coalition Against
Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail. It is copyright 2003 by the Coalition
Against Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail.
We encourage redistribution of this message or items from it, as long
as they are not spammed anywhere, are on-topic for any forum to which
you send them, and include our copyright notice. When in doubt, post
the URL of our site (http://www.cauce.org) instead, or put it in your
signature. Press, broadcast, and Internet media may treat this
material as they would a press release. For other commercial
reproduction rights, contact John Levine <johnl at cauce.org>.
*************************************************************************
You have received this message because your address was signed up for
the CAUCE-ANNOUNCE mailing list. If you do not want to receive any
further messages from this list or think you were subscribed without
your knowledge, please send a message containing "unsubscribe" to
cauce-announce-request at lists.cauce.net, use the list's home page
http://lists.cauce.net/cgi-bin/mj_wwwusr?list=cauce-announce&func=unsubscribe
or contact owner-cauce-announce at lists.cauce.net to be removed
manually. We exist to eradicate unsolicited e-mail, and, unlike
spammers, will honor "remove" requests.
On the other hand, if a friend passed along this message to you and
you would like to receive the CAUCE NEWS in the future, visit the
CAUCE web site at http://www.cauce.org to join, or send a message to
cauce-announce-request at lists.cauce.net containing "subscribe" if you
want to subscribe without joining.
*************************************************************************
For other questions or comments about this message, contact John
Levine <johnl at cauce.org>.
# #
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (BSD/OS)
Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org
iEYEARECAAYFAj+5A/oACgkQkEiFRdeC/kUGbACfT7H0kmWKhreTwmEgF6Su2X6N
QkEAoIpAZ6Njyv2NILT1vJM81O7q6vvg
=kcPH
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
--
/---------------------------------------------------------------------\
| Jeremy Portzer jeremyp at pobox.com trilug.org/~jeremy |
| GPG Fingerprint: 712D 77C7 AB2D 2130 989F E135 6F9F F7BC CC1A 7B92 |
\---------------------------------------------------------------------/
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://www.trilug.org/pipermail/trilug/attachments/20031117/5a241be4/attachment.pgp>
More information about the TriLUG
mailing list