Getra Hanes spent the early part of the week of August 18 in an anxious snit, helpless against the powers that would strip her of her newly-acquired business. At 25, she was sitting on the edge of a lesson in business hardball.

By the end of the week, she was politically involved, empowered and singing about how the system works for those who take time to challenge its dictates.

Getra, a Radford University graduate of recent vintage and former professional recruiter and ad sales rep, had bought Just the Fax, a daily, one-page faxed advertising sheet, because she wanted to get out of her Roanoke office ("I love making cold sales calls," she says. "I know that's weird"). And, of course, there was the opportunity - at a price she could afford - to become a small business owner.

Then up steps Michael Powell and the FCC, smack in the center of one of the worst years that federal agency has ever had, making yet another ill-conceived decision that would have monumental impact. Hidden deep inside the much-publicized and popular Telephone Consumer Protection Act passed in June was the death knell for the fax machine as we know it. Without a fax, Getra's business would be toast - and Getra would not stand idly by and watch that eventuality.

She joined a virtual lynch mob of individual businesses, professional associations, non-profits and chambers of commerce in converging via fax, e-mail, conventional mail, carrier pigeon and congressional buttonhole in just saying "no" to Powell and the FCC boobs. "All we were asking is that they re-evaluate the ruling and listen to what business had to say," says Getra diplomatically. That seems to be a common complaint against Powell's FCC, which held one hearing before making one of the most radical changes to communications infrastructure in history in June, the one modifying rules of media ownership so Rupert Murdoch could eventually become king.

The fax dictum became ensnarled in the ruling against that ultimate commercial pariah, telemarketing, which was roundly supported (even though it will result in massive unemployment among those who can least afford to lose their jobs) by almost everybody alive. But like so much the FCC does, the fax portion of the act has little to do with reality, a reality that would have easily been understood had anyone asked.

The new rules would require those soliciting business or information to have written permission from fax recipients. The ruling generally applies if the fax is from a business of which the recipient is not already a customer. You can see how that might upset Getra. Although she is almost maniacal in honoring requests to remove businesses from her list if they request it, she didn't want to have to get into getting all those signatures, which could not be gathered by fax or phone. They'd have to be put on file via conventional mail - inconvenient, time-consuming and expensive.

Most of us do at least some of our business by fax and even though we did that same business before the machine was invented, we've come to depend upon its speed and accuracy. Here at the Journal - in one of the best examples I can think of - we put together the Book of Lists with heavy use of the fax machine. It allows us to send last year's list to the individual business, so the information can be updated and it gives us a record. We simply could not put together that publication via mail and expect to meet a reasonable deadline. Frankly, the BOL came after the fax.

Realtors would be heavily affected, as would non-profits and associations. And, I'd bet, that your business would suffer some serious inconvenience and loss of cash if the ruling stands, as well. How absurd is the ruling? Stephen Bokat of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, gives this scenario, "If the local church wants to fax something to its congregants saying there's a pancake supper and it's $5, it's covered by this rule."

I can go to the fax machine at just about any time of the day and pick up a stack of junk faxes and they annoy the hell out of me. They're time-consuming, use our toner and paper, take staff time and cause all kinds of recycling issues. But there's a whole lot better way to control them than to throw the baby out with the bath water, or, perhaps, more directly, make the fax machine effectively illegal.

What Getra and people like her got for all of us was breathing room. The FCC will ask questions for 16 months and then revisit the fax ruling.

Getra, and a lot of people like her, also got a strong lesson in participatory democracy. The FCC was virtually buried in complaints and as gun-shy as that agency is right now - rightly so, I'd say - it was going to be responsive or somebody was going to be fired, or maybe shot.