Brian and the group

You're right and unfortunately wrong, too. It's the black and white here but a clearly gray area. A land of definite maybe's and possibly's...
First, there was the Federal Telecommunications Act and the Internet Decency Law. Then a huge number of cases that established case law which then defines and focuses the intent of the act's language. In the case of bulk faxes were intent can be clearly seen, and, that the recipient has suffered a loss albeit financial, physical, mental, etc, then a civil action can be pursued. Now unless a clear case exists, and significant impacts occurred, essentially no court will hear the case. It's been done to the court's displeasure. I wish there was the ability to put italics into this message on key points...
Next, on junk mail, a strong lobby exists that blocked junk mailing legislation across the board. You spoke of an impact in faxes, the same argument has been used in a person's time to sort through and discard junk mail. A definite impact exists and has been acknowledged in the state of New York and Connecticut in separate cases. However, the results were the punitive awards to the plaintiff in each case. Case law did establish a precedent in this matter, which was then echoed in the Federal Telecommunications Act. The $500 number came into effect at this point as a reasonable amount for the sum total of time and expense the plaintiff spent dealing with each mailer origin. In addition, junk mail accounts for approximately 15% of the net daily use of paper products in the US. Of that, an estimated 30% is actually post-consumer recycled, 70% being virgin stock. Now, CalEPA, Washington State DOC and to lesser extents, the State of New York found that less then 20% of junk mailers actually were recycled. What this means is a huge drain on wood stocks and a consumption of the remaining life of the nation's landfills (35 to 40 % of the waste stream is paper). Finally, advertising costs add an estimated 15% to the cost of a product in the US, 35% of the cost on average is the packaging (facts that influenced many European nations to adopt strict recycling laws). Take note of these facts, you'll see them again below.
A series of legislative acts were drafted and heard by Congress over the last several years concerning telecommunications. Efforts to ban, reduce or regulate junk mailers either failed (the USPS relies on junk mail for 30% of their revenue), or were so modified as to miss the original intent. The key point in any communication is whether or not there was impact, this key issue was found to be too subjective for Congress to take action. In fact, the single communications related issue that Congress did enact legislation on involved ONLY the Internet, known as the "Internet Decency Law." The broad language within the act then resulted in a series of civil suits which ended with the Supreme Court reviewing the act, and because of it's broad language, striking down act for conflicting with the First Amendment.

The issues are complex and what was written to address one act can and generally is, used to then act upon another aspect that was NOT the act's original intent. The ideal is that no restriction in a citizen's voice is ever enacted (that would conflict with the supreme law of the land, the Constitution). In the case of the Internet Decency Act, the Court wrote that the act was so poorly written that the livelihood of a whole sector would be prohibited (meaning the whole nude person industry and not just pornography per se). The court then pointed out that the states had addressed the issues of pornography and it was not the federal government’s intent to restrict the state's authority over state issues [this is called 'primacy']. With that, the first really comprehensive act that spoke to 'offending''impact' died. Right or wrong is not the point; it's in the way it was written that could then be used to restrict commerce.
Now we get back to it. Offending impact...well, spam offends, it has impact. The question is why Congress has singularly avoided this, and while the spam biz is composed of a worldwide group of single individuals working for some fly-by-night company and not an established series of organizations is odd. A lot of people talk a lot about this.
It's possible that legislation can restrict accepted spammers that have a large influence in Washington. Unsolicited means you didn't ask for it. Clearly, the courts have upheld that. Mail, from the telecom acts, means electronic AND other forms of media. That has been upheld, too. Prohibiting spam over the Internet can have broad impacts to the junk mail biz, even the commercial ads on TV...as you can see, this is such a hot topic.
In Congress a proposal several years back (I forgot the Senator's name now, but can dig up everything I've cited) had that any unsolicited E-mail have a contact for the receiver to request that they no longer receive E-mails. That died in session however, many spam’s originating from the APNIC administered URL blocks have this at the bottom of the java scripted spam. That, by definition is the commission of fraud, and that it was sent to a recipient in the US means a crime was committed under US law. I'll talk more about the act and penalty more in a future posting. In the meantime, forward all 'definite' spam to

UCE@FTC.GOV

NOTE: only if it's clearly spam and not a product update or an offer. There is a series of criminal acts being perpetuated claiming to be selling the latest virus protection from McAfee or Norton. If the offer did not originate from McAfee or Network Solutions, DEFINITELY forward without altering the E-mail to the FTC.

: A couple of points: - Junk faxes are illegal, since they cost the sender
: essentially nothing, but the recipient pays for the material to print the
: fax. Email is essentially the same situation, since the recipient pays for
: it in the increased cost of internet access and ISPs pay for it due to the
: increased costs of the bandwidth necessary to accommodate it. There is NO
: reason that spam should be legal when junk faxes are banned.

: - Junk mail has not been banned, since it's the sender that pays all costs
: for the mailing. The recipient either reads it or tosses it. One could
: argue that there are disposal costs involved, but it's not a very
: convincing argument.