Slashdot Mirror
Virginia Top Court to Re-Hear Spammer's Conviction
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."
I would think that the first amendment definitely covers advertisements. If we decide the first amendment covers all speech except for the speech we find annoying, it isn't very useful.
However, in the case of spam, the spammer is forcing the recipient to pay for his speech without consent. That is why spam should be illegal, not because it's trying to sell something.
This isn't a first amendment issue, it's a property rights issue. The spammer's got a right to say whatever he wants to say, but that right doesn't include a right to use other people's property to do so.
Basically, he got sent up the river for a hell of a lot of instances of extremely petty theft, which is as it should be. Let the fucker rot.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I don't think the law infringes on anybody's right to expression. The law is only related to falsifying e-mail transmission info. So if the guy bought a domain name and set up a smtp server and spammed from his domain and his server using a connection that he pays for, he wouldn't be breaking the law. It is reasonable to have laws like this to protect the defrauded service providers who were essentially duped into sending this guy's spam.
Free speech generally applies to public forums and areas. My inbox is not a public forum or area, no matter how much the NSA might wish that it were.