Bart Stupak: “for several Congresses now we have had hearings and markups in the Energy and Commerce Committee on the nuisance of…”

“for several Congresses now we have had hearings and markups in the Energy and Commerce Committee on the nuisance of spam, but no progress has been made. I am pleased that a bill has finally come forward that looks headed for passage into law. Through all this time, the flood of unsolicited e-mails has only grown, ISPs have become more and more overwhelmed, and consumers more aggravated. I know that this bill will come as a welcome relief to many who are fed up with opening their e-mail accounts only have to unwanted commercial e-mails clogging up their Internet mailboxes. Consumers have to waste time deleting numerous spam emails, and even worse, if they do unsuspectingly open one of these e-mails, they are often faced with offensive pornography. I commend the members of the Judiciary and Energy and Commerce Committees for their ongoing efforts to address this problem, and I am pleased to support this bill. I do believe that the bill falls short in one area, in that it does not provide a private right of action for individual consumers to seek their own remedies. But this legislation does much to strengthen enforcement, provide protection from harmful pornographic e-mails, and to set up a Do Not Spam Registry, which I can only guess will be as popular as the Do Not Call Registry.”