| Right to free speech The story doesn't say which "constitutional right" the University supposedly violated by blocking the spam, but going by past spammer claims it's probably the "right to free speech." What spammers don't see to get though, is that while they have a right to free speech, they don't have a right to force me to listen. I can use filters (or have my ISP use filters) to block them out.
And if their "speech" causes harm to the place they are directing it, the venue's owner has the right to toss them out. To use an analogy, if someone stood up in a movie theatre and started shouting at the top of his lungs about how great herbal Viagra was they would be tossed out of the theatre. They wouldn't be able to complain about their free speech violated.
The University is saying that the rush of spam crashed their server and the filters are the measure taken to prevent this.
What I can't believe is the judge's response. He didn't seem to think that the crashes were that serious:
The university has a policy blocking all spammers, and Jordan said the school has blocked between 1,500 and 2,000 of them. He said spam has caused several delays in the UT computer system, including one crash that lasted 48 hours.
One judge questioned the seriousness of the problem.
"There is not a serious threat from these e-mails to the system here," said Judge Jerry Edwin Smith.
If a 48 hour downtime due to a crash isn't serious, I don't know what is.
--
-Jason Levine
http://www.jasons-toolbox.com/
http://www.PCQandA.com/
http://www.urateit.com/ |
 woody7Premium
join:2000-10-13
Torrance, CA | It is free speech for the spammers, only because most use harvested email addys, and are not paying to send them out..it is not free to us because we are paying for their crap as a hidden cost...
--
BlooMe |
