FC: Anti-spam bill goes much further, restricts sex-related email

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Hey, check out the mccullagh.org nude photo section at:
http://www.mccullagh.org/image/1/bottom.html

-Declan

---

   Long Reach of Sex Spam Bill
   By Declan McCullagh (declan () wired com)
   3:13 p.m. May 24, 2001 PDT
   
   WASHINGTON -- Spam touting preternaturally nubile lasses and dubious
   penile enhancement techniques is, without question, clogging inboxes,
   vexing companies and alarming parents.
   
   So nobody was surprised when the House Judiciary Committee
   overwhelmingly approved a bill on Wednesday that backers say will
   shield America's inboxes from the tacky carnality of spambots.

   Nobody, that is, except legitimate businesses that suddenly realized
   sending even legitimate sex-related e-mail might soon be a federal
   crime.
   
   Call them casualties of the rush to can spam. Rep. Melissa Hart
   (R-Penn) persuaded the committee to adopt an amendment that applies to
   all e-mail advertisements related to sex -- not just unsolicited ones.
   
   "It could include plenty of material that's perfectly mainstream that
   has sexually explicit content," said David Horowitz, executive
   director of the Media Coalition, which represents groups such as the
   Magazine Publishers of America and the American Booksellers
   Association. "A number of women's magazines that have articles about
   sexual performance or sexual secrets. It could also include health
   advertisements for Viagra."
   
   If Horowitz is correct, messages such as Playboy's e-mail newsletter,
   an invitation to visit Salon magazine's sex section, an invitation to
   visit Arizona's Etherton Gallery Mapplethorpe exhibit, or a note
   telling your friends to check out your nude photos would be outlawed
   unless they're rated as sexually explicit.
   
   Instead of banning sex notes outright, the bill promises a fine and a
   1-year prison term to anyone who e-mails an advertisement relating to
   sex without including a special advisory to be drafted by the attorney
   general.

   [...]

---

Rep. Melissa Hart (R-PA)'s successful amendment:

Page 2, line 19, strike the close quotation mark and the period that follows.
Page 2, after line 19, insert the following:
"§622. Warning labels for electronic mail containing advertisements harmful 
to children
"(a)(1) The Attorney General shall prescribe marks or notices to be 
included in electronic mail that contains a sexually oriented advertisement 
in order to inform the recipient of that fact.
"(2) Whoever, in any electronic mail that is carried on an instrumentality 
in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, knowingly includes a 
sexually oriented advertisement but does not include in such electronic 
mail the marks or notices prescribed by the Attorney General under this 
section shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one 
year, or both.
"(b) As used in this section, the term 'sexually oriented advertisement' 
means any advertisement that depicts, in actual or simulated form, or 
explicitly describes, in a predominantly sexual context, human genitalia, 
any act of natural or unnatural sexual intercourse, any act of sadism or 
masochism, or any other erotic subject directly related to the foregoing, 
but material otherwise within the definition of this subsection shall be 
deemed not to constitute a sexually oriented advertisement if it 
constitutes only a small and insignificant part of the whole, the remainder 
of which is not primarily devoted to sexual matters.".
Insert at the end of the table of sections in the material following line 8 
on the first page the following new item:
"622. Warning labels for electronic mail containing matter harmful to minors.".





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