Fax Terrorists

“This message is intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed and may contain information that is privileged, confidential, and exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient or agent responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this electronic transmission in error, please delete it from your system without copying it, and notify the sender by reply e-mail or by calling (999) 555-5959, so that our address record can be corrected.”

This is the footnote that is popping up on business faxes all over the country.
Once upon a time in a soul-less city not so far away, some bright but bored attorney sat down at another in a long line of meaningless meetings.
Instead of doodling images of Tweety and Bugs, he starts drafting this disclaimer while the speaker drones on about something like the dangerous food-poisoning liability exposure of Homeowner Association presidents who eat their boogers.
After the meeting, the practical-joke-loving barrister decides it would be a hoot to see how many clients he can rook into believing that this disclaimer is absolutely critical to the protection of the American free enterprise system.
So now we see this stupid clause at the bottom of nearly every business fax transmission in the country, which is often longer than the actual message being sent.
Eventually, one of these lands on my desk.
Is it just me, or is there something odd about somebody sending an unwanted fax to someone by mistake, using up my paper, toner, and phone time (when I’m expecting a truly IMPORTANT fax from the pizza place down the street to let me know what toppings are available), then threatening ME over THEIR mistake?
In a tremendous irony, the fax is to announce another meaningless meeting of some cataclysmically dull group.
Let’s be honest, this unwanted fax would ordinarily find a home among its junk-mail brethren in the bottom of my circular file without a second glance.
Unless of course it included some sort of juicy gossip about a political leader or co-worker, which would immediately find its way onto a website or news wire within the hour.
(Face it, if I inadvertently catch an errant doctor’s note explaining why Paris Hilton’s gonorrhea isn’t responding to treatment, I’m not going to sit on that. Pulitzer Prizes have been awarded for less, I don’t care WHAT the little disclaimer says.)
(Disclaimer: to the best of my knowledge, Paris Hilton does not and has not ever had gonorrhea…see, I have lawyers too.)