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January 2, 2004
Spam Slows to Trickle as Tough New Law Takes Effect Besieged Families Celebrate while Pols Jockey to Take Credit Spot checks across the country yesterday revealed that the flood of junk e-mail, also known as "spam" or sometimes as "spum," has dramatically slowed to a trickle, apparently because of a new Federal law restricting unsolicited e-mail that went into effect on New Year's Eve. "It's truly amazing," gushed Patricia Knowleson of Arbuckle, Georgia. "My e-mail program is set to play a song every time I get new mail and it just played its darling little heart out, seems like for years. Then, Bam!, the old ball dropped on the weirdos in Times Square and golden silence." Knowleson said she had left the family's New Year's Eve party shortly after midnight and entered her adjacent home office to search for her diaphragm. As usual, the family had the stereo on maximum volume to drown out the e-mail song. "I happened to glance at the computer screen. I screamed at everybody to come quick," she said. "There was none of that spam gushing in. First time in years. We sang 'Auld Lang Syne' all over again." Similar accounts poured in to the offices of the National Unsolicited Electronic Communications Agency, a joint operation of the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission. NUECA had set up a special New Year's Day emergency response center. "We've had only a few trouble calls. Instead, we've been swamped with people just calling to express their thanks," said Michael K. Powell, chairman of the FCC. "Dad told me the heart of good government is to study a problem thoroughly to make sure you actually have a problem and then carefully and cautiously seek a solution while listening to all sides of the issue and not move too fast, particularly if it's something the Democrats want. He was right, as usual." Howard Dean, widely regarded as the front runner in the crowded Democratic presidential candidate race because of his ability to raise campaign funds through e-mail solicitations, said he was pleased that the new law apparently was being obeyed. "But I have to say that had I been president, the American people wouldn't have had to wait years for this relief," he said. "When I'm president and there's a problem, we're going to act first and let the ditherers dither later. Good government is all about quick action." Dennis Kucinich, a Democratic Congressman from Ohio who is running for president and who is proud that he doesn't own a computer, was more cautious in his response. He spent New Year's Day campaigning at a shopping mall and looking for a wife in a predominantly Mormon district of Salt Lake City, Utah. "Whenever a Republican administration that is bent on taking away jobs from the American people and sending them abroad in the name of 'Free Trade' wants legislation passed that it says will benefit the people, you need to look very carefully at what that legislation does," he said. "It's possible that time will show this is just another cynical vehicle to take more away from the people." Buddy Barbour, the executive editor of the web site FarFarRight.org and publisher of Militiaman Victory magazine, said the anti-spam legislation was an additional attempt by the Federal government to gut the Third, Sixth, Ninth and Fourteenth amendments of the Constitution. "Another power grab by the Feds," he said in a telephone interview from Cortez, Colorado after his wife called him in from target practice in the back yard with an AK-47 he received as a Christmas gift. In a statement issued from an underground bunker somewhere in West Virginia where he is running the Shadow Government, Vice President Dick Cheney haled the anti-spam legislation. "This sends a clear message to terrorists around the world that the United States has drawn a firm line in the sand," he said. The statement said Cheney enjoyed a New Year's dinner of ultra low-fat ham and sugar-free sweet potatoes. Copyright William Stockton & Smithtown Creek Productions |
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