[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 54 (Thursday, May 4, 2000)]
[House]
[Page H2514]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       THE PROBLEM OF SPAM E-MAIL

  (Mr. GREEN of Texas asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, all of us share in the loss of 
Cardinal O'Connor, even though we are not from New York.
  Mr. Speaker, last evening, the House of Representatives was spammed. 
Spam is unsolicited e-mail that can be sent in such a large volume that 
it disables the recipient's network. I am sure my colleagues have read 
recent news reports of companies like e-Bay and Amazon.com having their 
networks taken down by coordinated e-mail attacks.
  This is a growing problem that Congress needs to quickly address. I 
have introduced H.R. 3113, along with the gentlewoman from New Mexico 
(Mrs. Wilson), that will provide consumers and businesses protection 
against these types of attacks.
  Mr. Speaker, many of the messages the House received last night 
simply were titled ``I love you.'' And I know that all of us in the 
House and our staff enjoy looking at our computers in the morning and 
seeing ``I love you.'' Apart from the interesting title, there is 
nothing friendly in this message. If we opened this e-mail, our 
computer would be infected by a virus that we would then have to spend 
considerable time and effort removing from our network.
  The Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade and Consumer Protection 
of the Committee on Commerce has held a markup on anti-spam 
legislation, and it passed the subcommittee by voice vote. I hope this 
incident will bring a quick full-committee mark-up.
  Mr. Speaker, I remind my colleagues not to open any messages, even 
though they say ``I love you.'' This may be the second time our House 
has been spammed, but I feel fairly certain that it will not be the 
last. Let us pass H.R. 3113.

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