Bullshite junk fax law

I already get an average of 10 a week, none from companies I've ever done business with. If there was a way to prosecute, I'd be all for it. This seems like a step in the wrong direction....Wired News: Seven-Year Hitch for Junk Faxes:

A bill relaxing anti-junk-fax rules is close to becoming law, after the Senate Commerce Committee passed it without amendment or discussion on Thursday.


The Junk Fax Prevention Act of 2004, which passed the House on Tuesday, would reverse a pending FCC rule that would soon require businesses and individuals to have signed permission slips before sending a commercial fax advertisement.

That rule is slated to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2005.


The proposed change would let a business send faxes to customers for up to seven years after the last business transaction between the two parties unless a customer tells the company not to send such faxes.


Backers, including the politically powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Realtors, call the bill a sensible measure that protects small businesses from an expensive regulation, while providing strong consumer-protection measures.


Critics, however, say the bill will lead to new barrage of fax advertising from legitimate businesses and allow unscrupulous junk-fax blasters to argue in court that they had been contacted by the individual years ago.


Lawrence Markey Jr., a staff attorney at the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, calls the bill the "Junk Fax Impunity Law."