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Put a Spammer in the Slammer by Phil Agre


Part 4
Complaining to the Police

Messages that seem potentially illegal can also be reported to the FBI, to the attorney general of any state that the message claims as its origin, and to the local police. In each case, once again, simply print out the message and include a brief cover letter expressing your concerns.

To find the address of the nearest FBI field office, consult the following web page:

http://www.fbi.gov/fo/fo.htm

The attorney general of your state is your friend, and will be happy to investigate potentially illegal spammers if newspaper headlines can be generated by doing so. Here, just to give the idea, are a few of their addresses:

Attorney General Scott Harshbarger
One Ashburton Place
Boston, MA 02108-1698
(617) 727-2200
http://www.state.ma.us/ag/ago.htm

Frank J. Kelley
Attorney General
Law Building
PO Box 30212
Lansing, MI 48909
(517) 373-1110

Hon. Drew Edmondson, Attorney General
112 State Capitol Bldg.
Oklahoma City, OK 73105
(405) 521-3921

Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office
16th Floor, Strawberry Square
Harrisburg, PA 17120
(717) 787-3391
info@attorneygeneral.gov
http://www.attorneygeneral.gov

Office of the Texas Attorney General
PO Box 12548
Austin, TX 78711-2548
(512) 463-2100

Office of the Virginia Attorney General
900 East Main Street
Richmond, VA 23219
(804) 786-2071
mail@oag.state.va.us
http://www.state.va.us/~oag/main.htm

The National Association of Attorneys General is on the Web at:

http://www3.issinet.com/naag/

The attorney generals' contact information, courtesy of various sources:

http://www.tobacco.org/Misc/ags.html
http://www.fraud.org/info/links.htm
http://www.counselconnect.com/agtierney/list.html
http://members.aol.com/reinbeaux/pass/stateag.htm

Many state attorneys general have offices to protect consumers. For example, the Washington State attorney general's Consumer Protection Division is on the Web at http://www.wa.gov/ago/CPD/CPHOME.html

Many states have Web sites at http://www.state.XX.us/ , where XX is the 2-letter postal code, for example CA for California. You might be able to find other consumer related information at the site for your state, or the state from which a spam message originated.

The federal equivalent of the state attorneys general are the US attorneys, who litigate for the US attorney general. Their contact information can be found at:

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/usao.html

If the spam message includes a postal address then you can get the address for the spammer's local police department through directory assistance (in the US, 1 + area code + 555 1212).

It would be excellent if someone wrote a program (ideally integrated with a commonly used mail-reading program) that scans a potentially illegal spam message and automatically prints letters of complaint to the appropriate law enforcement authorities.

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Publication Restrictions:
Nonprofit user group publications may reprint this article provided that you print it in its entirety, verbatim, without any additions, deletions, or modifications, and so long as you include the following copyright statement:

"(c) 1997 by Phil Agre. All rights reserved.
Phil Agre is an associate professor of communication at the University of California, San Diego. He edits an Internet mailing list called the Red Rock Eater News Service, on which this article was originally distributed. Details on the Web at http://communication.ucsd.edu/pagre/rre.html . "

You'll also need to send Phil a hardcopy of the issue when it appears.

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