CNBC Capital Report Transcript - Proposed Bill on Capital Hill That Would Place Limits on Unsolicited E-Mail.

CNBC News Transcripts

SHOW: Capital Report (9:00 PM ET) - CNBC

July 9, 2003 Wednesday

HEADLINE: Senator Charles Schumer of New York and Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition, discuss their proposed bill on Capitol Hill that would place limits on unsolicited e-mail

ANCHORS: ALAN MURRAY; GLORIA BORGER

BODY:
ALAN MURRAY, co-host:

Today on Capitol Hill, an anti-spam hearing brought together a political odd couple to fight those pesky and obscene e-mails—the ads for cheap drugs and enlarging parts of your body—that we all call spam. Is the next step a do-not-spam act? Well, joining us from Capitol Hill are two people who think it should be, Democratic Senator Charles Schumer from New York and the president of the Christian Coalition of America, Roberta Combs.

Thank you both for being with us.

Senator Schumer, I'll start with you. Have you ever agreed with the Christian Coalition on anything before?

Senator CHARLES SCHUMER (Democrat, New York): Well, we probably have agreed on things. I know certain areas, probably Middle East policy, we agree on. But this is the first time we have worked together, and it's truly been a pleasure.

GLORIA BORGER, co-host:

Roberta Combs, the Christian Coalition is a conservative movement, obviously, so why are you calling now for more government intervention on spam?

Ms. ROBERTA COMBS (Christian Coalition President): Well, the Christian Coalition is a pro-family organization. This is a pro-family issue and a pro-family bill. And we're very pleased to be working with Senator Schumer on this bill.

MURRAY: Let's listen to what the FTC had to say about this idea of a no-spam act and then get you two to respond. Listen up right here.

(Excerpt from July 2)

Ms. EILEEN HARRINGTON (Federal Trade Commission): It's not clear that it's not workable, but the technological challenges, the data management challenge—the initial proposition, of course, on a do-not-whatever registry is that businesses are going to comply. With telemarketing, we have pretty good confidence that telemarketers...

MURRAY: You know how to find them.

Ms. HARRINGTON: We know how to find them. And most telemarketing companies are legitimate. But with spam, there's no overhead, there are no barriers to entry. Anybody can spam.

MURRAY: ...(Unintelligible).

(End of excerpt)

MURRAY: That's Eileen Harrington of the FTC on our show. She basically said you can't do this. Roberta Combs.

Ms. COMBS: I'm sorry. I couldn't hear you.

MURRAY: Senator Schumer, did you hear Eileen Harrington here?

Sen. SCHUMER: I did. Let me—yes, I did hear her. Let me just answer. We have talked to the FTC and they want this to work. Everyone agrees that the bill that I have along with Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is—our bill is the strongest bill against spam. No bill is guaranteed to work, of course, but if you put in a really strong bill with penalties, I think it can succeed.

MURRAY: But here's the...

Sen. SCHUMER: And let me just make one other point, and I've spoken to the FTC about this. Something like 90 percent of the spam comes from about 250 people who send out huge numbers. It's easier to track them down. And once we set up the predicate that they're breaking the law—now they're not even breaking the law.

MURRAY: But here's what they say—no, here's what they said, that about 90 percent of that spam is already fraudulent. They're already breaking the law and they can't do anything about it.

Sen. SCHUMER: Well, with this registry, I believe they can. The FTC originally said they couldn't; now they're saying maybe they can. And we're going to work with them to make it happen. The bottom line is that a lot of people said the phone registry wouldn't work; it has. And I believe that our spam registry—I know Roberta joins me in this—will work. It will not be foolproof, but it will greatly cut down on unwanted spam.

BORGER: Roberta Combs, what are you doing at the grassroots level to aid Senator Schumer and Senator Graham in their anti-spam legislation? What can the Christian Coalition do?

Ms. COMBS: Well, we can encourage the grass roots to call their senators and encourage them to become co-sponsors of this bill. We've been sending out e-mails and we're getting...

BORGER: E-mails? Did you say you were sending out e-mails?

MURRAY: They're spamming.

Ms. COMBS: Well...

Sen. SCHUMER: Our bill allows...

Ms. COMBS: All right.

BORGER: Wait a minute.

Sen. SCHUMER: Our bill allows all political messages. We don't stop freedom of speech. What we don't want are commercial messages...

BORGER: Right.

Sen. SCHUMER: ...or pornography going to the kids.

BORGER: Well, Senator, some people would think that political messages are spam.

MURRAY: But you know, the do-not-call list is the same way. The Christian Coalition, for instance, can continue to make phone calls...

Sen. SCHUMER: Correct.

MURRAY: ...(unintelligible).

Sen. SCHUMER: And that's because a message that talks about political issues has greater First Amendment protection, always has, than so-called commercial speech where you're trying to sell somebody something, whether it be pornographic or not.

BORGER: Right. Well, I interrupted Roberta Combs. So you can send your e-mails out, your non-spam e-mails.

Ms. COMBS: That's right. That's exactly right.

BORGER: OK. Properly labeled and everything else.

Ms. COMBS: That's right.

BORGER: And what else will the Christian Coalition be doing in terms of spending money to help this effort?

Ms. COMBS: We also plan to do some direct mail to a lot of our grassroots activists to encourage them to get on board, to call their senators and do some petitions to ask them to get on board to co-sponsor this bill.

MURRAY: All right.

Ms. COMBS: We think this is a great bill, it's a pro-family bill and we just want to encourage them to get involved.

MURRAY: All right. Senator Schumer, quickly, honest assessment: Can you get this thing through Congress this year?

Sen. SCHUMER: Yeah. Well, you know, now that we have the Christian Coalition on board—originally, they couldn't get anything through. The Direct Marketing Association and others were strongly opposed. But that's when I reached out to the Christian Coalition; I said, 'We've got to outflank them.' And now we have a good combination here, as you say. Most people raise their eyebrows, but that makes them look at our bill. And so I think we have a real chance to pass it. And once we pass it, you watch: The amount of spam will go down and go down significantly.

MURRAY: All right. Senator Schumer, thank you very much.

Sen. SCHUMER: Thank you.