Slashdot Mirror
Defending Harsh Sentences for Spammers
BMcWilliams writes "Russell McGuire, one of the government lawyers who prosecuted spammer Jeremy Jaynes, has published an article justifying the tough sentence recommended by a Virginia jury. He writes, 'the defense attorney argued that greed cuts both ways and the victims got what they deserved because they were trying to get rich quick. Needless to say, this did not go over well with the jury.' Still, the eye-popping 9-year sentence has even some ardent anti-spammers wondering whether 'proportionality is becoming a completely forgotten concept.'"
And what is the defense attorney e-mail address?
So, how much did it work out *per spam*? A couple of seconds, if that? If "it takes a second" to hit delete, then that's a reasonable sentence for each spam.
It doesn't need to be said that you can get off with a lighter sentence for killing someone. This just goes to show that we're too quick to lock people in cages these days. Why not have them give back to the community or something constructive?
and go to jail for nine years. Drive a car drunk, sell crack, or commit rape and serve far less (or even any) time. I love this country.
Proportionality be damned. They're out for blood and need to make an example of him. What I have been wondering is why spammers even need to spend time in jail. Wouldn't a large fine be in order and serve the same purpose? Do we really need more non-violent criminals crowding up our jails and costing taxpayers even more money?
"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
Than you can for rape, or causing death by dangerous driving, etc, then there's something wrong with the justice system.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Rape is usually about 5-20 years, isn't it? I agree that 9 years is a little extreme for spamming.
The problem with our society is that we can't figure out a better way to punish people than to put them in jail for a decade or so and let them think about what they did. We're not quakers, for the love of God. Why can't we just:
1.) Take all the money paid to him for spamming,
2.) Fine the companies that paid him to spam, give as much of that money back to the gullible suckers as we can, and
3.) Give him 50 lashes and tell him he's not allowed to use email for 5 years.
Last week my neighbour's brat rang my door bell then ran away.
I demand at least 5 years in prison as it's not the first time he did that and I'm not the only victim.
I don't need a signature.
The spammers in this case comitted many counts of fraud. If they'd been charged with that (which probably would have been a tougher case to make than proving they'd sent emails that hid their identity), they probably would have gotten a much longer sentence. Everyone, the spammers included, should be happy that the prosecuters decided to make an example of them for spamming instead of putting together a solid fraud case with a few thousand consecutive sentences.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
1. Is this nine years in Supermax/leavenworth breaking rocks, or is it nine years in white-collar minimum security for dysfunctional mob accountants?
2. Certainly the criminals can get out earlier with good behaviour.
3. Porportionality, and the excess thereof, is the entire basis behind "prison" as a concept: we try to make that destination deplorable enough to try and discourage certain behaviours that society deems as "crimes".
4. These bozos made the mistake of committing a crime where the jurors themselves were also victims (indirectly). Stupid. Very, very stupid.
davejenkins.com |
It was pretty clear from the article that these guys were also guilty of fraud. They had a 30% chargeback rate and from the description of what was involved in the chargebacks, I'm surprised 30% were that persistent.
I'm curious why fraud charges weren't stacked on top of all this.
I'm not complaining. 9 years for spamming. I just hope this guy isn't the last. I really want to see them go after as many of these guys as they can. Going after 1 isn't much of a deterrant. Going after dozens could be. It's not like there are as many big-time spammers as there are file sharers. You don't have to get that many convictions to start scaring them.
Wasn't it obvious? People get charged with jaywalking, conspiracy to jaywalk, purchase of running shoes with intent to jaywalk, reckless jaywalking, disregarding traffic signals with intent to jaywalk, and end up pleading down to "just" a year.
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them." - Ayn Rand
Not that spammers don't deserve jail time, but realize that we're quickly approaching a stage where everyone is guilty of something.
The concept that harsh punishments act as a more effective deterrent than 'strong chance of being caught' with a minor fine has been disproven time and again. You'll learn this in any 101 Psychology or Criminal Law or Sociology course pretty much.
As much as I hate spam, I would much rather see the man bankrupted, or seriously fined than server ANY jail time. At no point has my quality of life or personal safety ever been threatened by spam. Incarceration should be an option of last resort.
I find it funny that most slashdotters will cry foul at ~any~ type of fine for file trading or uncapping their modems or for warddriving, and then scream for violent dismemberment of someone who sends unsolicited e-mails.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
He should just send an apology email for each spam. That would certainly cut down on the problem.
I'd rather see the economic incentives for spam eliminated; as long as they exist, so will spam.
OTOH, knowing that this guy won't be spamming for 9 years is not a terrible thing. I agree that the degree of this crime is lower than many others, but the magnitude seems extremely higher. We should be comparing his sentence to that of a mass murderer or serial rapist.
I realize our justice system all about law and completely devoid of ethics, but sometimes the jurys are allowed to inject some sanity. Spammers are FULLY AWARE that they're intruding on millions of people who won't want to be intruded upon. They shouldn't be doing it in the first place.
But then the legal system responds to citizen unrest and develops laws which try to restrict what spammers can do.
NOW, the spammer is flagrantly violating both ethics and the law. They're filling your inbox with thousands of unwanted emails, stealing half the available handwidth in the fastest networks, and costing people inordinate amounts of money, just so the spammer can scam 0.01% of his email recipients. AND THEY KNOW IT.
I think people should be hanged for such flagrant disregard for everyone else on the planet. 9 years in prison? He got off light.
I see a lot of people saying things like "you do more time for rape and muder, so these sentences are disproportional". But the purpose of the criminal justice system is to try and make people comply with the law, not just to punish them for breaking it. Increasing the sentences for already serious crimes like rape and murder won't significantly affect the likelihood of people comitting those crimes, because of the nature of the crimes. On the other hand, if a crime like spamming is seen as a high-profit, low risk option (slap on the wrist and a fine), the law will be widely broken. It is therefore perfectly reasonable to impose hefty jailtime sentences to make sure spamming is not seen as a low-risk crime. Just my 2 cents.
Oh no... it's the future.
I've often thought that the basic concept of a time based prison sentance was flawed. Other than opportunity for parole, there's really no incentive for rehabilitation with this system. I just breaks down to managing the prison population until it's time to release them back into society.
What if, instead of a time based prison system, we could incorporate a level based system? The further within the system you go, the less priveledges you would have. Instead of years within the system, it would be levels within the system that you must earn your way out of in order to be released. This would also have the effect of causing similar types of criminals to be populated together. The very top level could be something like a "half way house" that would replace the concept of parole. To ultimately earn your freedom, you'd have to have demonstrated your ability to function as a law abiding citizen.
White collar criminals, like our spammer, could also have thier assets taken while they are in prison to make restitution for monetary damages.
The idea needs development I realize, but I think it would emphasize rehabilitation more than a time based system would.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
Personally, I would think that the 9 year jail time is "proportional" punishment for a number of reasons:
1. How much time was spent deleting the emails that this guy sent - say it takes a cent an email, everytime he sends out 10M emails, this costs the economy $100,000. So taking that into acount, we can probably say that $50-$100 M is lost to the economy each year.
2. How much has been spent on Spam filters, installation and upgrades? How many billions of dollars per year are spent by businesses, individuals and governments? Let's be conservative and say $100M per year.
3. How much bandwidth has been stolen, proxies illegally set up? What is the cost to individuals, businesses, government - again being conservative let's say $50M per year.
4. I won't even guess at the amount of money that this guy's clients have taken from (dumb) people that respond to the emails.
So, looking at this from this prospective, this guy is a kingpin in a minimum $200M per year scam. It could probably be argued that this guy's contribution to the problem could cost society $200M per year. What do you think is an appropriate punishment for a crime of this magnitude?
Fines for this type of behavior don't work; the spammer will just declare bankrupcy after moving his money to a protected location.
The comparison to the time given to a rapist or murderer is not reasonable. I would expect that the spammer is going to end up in a minimum-security institution. Where a rapist or murderer will end up in a maximum security prison or better. On leaving prison, a rapist/murderer is normally required to register where they are living and will be regularly interviewed by police when there is a crime that is similar in nature to theirs - they can never leave this behind them.
The spammer, if he does change his ways, can lead a new life after prison with it just being remembered as a mistake that he didn't fully understand the consequences to - but at least he try to destroy somebody's life (as a violent criminal would have to live with).
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
As an ex con who did my share of months in ohios system, this really is nothing new. I spent time inside with a rapist that was sentenced to 3 years (with a prior felony record) and a man that was extorting a catholic priest (the priest supposedly molested his girlfriend) that got 6 years for that.....
So a violent rape gets 3, but extortion (not even with a threat of violence) gets 6....
There is no proportionality in sentencing, there is too much leeway...and they are entirely too ready to lock individuals up, where they can go to criminal college, because let me tell you, prison is nothing but an educational system for crime...
I did not know anything about the criminal lifestyle before going in, now I could (not going to) make crack, and meth, and more importantly how to sell them......without committing the same mistakes that the others made.
The "treatment" that is offered, is a joke, I committed my crime in the heat of passion, under a ton of stress and had a blackout (from bipolar disorder was manic)--no therapy, just give me drugs to make me calm....
Others sold their happy pills.....for cigarettes....it was so noisy that i kept em--have to sleep someway...
And when you get out it is almost impossible to obtain employment. But child support is still going at the rate that you had ordered and earned before you went in so i owe over 10 grand to them--they can garnish up to 65% of net....so what do you do if you cant earn a living with good pay to begin with, and they take out 65% of what you would bring home--my checks right now are less than 150 a week....
The life of crime is looking better and better, I simply cannot make it trying to stay straight.........
Crime is detered when criminals believe the chances are they will be caught.
This requires long term investment in the police forces.
Crime is not detered by heavy sentancing since if the criminal believes the chances are he will not be caught, the sentance is irrelevent.
Heavy sentancing however can be enacted instantly, by act of law, unlike long term investment in police forces (which is also, of course, expensive and has little immediate effect).
Over the decades, there has been a general failure to invest in police forces because of the cost and lack of immediacy and, due to the consequencial lack of decrease in crime, a general turning towards increasingly heavy sentancing.
This does not work. It also gradually leads to penalities become entirely disproportional to offence, leading to institutionalized injustice.
Such is the current state of affairs.
--
Toby
... is that this is not just unsolicited email, it is FRAUD.
If he was just sending unsolicited email advertising a real product that actually worked, then 9 years would indeed be too harsh. Creating an annoyance, even to many people, should not be punished more harshly than some murders and rapes.
But, he deliberately worked to deceive people in order to steal their money by selling a product that didn't work and that he knew didn't work. This is theft, and when done on such a grand scale ($400K - $700K per month), deserves to be so harshly punished. It could be argued that this is too light, considering the several year sentences typical for car theft.
I'd also be inclined to punish him for stupidity. Having raked in several million dollars in a few months, he should have been long gone sunning himself on a beach in Brazil under a new identity, not sitting around waiting to be busted.