Today's spam advertizing 400,000 spams per hour with "your
true identity hidden" was truly depressing.

One PICer posted a pointer to http://www.cauce.org/index.html

I have looked over that page, and find it MUST reading.  It is good to
know that something is being done, even though the wheels of Congress
have a lot of sand in them.  Of particular note is a bill which would put spam
into the same category as the junk faxes, which had threatened to
cripple this technology a few years ago, and was finally outlawed.

My wife worked on Capitol Hill and assures me that stamped orginal
letters (not email or faxes or mass mailing) DO COUNT with lawmakers.
I would recommend taking the advice offered in this URL to lick the stamp,
and support  H.R. 1748, "The Netizens Protection Act of 1997" .  The
spammers have their own competing bills in progress that essentially
put the burden on the ISPs through filtering and other techniques, which
is not only impossible, but does not even address the problem.  Many senators
and Reps are too ignorant to know the difference, and could use help.

I am licking the stamp, and I would encourage everyone else concerned
with bandwidth to do the same.  Each stamped original letter looks to
your representative like thousands of people talking.  If we all responded,
it would look like a million.

Excuse this Off Topic Spam, and thanks for the soapbox.