The good people of Los Angeles want an NFL team in their city. And they are bombarding the NFL Commissioner with a mass Web fax petition organised by a local radio station. Techies at the NFL Commission asked Fax4Free.com company supplying the software enabling the mass fax spam, to turn off the taps. Bad move -- for now Fax4Free.com's CEO, Steve Hamerslag, is spinning madly. He refuses to stop the faxing on -- get this -- free speech grounds. "The faxes petitioning for a team in Los Angeles are being sent by the residents of Los Angeles," he says. "Our free Internet fax service is simply the conduit for the people to express their opinions. Typically we are very responsive about any misuse of sending junk faxes through our service. "But this is really a matter of free speech we are dealing with here. Therefore we can not, nor will we, turn off the faxing. In fact, we are delighted that our free Internet fax service empowers people to express their opinions to those that serve the public in this way." What a prick. ®