Batten your hatches! Sandbag the whole town!

3 May 2008

28bytes alerts his readers to the fact that 3 May 2008 is the 30th anniversary of the first piece of spam e.mail.

Although — because spam e.mail can cross national borders — there is a limit to what the Federal government might practically and legitimately do about spam e.mail, the Federal government doesn't do what it could. In fact, Federal legislation actively subverted the efforts of some state legislatures to battle spam.

My suggestion is this: On 3 May of every year, send one piece of email, objecting in your own words (however brief) to poor Federal action against spam, to each of the following:

(If one of your Senators is hiding his or her e.mail address, then send e.mail to curator@sec.senate.gov. I don't have a fall-back address for Representatives.)

Encourage each of your acquaintances, friends, and family members who are unhappy about spam e.mail to do the same, and to likewise encourage those whom they know.

This year, there will be very few people sending such objections, but next year there could be substantially more, and the numbers could continue to grow each year.

[Edit (2013:07/17): As part of an SEO programme to get sites to link to Politics.Answers.com, Stuart Hultgren, of Answers.com, contacted me to let me know of a dead link and of a good replacement.]

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2 Responses to Batten your hatches! Sandbag the whole town!

  • 28bytes says:

    Not a bad idea. The last time I e-mailed my Senators, both sent back a snail-mail response, so at least they acknowledge e-mails.

    My state rep hates his constituents, though, so I'm not too optimistic there.

    • Daniel says:

      Okay, but if on 3 May 2010 just 5% of his constituents who are unhappy about spam e.mail sent a message of complaint, then what happens to his e.mail service for that day and perhaps the next few after it?

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