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Virginia Top Court to Re-Hear Spammer's Conviction

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the a-waffling-we-will-go dept.

arbitraryaardvark writes "Mega-spammer Jeremy Jaynes was convicted in Virginia of spamming in '05, sentenced to 9 years, and lost his appeal, 4-3, at the Virgina Supreme Court. But the court has just ordered a new hearing on whether the anti-spam statute is unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Slashdot previously covered the appeal and the conviction."

2 of 216 comments (clear)

  1. Re:First Amendment covers ads? by dgatwood · · Score: 5, Informative

    The appeal definitely won't go anywhere. Commercial speech is the least protected of all categories of speech and can be fairly thoroughly subjected to time, place, and manner restrictions. These, in turn, have a four-part test for their constitutionality:

    • Is the restriction content-neutral? It passes this test because it applies to all commercial speech, not just ads for certain types of products.
    • Does the regulation support a significant governmental interest? Yes. It is designed to reduce the severe burden that processing this junk mail causes to the citizens of the country as a whole.
    • Is it narrowly tailored? It passes this test because it is carefully crafted specifically to limit the harmful effects of the speech--specifically, the electronic equivalent of littering--without preventing legitimate communication between a company and its clients (with explicit opt-in and real opt-out).
    • Does it leave open ample alternative channels of communication? It passes this test because again, it allows this communication, but only with consent.
    --

    Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  2. Re:First Amendment covers ads? by frankie · · Score: 5, Informative

    "Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit.
    "We therefore categorically reject the argument that a vendor has a right under the Constitution or otherwise to send unwanted material into the home of another. If this prohibition operates to impede the flow of even valid ideas, the answer is that no one has a right to press even 'good' ideas on an unwilling recipient. That we are often 'captives' outside the sanctuary of the home and subject to objectionable speech and other sound does not mean we must be captives everywhere. The asserted right of a mailer, we repeat, stops at the outer boundary of every person's domain."
    - Chief Justice Warren Burger, US Supreme Court, Rowan v US Post Office