A spam bill (HB 1282) has been sailing through the Texas legislature this session. Unfortunately, as currently written, it helps spammers more than it helps email recipients and service providers. We believe if this bill is passed, you may actually see an increase in the amount of spam in your inbox. So, EFF-Austin has done a late-session grab and put this on the list of legislative issues we are following, along with SB 1116 (the Super-DMCA) and SB 1579 (Open Source Software).

This legislature seems to really want to put something into law regarding spam. It's so late in the session, there is no chance we can do a good spam bill. Our only hope is that we can correct a bit of what currently is a very bad bill.

Those of us at EFF-Austin working legislative issues are running around crazy right now, so we aren't going to be able to setup the same support resources (mailing list, info sheet, etc.) that we've got for the other bills. The best source of information is the articles Chip Rosenthal (that's me!) has been weblogging on this issue. They are:

• Bad Bill or No Bill: The Texas Spam Dilemma (May 5)
  
• Bad Texas Spam Bill: Score One for the Good Guys (May 7)
  
• Bad Texas Spam Bill: Ball is in Their Court (May 9)
  

If you are concerned about this bill, please let the Senators know you oppose it as currently written. The most important people to notify are the sponsor, Sen. Robert Duncan (R-Lubbock) as well as the committee members currently reviewing it. With a little luck (and a few faxes) we may be able to turn this around into something that may actually help the spam problem, rather than make it worse.