The Guardian: MPs accuse US of failing to tackle spam

Early British
Constitutional meddling

Professing surprise that their new European Union (E.U.) law mandating a double opt-in email policy for all companies hasn't tamped down the international phenomenon of spam (after all don't E.U. laws become de facto policy everywhere?), a faction of Parliament's liberal opposition is targeting the U.S. Constitution as the reason why the E.U. policy proved ineffective.

Derek Wyatt, minister of Parliament for Sittingbourne and Sheppy, maintains that the U.S. has not regulated "opt-out" spam because its Constitution forbids it. A quick review of the Constitution failed to turn up a clause that might prove quite so sticky. Then again, an upcoming federal decision on the National Do Not Call Registry could theoretically insert a constitutional claim into the anti-spam debate. It would, however, have to be founded on one of those elusive "interpreted" rights, rather than anything especially explicit.

Referring to an upcoming attendance at a constitutional hearing, The Guardian reports that this is the first time the British have visited Washington D.C. in an effort to lobby on constitutional issues, perhaps forgetting the "visit" in 1814, when British forces burned the Library of Congress, the White House and several of the original copies of the Constitution. Presumably, the remaining copies will be kept safely away from them.

The Labour Party's complaints notwithstanding, the real reason why effective anti-spam legislation has not yet been enacted in the U.S. has less to do with any legal issue and more to do with effective lobbying by groups like the Direct Marketing Association (DMA). The DMA hope to relegate anti-spam efforts to instances of consumer fraud, rather than the commerce-choking glut of unsolicited email its members mistakenly believe are important to their marketing efforts.