Isn spam protected by national Free Speech laws?
No. Free speech guarantees you the right to say what you want, within reason; it does not guarantee you a platform to make yourself heard in. My daily newspaper will take any commercial advertisement, subject to two constraints: (a) it must fit within their advertising guidelines, and (b) the advertiser must pay for the costs of distribution. Spam fails on both of these counts. Furthermore, different countries have different free speech laws. What may be legal in one country may be entirely unlawful elsewhere. Even in the U.S., where there are strong explicit free speech protections, the Supreme Court has upheld many restrictions on speech, far beyond the stereotypical example of shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater. There have been no serious challenges to the U.S. junk FAX law, which restricts the ability of advertisers to send unsolicited messages to FAX machines, on the ground that the cost is borne by the recipient. Lastly, there are many commonsense restrictions on the freedom o
