> Well, but they didn't protect anonymous faxes, did they? I'm not sure how
>to reconcile this (nor that it'd be necessary at all), but I do consider
>this a side issue. IMHO proper anon email should be done via secure
>encryption channels (eg. remailer-chains), and that would not be
>practically weakened by a return-address mechanism (or by whatever the
>courts say, for that matter)... In any event it seems to me you're talking
>about the right to PUBLISH anonymously, which isn't necessarily the same
>as communicating in a direct-to-recipient way.
The case of anonymous faxes is an interesting one; I'd point out that
most such are only semi-anonymous, in that they've got an address to send money
to. There's also the point that there's no way to avoid paying for paper,
etcetera on faxes you get (saving it on your hard drive simply means paying for
more hard drive space), whereas most email is available without paying for
volume. Yes, _some_ people have to pay for email, but it isn't a necessity.
I'd also point out flyers generally are read by only one person, but
their being distributed anonymously is a protected right under the First
Amedment. Second, the most annoying spams are to mailing lists, which are
a means of publishing if I ever saw one. Third, spamming itself is to multiple
individuals in most cases, and thus could be considered a form of publishing.
Fourth, I am uncomfortable with the idea of limiting private speech _more_
than public speech.
-Allen
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