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----When candidates spam
BY DEBORAH SCOBLIONKOV On Feb. 4, thousands of outspoken and fiercely opinionated computer users around the world opened their e-mail to read: "You are receiving this message because you have participated in discussions about political issues on the Internet and having done so, have solicited contact on the subject. If you wish to be removed from our once-a-month future mailings, a simple reply with the word REMOVE will suffice." Like so many other e-mail messages, it was spam. But the source wasn't a multi-level marketer or some clown selling bulk e-mail lists -- it was a New Jersey politician testing the waters for a statewide campaign. Murray Sabrin is a Republican with his eye on the U.S. Senate seat that incumbent Democrat Frank Lautenberg announced this week he will vacate. Sabrin used to be a Libertarian, and in his 1997 campaign for governor against Christine Todd Whitman he was the first candidate from that party in his state to raise enough contributions to qualify for matching funds. Spammers often defend their activity as an exercise of free speech, but many people online consider spam to be theft and trespass as well as an invasion of privacy. "Speech isn't free when it comes postage-due" is one anti-spam motto. Since Sabrin is not only a former Libertarian but also a professor of finance who has stated that "private property rights" are among his "core values," he might be expected to be sensitive to the spam issue. Instead, once the mass e-mailing by Sabrin's committee -- along with spam postings to many unrelated Usenet newsgroups (like soc.culture.japan) -- had sparked the inevitable flurry of flames and complaints, his office responded with further curt provocations. One anti-spam activist complained directly to www.murraysabrin.com with the subject "SPAMMERS belong in jail NOT public office!" The following reply from someone on Sabrin's committee was forwarded to the Spam-L mailing list:
Nice reply, just one problem: This is OUR E-mail account. We pay for it. We may use it to communicate our thoughts to whomever has an e-mail address because the Internet is the equivalent of a public square. You can listen, not listen or ask us to remove you. Since the last item is obviously what you seek, we have done so. Just understand that your e-mailbox is the equivalent of your tv set: it is open for broadcasts that you can choose to receive or not. Good day. Another angry victim received this response and posted it to the anti-spam newsgroup news.admin.net-abuse.email (known as NANAE):
Thank you for writing. We're kind of stunned you took such great pains to reply since hitting the "DELETE" key would have been far faster. Not to belittle your point, but we started wondering amongst ourselves if you also wrote letters to anyone sending you junk mail through the post office, or if you write to television networks complaining about tv commercials? ... In the future, quit your belly-aching and use the DELETE key. N E X T_ P A G E .|. Don't tell me to stop spamming or I'll sue you! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
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