Can you go to jail for filtering email?

The answer is YES if it has an USPS Electronic Postmark

[cyril kearney]

"Americans trust the Postal Service when they communicate via hardcopy mail,” said Deputy Postmaster General John M. Nolan. “We believe that the USPS Electronic Postmark adds a comparable level of trust to electronic correspondence and transactions"

A new type of email is now on the Internet. This email has the same rights and priveledges as postal mail.

In a nutshell webmaster's that tamper with email with an Electronic Postmark, read it or prevent its delivery are open to prosecution. It IS a crime.

Here's the USPS site url. Read it and if you are filtering anyone else's mail except your own, you might want to call your legal counsel before continuing.

[usps.com...]

Here's the law cited on the USPS site.

[www4.law.cornell.edu...]

I like to suggest that we limit discussion to the legal issues in this thread.

If anyone is interested they might start two new threads: 1 the benefits from the Electronic Postmark and 2 the downside of the EPM.

It seems clear to me that businesses will begin to use it to ensure that their emails are delivered to their opted-in customers. This will run afoul of homegrown filters and all the filter software I am aware of.

[cyril kearney]

bird,
You have probably said this more than once and so have others. A very big difference between mail and email is that the sender pays for mail and the receiver for email.

I think this is an important point. From the civil liberties side I don't think this arguement holds water. From the practical, get the lawmakers and regulators listen; I feel this is the anti-spammers strongest card.

Now throughout this and other mail threads people keep calling all commercial mail along with pornography and fraudulent mail 'spam'. This is how the anti-spammers are shooting themselves in the foot.

In order to solve this problem, the word spam has to be thrown out. Now people can still be against the same things but attack them individually in a fashion that doesn't raise civil liberties issues.

Yhe history of child pornograph legislation shows that the court can and will throw out vitally important legislation if they infringe on civil liberties.

This is a country ruled by laws not by rheteric.

Fraud may be addressed. A law can be passed to make the use of credit cards clearly illegal in any email originated transaction that doesn't identify the true sender, using a false address . . . etc.

Here you attack the spammer in the pocketbook. The avenues exist.

Pornography can be attacked the same way.

A distinction must be made between bulk commercial emailing and ordinary commercial email. Bulk mailers can be made to pay fees to mail in exchange for an electronic postmark. The granting of the electronic postmark can have conditions legislated.

The IETF is working on an SMTP upgrade or replacement. The technology can handle this problem, I feel. The USPS might emerge as a player in the next gen email system.

It is hard work to get the laws in place but I think it can be done. The current foaming at the mouth approach of those consumed by spam-rage; isn't working. Worse yet, it is getting in the way of a solution. It needs to be replaced by a dialog of all the stakeholders in the email business.

[bird]

A law can be passed to make the use of credit cards clearly illegal in any email originated transaction that doesn't identify the true sender, using a false address . . . etc.

That sounds like a brilliant idea!

The USPS might emerge as a player in the next gen email system.

Since the USPS is not involved in the transport of e-mail at all, I'm not sure if this is a realistic scenario. Most of the regulatory power they have over postal mail is based on the fact that they actually deliver it themselfes, which means they have the means to garantee and confirm delivery.

In the case of e-mail, at least with the current technology, responsibility and control is distributed between an arbitrary number of players, many of which may be unknown before they actually touch a specific message. This distributed processing can't easily be changed, because it is one of the factors that make the extreme efficiency of e-mail possible in the first place. Handing over all e-mail transport to a semi-governmental monopolistic institution doesn't really look like a viable option, especially if we consider the global nature of the issue.

The IETF is working on an SMTP upgrade or replacement. The technology can handle this problem, I feel.

I'm afraid I know too much about the technical challenges involved to share your optimism at this point. I'm quite curious about the ideas that the IETF group will come up with, though.

It is hard work to get the laws in place but I think it can be done.

If only all of the problem originated in the US, and targeted US consumers, then the problem would indeed be much easier to solve than it actually is. Note that SPAM originating in Europe already is rare in comparison, because specific legislation makes it relatively easy to prosecute here. Now if we could get the Chinese, Korean, and Russian legislators (and law enforcment!) to cooperate, then it might suddenly become a snap to stop unsoliticed bulk e-mail...