Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 15:08:17 GMT
From: adamg@eff.org (Adam Gaffin)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: The Fax Pest
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 838, Message 1 of 5

{Middlesex News}, Framingham, Mass., Nov. 10, 1992
 
"Moroney's World"
 
The faxman calls again
 
     Have you been faxed by the Fax Pest?

     Daniel Gregory, the nationally known fax freak of Holliston, has
struck again.

     This time, he faxed out a pre-election newsletter, "Fax-Line
News," to some 5,000 unsuspecting recipients. Some of them are quite
teed off.

     Helen Lemoine of Framingham, for example, was jolted from a deep 
sleep at 3:32 a.m. on election morning. 

     "When the phone rang at that time of the night, I just jumped a
mile high," she said.

     Lemoine doesn't know Gregory "from a hole in the wall." And
although he won't discuss it, Gregory apparently used a computer
dialer and mailing list to make the calls and send the faxes, pulling
off the fast-growing nuisance crime of the '90s.

     Hit-and-run junk faxing. 

     You may remember this self-employed fax freak from headlines last
winter. The American Honda Motor Co. won a permanent injunction after
Gregory bombarded their fax machines with junk, including a 14-foot
fax that read "Dan Gregory is not happy with his car."

     In his election newsletter, Gregory, who is about 31 and single,
urged people to vote against state reps Barbara Gray and Barbara
Gardner and congressional candidates Ed Markey and Peter Blute.

     Guess what? All four won. 

     That doesn't annoy him, Gregory said. But when I contacted him
yesterday, that did annoy him -- especially when I called him a pest.

     "I'm no more of a pest than you are dishonest," he replied
angrily.

     Then he told me I was sneaky and underhanded. 

     If you want a full transcript of our conversation, you might want
to contact the Fax Pest himself. He recorded it.

     Gregory also said that if people think he's obnoxious, and if
they treated him badly solely on the grounds that he is obnoxious,
they would be trampling on his civil rights.

     "So what if I'm obnoxious? We have civil rights laws ... to
protect all kinds of behavior," he said.

     We also have a federal fax statute which goes into effect Feb.
28, but this is where it gets scary: The new law apparently doesn't
protect us against Gregory and people like him.

     According to Gregory, the law simply requires senders to provide
their telephone numbers and time and date of the fax on the cover
sheet. Also, senders may not send unsolicited advertising.

     If he repeatedly calls a certain fax number, then he can be
prosecuted under harassment laws.

     But if he just does a mass faxing, one per household, not even
the state Attorney General's office can touch him, he says.

     "I hope he (the AG) tries to torpedo me because it will show 
that the people have installed a moron in that office," Gregory 
boasted. 

     That's the FP for you, making friends wherever he goes. 

     The truth is, people are fed up with junk faxes. My newsroom gets
a forest's worth every day, with Congressman Joe Kennedy the biggest
offender. When Kennedy gets indigestion, we hear about it in a fax.

     Gregory received about ten written complaints at his post office
box, the only address on the newsletter. He characterized the nastier
respondents as hypersensitive and thin-skinned.

     A Marlboro women said, "I really think you have a helluva nerve 
 ... you don't even have the testicular fortitude to put your return
fax number on the fax."
 
     A Norfolk engineering company sent Gregory a bill for $75 for
"inconvenience to our customers; paper and clerical charges; annoyance
factor."
 
     An unmarked letter returned Gregory's own newsletter with the 
word "sick" circled and this note: "Yes, you are sick. Get some 
help. Stop inundating people's phone lines, you nut."
 
     I couldn't have faxed it better myself. 
 

Adam Gaffin     adamg@eff.org     Voice: (508) 626-3968
Putting the Internet on paper!


[Moderator's Note: Adam Gaffin is a staff writer for the {Middlesex
News} and he shares his gems with the Digest from time to time. Thanks
again Adam!  PAT]