Security threats Toolkit

Story: Spammer loses fight for right to spam

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January 9, 2006. Without comment, the United States Supreme Court declined an opportunity to address the constitutionality of the CAN-SPAM Act, which regulates commercial advertising on the Internet, and the University of Texas' policy of denying off-campus entities access to its email system for distribution of advertising content and solicitation even when the messages comply with the requirements of federal law.

In denying White Buffalo Ventures' petition for review, the nation's highest appellate court let stand a 2005 ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which upheld the University of Texas’ policy of blocking companies from delivering bulk commercial e-mail ("spam") to students and university employees through its e-mail servers.

The case only addressed the status of COMMERCIAL speech under the free speech guarantees of the First Amendment. See http:// www.faculty-rights-coalition.com/WhiteBuffaloCasenote.html

An issue that remains unresolved concerns the scope of permissible regulation of POLITICAL speech on public e-mail systems.

Speech on matters of public concern has traditionally enjoyed the most protection under the freedom of expression guarantees of the U.S. Constitution, as interpreted by the supreme court.

Whether a state university's IT system constitutes the equivalent of a public forum for the free and unfettered exchange of information and ideas, has not yet been resolved. See http://www.faculty-rights-coalition.com/FRCvShahrokhi.html

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