An interesting one line reply from Congressman Gejdenson's office. I've included my followup response. It appears that for all the talk about the information superhighways, much of Washington isn't up to speed. At 5:29 PM 2/13/95, CT02.GEJDENSON wrote: >this is part of the inetrnet, no censorship of any kind sam I believe your position is behind the curve. There clearly ARE banned communications on the Internet: transfer of copyrighted material, harrassment of various kinds (including, presumably, mail bombing of shotgun advertisers). The U.S Government has, or had, a legal action pending against a distributor of encryption software. There are significant implications for the commercial viability of the Internet that merit greater attention than a response that can fit on a bumper sticker. The issue of "spamming" is NOT content, it's using a process that posts identical messages to thousands of newsgroups regardless of their subject matter. At the very least, those who post such messages should be liable for the costs incurred by recipients (MANY Internet users pay for their email by the message or by the byte). /s Murphy A. Sewall <[log in to unmask]> (203) 486-2489 voice Professor of Marketing (203) 486-5246 fax