Do Not Call Lists – threat to democracy?

Fighting off a flu this week, fresh from Howard Bloom’s first public talk in a couple of decades, and pondering just how Bush and the energy industy managed to save Enron money by recalling an elected official, I’ve been prone to darker speculation.

So what I’m wondering is how the expansion of do-not-call registries may curtail the crosstalk required for democracy to take place. As I noted in a post last year, do not call and online ‘protection’ programs already tend to censor traffic dealing with environmentalism, feminism, anti-war demonstrations, and pretty much any progressive agenda. Might do-not-call registries, and do-not-spam laws to follow, have a debilitating effect on our ability to send messages to one another about things much more important and controversial than the mainstream media is willing to report?

The email carrying a link to the Observer article alerting me to Arnold’s pre-candidacy meetings with Republicans for the reduction of Enron fines (see link above) was duly filtered by my ISP’s spam program.

I hope it’s just the flu-like disorientation, but I fear a legislator I don’t agree with someday defining spam in the same way they used to define porn: I know it when I see it.