Church and State blog: SpamCop reports Declan as a spammer

Friday, March 14, 2008

SpamCop reports Declan as a spammer

On Wednesday Declan received an email from Bravenet, the web host of our website Network of those Abused by Church, replying to his email of 8 March in respect of their suspension of the NAC website earlier that morning (see previous blog). They state: "We apologize for the delay. Unfortunately this suspension is due to spam as reported via SpamCop. As per our Terms of Service Rules and Regulations (http://www.bravenet.com/global/terms.php), we do not allow any unsolicited email in association with our site or services. Please cease all such activity and reply here indicating that you have done so and understand these terms for your account to be reviewed for restoration."

It turns out that on 6 March, the day after Declan received an email from the Home Office denying that a warrant to intercept his communications exists, SpamCop received a complaint from a scientist to the effect that Declan’s email to him was a spam. SpamCop promptly drew up a report (http://www.spamcop.net/w3m?i=z2902444514z2f7c18eb545d54a637fa97c4ff4bb206z) and sent it not only to Bravenet (which suspended NAC) but to GoPetition (which hosts Declan's petition to the UN) and Google (which hosts this blog and Declan’s mail account).

A click to "Learn more about what to report and what not to report to SpamCop" yields the following information:

Spam is bulk email. If someone writes to an individual personally, one-on-one, to ask a question or inquire about a post made to a newsgroup or website, then that is not spam, even if it contains commercial or marketing content. However, email containing the recipient's name is not always legitimate. For example, if someone writes a personalized message, but fails to address any subject which is specific or relevant to the recipient ("Kelly, get the lowest prices on prescription drugs!" is an example), it is safe to assume the message is spam. (Emphasis added)

Since a complainant must provide SpamCop with a copy of the offending email, it should have been pretty straightforward to determine that an email with the subject "NAC: Petition to the UN on hESC research", addressed to a particular scientist and inviting him/her to sign a petition to the United Nations in support of human cloning for therapeutic purposes, was not spam; especially if it is evident from the email that the petition itself is being signed by distinguished scientists and academics from around the world. Nonetheless, this morning Declan received the following from SpamCop: "It appears that the issue is that some of the people you're sending mail to don't believe that it's solicited by them, and they don't wish to receive it, so they have reported it as spam." I wonder if the “Academic Freedom Petition, an initiative of the Discovery Institute to urge the adoption of policies by the US's academic institutions “to ensure teacher and student academic freedom to discuss the scientific strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian evolution”, has to surmount similar obstacles. It seems that SpamCop intends to neither review their report nor have it withdrawn.

Last night we reckoned that we could well have been 24 hours away from losing everything (despite that “GoPetition - Petitions FAQ” states: “You should email as many relevant people as you can”) and had to go to an internet café – the Tower Hamlets Council's Idea Store Whitechapel, where we do all our emailing, imposed a 3-hour limit on free computer use on both our membership cards on 29 January – and email SpamCop (see below), Bravenet, Google Legal and GoPetition Legal with a letter earlier in the day to Home Secretary Jacqueline Smith. (Declan also thought it would be wiser if I didn't beg in the train station this morning: I am under threat of arrest, and the last time I was issued with a ticket, on 26 February, PC 9191 called me "a piece of shit" before his partner informed me I would be arrested if I came back.)

We have decided that when we get off the streets, the NAC website will not be uploaded again. Instead, NAC will concentrate exclusively on Declan’s petition to the UN. I intend to create a new website with a campaign to support this petition and have my eyes on “Make Trade Fair” by Oxfam and the video page of “Stop Heathrow Expansion” by Greenpeace UK.

As we had to spend all our money in the internet café last night and I didn’t beg this morning, I am afraid Declan is going to be pretty hungry this weekend. As usual, on Thursday and Friday I kept the grated cheese sandwich that the nuns at the Dellow Centre of the Sisters of Mercy Providence Row Charity give the homeless "for later" – although since Tuesday the grated cheese has been removed.

Grated cheese is just the latest to be withdrawn though: the voluntary hairdresser who used to attend on Wednesdays hasn’t turned up for months (Declan and I wear a cap permanently now); the hair clipper that the homeless had been using to do their own hair (and which Declan was not very happy using because it never came with disinfectant spray) has also disappeared; on Tuesday I was told by the nun in charge of clothes that she didn’t have any men’s jeans (Declan’s jeans are immensely big for him and are in a bit of a state) or runners for me (mine have holes), and to get two pairs of socks Declan had to show her that the heels of his socks had holes; toiletries that used to be put out, especially for the women, are nowhere to been seen; and a shower in the women’s washroom has now to be pretty quick to avoid a shock - it doesn’t matter if you are the first in line or not.

As I reported in my blog of 23 February “Police threaten to evict us from the porch”, a look at Providence Row's annual report of 2006/07 doesn’t provide any clues, but contains three pages of supporters: charities, societies, churches, companies, livery companies, religious organisations, trusts, statutory funders (London Borough of Tower Hamlets, London Councils and The Corporation of London) and the Duke of Norfolk (to whom Declan reported the withdrawal of his use of a landline phone) as Patron.

This is Declan's (ineffective) email last night to SpamCop:

Subject: SpamCop report

Dear Sir/Madam

I refer to your spam report regarding my website http://www.nac1.bravehost.com.

Please find below a copy of my email of today's date to the British Home Secretary, Ms Jacqueline Smith, regarding interception of communications. Since 22 October 2007, I have been contacting through personalised email distinguished scientists and academics to invite them to sign my petition to the United Nations entitled "Consideration at the United Nations of a Declaration on Human Cloning for Therapeutic Reasons" at [withheld].

I would be much obliged if you would please review this matter as soon as possible, as http://www.nac1.bravehost.com is associated with the aforementioned petition, which to date has been signed by 478 scientists, including 22 Nobel prizewinners.

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey

dheavey@gmail.com
http://www.nac1.bravehost.com
http://network-of-those-abused-by-church.blogspot.com

-----------------------------------------

Subject: Interception of communications

Dear Ms Smith

I refer further to my email to you of 29 February in your capacity as Home Secretary whose personal approval is required for an interception of communications warrant in the interests of national security, preventing or detecting serious crime, or safeguarding the economic well-being of the United Kingdom.

As I explained in my email of 29 February, since 22 October 2007 I have been contacting through Google Mail distinguished scientists and academics to invite them to sign my petition to the United Nations entitled "Consideration at the United Nations of a Declaration on Human Cloning for Therapeutic Reasons", calling for the establishment of a reasonable timetable for a UN declaration that would draw a distinction between reproductive and therapeutic cloning while specifically leaving it to UN member states to decide for themselves on therapeutic cloning within a regulation framework. To date, this petition has been signed by 478 scientists, including 22 Nobel prizewinners.

On 6 March I drew to your attention the following: (1) in the last week of December, two emails from scientists, asking me to add their name to the aforementioned petition, were filtered to my Spam mailbox; (2) on 6 February, I was informed by a signatory that an email I had sent him had not been received, despite Google Mail's record of it having been successfully transmitted; (3) on 8 February, I received two Out of Office AutoReplys with "[SUSPECT SPAM]" in the subject; (4) on 27 February, I was informed by a signatory that my email to him earlier that afternoon had been "filtered to a Spam mailbox"; (5) from 28 to 29 February inclusive, over 30 automatically generated delivery status notifications (confirming failure or delay to transmit) were filtered to my Spam mailbox; and (6) on 28 February, I received an email from a scientist, in response to my latest invitation to him to sign the petition, informing me that he was "sure" he said he was happy to have his name added to the list of signatories. (The first email I sent from my Google Mail account is dated 9 April 2005.)

I reconfirm receipt of your email of reply of 5 March, reference T4721/8, signed by AS Cooper of the Office of Security and Counter Terrorism, stating in respect of an interception of communications warrant: "I do not think that the pattern of your e-mail problems means that you are being intercepted". As I previously mentioned in my email of 8 March, my website Network of those Abused by Church is hosted with Bravenet, which suspended the site on 8 March, replying to me on 12 March as follows:

We apologize for the delay. Unfortunately this suspension is due to spam as reported via SpamCop. As per our Terms of Service Rules and Regulations, we do not allow any unsolicited email in association with our site or services. Please cease all such activity and reply here indicating that you have done so and understand these terms for your account to be reviewed for restoration.

Please find attached a copy of the email from Bravenet of 12 March containing headers of the email received by SpamCop on 6 March, the day after the aforementioned email of reply from you. I also attach a snapshot of my Spam mailbox containing 95 automatically generated delivery status notifications from 6 to 12 March inclusive. (Since 2 March, 223 automatically generated delivery status notifications have been filtered to my Spam mailbox.)

I should again point out that on 26 January, while I had no access to a computer, all emails sent to me after 12 August 2007 were moved to the Trash and 300 draft documents, which included the names and email addresses of over 2,500 scientists, were deleted for good.

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey

Church and State

MAYOR OF LONDON RSI PROPERTY
DAY 406 IN A WEEKLY PERIODIC TENANCY
SUBJECT TO A SECTION 21 NOTICE

(SEE PARA. 3 BELOW)

1. Our 308 Honorary Associates include 20 Nobel Prize laureates. Declan and I are engaged in a project that deals with the publication of issues significant to social policy in a number of key areas, e.g., climate change, population, futurism, atheism, and free speech. Established as Network for Church Monitoring, a non-profit company limited by guarantee, our main publication, found at the website, Church and State, calls attention to subjects, not the least which have been critical of the interaction between religious and secular institutions. We have been the target of numerous threats and actions, e.g., the former resulting in threats to Declan's life, and the latter, which have led to vandalism. The various incidents are on record with the police and other official agencies.

2. There are no less than 63 Nobel Prize laureates on the Church and State website from 20 Honorary Associates, eight articles, nine book excerpts and 33 petition signatories. (For example, one Nobel laureate signed our Nobel petition in support of human embryonic stem cell research and gave us permission to excerpt from one of his books.) Our list of associates also includes 18 US National Medal laureates, and six Turing Award laureates (the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in computer science). We have published one article and excerpted from the books of seven members of the British House of Lords. And there are 31 knighted professors on the site from 13 Honorary Associates, one book excerpt and 21 petition signatories. These figures are despite the never-ending assault on our email (this link reveals the targeting of our emails to, among others, a close colleague in Washington, DC as well as space advocates and Nobel laureates).

3. This is Day 406 for us living under the threat to life of a 'no fault' eviction by Peabody Trust.[1] We live in a Mayor of London's Rough Sleepers Initiative (RSI) property. Peabody's appalling new terms of tenancy have forced us into an unstable weekly periodic tenancy that poses a threat to Declan's life and inhibits our ability to exercise our rights. Declan accumulated quite a history with the Housing Ombudsman Service before he received the Ombudsman's decision not to investigate a referral from Lyn Brown MP on jurisdictional grounds. The Ombudsman was asked to consider whether or not our tenancy has been renewed like for like; and whether, if not, it should be in light of the landlord having accused us of not signing a like-for-like agreement. The Equality and Human Rights Commission will not accept a referral of discrimination from Ms Brown, the Commission's helpline (EASS) having grossly distorted the complaint against Peabody. We no longer have pro se access to the courts (see next paragraph).

4. This eviction matter came before District Judge Ruth Fine at the Central London County Court on 30 June 2020, when both counsel for St Mungo's (the charity in effective control of our tenancy) and Declan presented their positions. Declan lost the case and was ordered to pay £1,850 in costs. A publishing colleague in America cleared these costs within 24 hours of my blog post about this hearing for strike out on a related issue that was the essence of the claim, i.e., that St Mungo's would take a phone call to confirm that we are clients of the Mayor of London's RSI programme. Within a week of the hearing, St Mungo's had agreed to take this phone call for us both, the Court having ruled that they were not obliged to do so despite our circumstances. This time we escaped bankruptcy (counsel for St Mungo's asked for £3,407.50 in costs), but consider that to seek pro se access to justice in the courts has become far too dangerous for us. Declan currently has before the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman the decision of the Information Commissioner that allows St Mungo's to continue processing coercive support plans without our knowledge or consent and that also poses a threat to his life.

5. When it comes to traffic, we have had 10.7 million hits in the past three years on Facebook; however, I left the platform on 13 March 2021 for one year rather than risk being banned for life. It is indisputable that with any sort of level playing field Church and State would have far exceeded 2.5 million hits last year. In addition to a large variety of blocks without explanation, Facebook had so severely restricted our Page's distribution by October 2020 that it was almost as good as an unpublished page.[2] Currently, we are up to their 85th block since 1 December 2015, and as usual without an explanation. This block records as one half of their 3rd double block in the first five weeks of this year that lasted 60 days. Our traffic has also been curtailed by over 2.5K blocks on access to Church and State since 26 July 2016, including 29 full distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks since 17 May 2019 that have lasted for as long as 54 hours at a time.[3] About 70% of our hits are from Americans.

"This is precisely the hard hitting kind of response needed to clarify the unfair way Facebook is treating your highly reputable site." Don Collins, Founder, International Services Assistance Fund, Washington DC

Last updated: 26/06/21

_________________________

[1] Once a fixed term has elapsed, the landlord has the option to seek eviction even if the tenant has upheld their obligations in full (though of course the landlord must still apply for and obtain a county court order).

[2] 17/10/20: We have permission to publish this ISAF letter of 30 September to Facebook COO Sheryl Samberg. Facebook has so severely restricted our Page's distribution since 4 September that it's almost as good as an unpublished page

[3] Since October 2019, we have been defining a full DDoS attack as having such a high volume of up to 4-minute blocks on access to Church and State that we don't bother recording them all.

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Friday, March 14, 2008

SpamCop reports Declan as a spammer

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