Earlier this year, a bill was signed that made the national Do Not Call list a reality, causing telephones across the country to fall silent at dinner time. Now Congress has passed the first anti-spam bill, the Anti-Spam Act of 2003, (H.R. 2515), which should soon be heading for the President's desk.

Spammers and telephone solicitors -- who we all love to hate -- complain that these laws infringe on their rights to free speech.  That's like a burglar complaining that laws against breaking and entering restrict his right to pursue his profession.  These people steal our time, our freedom to use the phone or internet, and our peace of mind.  It's about time this is stopped.

For the moment, the best way to deal with spam is to forward it all to uce@ftc.gov so the Federal Trade Commission can prosecute the worst offenders. That's where all MY spam's going from now on. How often do you get a chance to spam the government?  You can also fill out the FTC's complaint form if you have that kind of patience.  But the bill will allow the FTC to create a Do Not Spam list which will work like the Do Not Call List. 

Though companies complain that the Do Not Call list (and soon, the Do Not Spam list) restricts their freedom of speech and trade, they're ignoring the fact that the kind of people who sign up for such lists wouldn't buy products from a cold caller or spammer anyway.  Frankly, I think this is good for the companies themselves.  Instead of wasting their time and resources annoying people, they can concentrate on people who really WANT to enlarge various body parts, invest in cheap fly-by-night stocks, build a cable descrambler, look at "secret" webcam pictures, or buy the Paris Hilton sex video.

Thanks, but no thanks.