California 'disempowered' by federal spam law - News - ZDNet:
"'Thirty-four million people were disempowered by the enactment of that act and left only the small resources of my office,' Lockyer, a Democrat, told a group of attorneys and antispam executives at the 'Spam and the Law' conference in San Francisco on Thursday morning. "

"It is ironic, with an antigovernment federal government that tells us they trust us and want us to take our own action, that the only thing they did was give the government the right to take action," against spammers, Lockyer said of the Republican administration.

The group convened 21 days after the nation's first federal antispam law was enacted to discuss the law's affect on the industry. In a morning keynote address, Stanford University Law School professor Lawrence Lessig called the Can-Spam Act a milestone in the industry's 8-year fight against spam but also a "total failure."

Lockyer and Lessig both said the influence of special interests weakened antispam laws. Once the Direct Marketing Association awoke to California's new enforcement powers with an opt-in law and 37 other state laws, it likely affected a change in the political mood for a federal law that could overpower it, Lockyer said. Until politicians are unguided by business interests and can create regulations in the interests of consumers, the climate likely won't change, they said.

"Because we have let the problem grow for the last eight years, we have built an industry around the opportunity for spam to propagate," Lessig said.&hellip:

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5145849.html