--- From: Irene Graham-EFA <spambills@private> To: declan@private Subject: Australian Spam Bills - Devil in the Detail Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 13:34:37 +1000 Organization: -- Declan Info below FYI and for politech if you think it likely to be of interest. Proposed laws, claimed to be "anti-spam" laws, were introduced into Australian Parliament on 18 September 2003. However, close scrutiny of the proposed legislation reveals it is not anti-spam. Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) has reviewed the two Spam Bills and our analysis of the proposed laws, commentary and recommendations are now available at: http://www.efa.org.au/Publish/spambills2003.html While the proposed legislation does prohibit the sending of some spam, it also: - specifically legitimises and authorises the sending of other spam (i.e. unsolicited bulk commercial electronic messages); and - prohibits the sending of some messages that few, if any, people would regard as spam; and - establishes special classes of senders who are authorised to send spam and who are also exempt from the requirement to provide an opt-out mechanism. EFA is strongly opposed to a number of aspects of the proposed regime including, among other things: - the search and seizure provisions that enable some government employees and police to search and seize an individual's computer and other possessions without a search warrant and without the consent of the individual; and - the access order provisions that enable a suspect or other person who has forgotten a password or other information to be imprisoned for six months (although a person found guilty of breach of the proposed Spam Act is not subject to imprisonment). The possible benefit of the currently proposed law in minimising receipt of spam is outweighed by its authorisation of "designated" spam and its potential to result in unnecessary invasions of the privacy of innocent individual's homes and possessions and/or their imprisonment. While EFA supports the general intent of the proposed law insofar as it may be intended to reduce the quantity of unsolicited bulk commercial electronic email, EFA opposes the enactment of the proposed laws in their current form, that is, as set out in the Bills introduced into Parliament. Note: The Reply-To field of this message has been set to EFA's feedback address (for suggestions or comments) in relation to these bills: <spambills@private> Irene ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Irene Graham Executive Director - Electronic Frontiers Australia Inc. (EFA) EFA: <http://www.efa.org.au> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
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