Not at all. CAUCE believes in the right to free speech, but having free speech doesn't spammers the right to force others to hear their message. CAUCE does not support the outlawing of commercial speech, but CAUCE does believe that those who wish to engage in commercial speech should either bear their own costs or limit their cost-shifting to those who have overtly affirmatively expressed a willingness to bear those costs.
This is not a new concept in the law. There is an example of this style of management already practiced in the United States. This law prohibits the sending of all unsolicited advertisements via fax machines. The law has been challenged in court stating a violation of on First AmendmentFree Speech grounds and each time courts have upheld the law because it is not censorship… it's about making the advertiser bear their own costs.
When spammers try to hide their destructive and often illegal activities behind the mask of “Free Speech“, it is helpful to remember the words of US Federal Judge Stanley Sporkin in a case called Turner Broadcasting v. FCC where the plaintiffs sought to defend their activities on First Amendment grounds:
"[They] have come to court not because their freedom of speech is seriously threatened but because their profits are; to dress up their complaints in First Amendment garb demeans the principles for which the First Amendment stands and the protections it was designed to afford."
When spammers try to cloak their damaging, often fraudulent activities in this same First Amendment garb, all defenders of free speech should be outraged. In summary, one of the best analyses of this theme comes in a famous case about junk postal mail. In the Supreme Court's decision in Rowan v. U.S. Post Office, the court held:
"Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or to view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit. . . We therefore categorically reject the argument that a vendor has the right under the Constitution or otherwise to send unwanted material into the home of another. . . We repeat, the right of a mailer stops at the outer boundary of every person's domain."
