FC: Calif. governor candidate, DNC chairman turn to political spam

[carey]

> WARNING: Any attempt to send unsolicited commercial email (including those
> sent by religious or political groups) to the originating address of this
> message may be treated as one or more of the following: theft of service,

What did they steal?


> unauthorized access to a computer system,

This is no more likely to hold than say, me venturing forth on the web,
opening up a zdnet article, and getting the background noise of an x10 ad
constituting as 'unathorized access'.

You have filters.

> stalking,

This is the original reason I responded to this post.  Now granted, I don't
know what state you're in, but here's the federal statute:

Interstate Stalking, Title 18, § 2261A
http://www.ncvc.org/law/issues/stalking/fedstalk.htm

Whoever--

(1) travels in interstate or foreign commerce or within the special maritime
and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, or enters or leaves
Indian country, with the intent to kill, injure, harass, or intimidate
another person, and in the course of, or as a result of, such travel places
that person in reasonable fear of the death of, or serious bodily injury to,
that person, a member of the immediate family (as defined in section 115) of
that person, or the spouse or intimate partner of that person; or

(2) with the intent--

(A) to kill or injure a person in another State or tribal jurisdiction or
within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United
States; or

(B) to place a person in another State or tribal jurisdiction, or within the
special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, in
reasonable fear of the death of, or serious bodily injury to__

(i) that person;

(ii) a member of the immediate family (as defined in section 115) of that
person; or

(iii) a spouse or intimate partner of that person,

uses the mail or any facility of interstate or foreign commerce to engage in
a course of conduct that places that person in reasonable fear of the death
of, or serious bodily injury to, any of the persons described in clauses (i)
through (iii),

shall be punished as provided in section 2261(b).
----------
IF you notice, you're missing a huge amount of the requirements.  You have
the interstate travel, but there is no threat to kill, injure or otherwise
cause harm.  Sure, you have harass, but there is no implied threat of actual
bodily injury, and that is the factor that actually matters.

>attempted fraud, or

Possibly.  But a spam from a politician /religious group/ ad could be
entirely truthful.

> aiding and abetting a known terrorist organization.
>
You're calling yourself a known terrorist?


Listen. i'm not trying to be a snot about this, but honestly, trying to warp
serious laws (such as the stalking law) for purposes of attacking spam, you
diminish the quality and effectiveness (IMHO, IANAL) of the law's intended
use.

-BB