School District Sued By ACLU Over Student's Free Speech Rights

An anonymous reader writes "The ACLU is suing Minnewaska Area Schools and Pope County, according to this article in the StarTribune. At issue: school administrators and a sheriff's deputy forced a girl to hand over login information to her Facebook and email accounts, after she posted on Facebook that she 'hated' a school hall monitor who had been 'mean' to her, and cursed in a separate Facebook comment because someone reported her. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and an order that would restrain school officials from attempts to regulate or discipline students based on speech made outside of school hours and off school property."

Comments

What about the parents?

[Lord Juan]

I mean, what in the world are the school administrators thinking? That parents are not going to care if they force their daughter to give them their log in information to their personal accounts?

Re:What about the parents?

[Arancaytar]

Yeah, but this isn't even about that. A school isn't a court. If she'd refused to give them any information, what could they do - jail her for Contempt of Principal?

Re:What about the parents?

[stephanruby]

Free speech aside, don't you USAns have a constitutional right to not incriminate yourself ?

Yes, that twelve year old girl folded like a little girl. She's a wimp. That's mostly the parents fault of not training her properly. When I have kids, they'll be able to survive police intimidation and interrogation techniques by the time they're three years old. In fact, the first word they'll learn won't be "Mama" or "Papa", it will be "IwantMyLawyerImNotTalkingToYouPigs".

Re:What about the parents?

[gl4ss]

dunno.. call the deputy? that's what they did anyways? and the deputy promptly went and gave access to the school "officials" to those accounts.

the deputy should be fired and the school staff too. they fucked up.

Re:What about the parents?

[lightknight]

Ambassador Londo Mollari: My shoes are too tight and I have forgotten how to dance.

I believe that quotes sums it up. The people involved have committed a great evil to someone less powerful than themselves, preying on the very being they were charged to protect; but it doesn't matter to them, because they've already forgotten what it was like to be a child.

No doubt the kid will continue to be ridiculed and besmirched for some time, and the wounds will heal, leaving only scars. A few decade's time, she will want to become a teacher / administrator, so she can right the wrongs of her predecessors; and after many years of being pushed around by a system that frankly doesn't care about her now anymore than it did when she was a child, the light will go out in her soul at an inopportune time, during which she will commit a similar act to some young thing, and the cycle will begin anew. She will realize her mistake all too late to correct it, and spend the rest of her life trying to come to terms with an opportunity come and gone.

I wish I had advice to dispense here, but I haven't found any that works in circumstances like these. I'd like to say that something will come from this, that there will be no scars, that good will triumph over evil, that everyone will learn some sort of valuable lesson, and that it will be the right one, but experience has taught me that good only triumphs over evil in fairy tales.

Re:What about the parents?

[Rogerborg]

the deputy should be jailed

EFA. I mean, after a fair and impartial trial, which is more than this girl got.

Re:What about the parents?

[maitai]

As a native (Yurok), wtf are you talking about?

Re:What about the parents?

[Scarletdown]

They're idiots. In a national context the term is American for people that have citizenship in the US. Despite what bigots from other parts of the super continent might think, there's rarely if ever a legitimate reason for using American in a different context.

Considering Mexicans are citizens of Los Estados Unidos de Mexico (aka United States of Mexico), and Canadians are citizens of a place called Canada (formerly the Dominion of Canada, it stands to reason that citizens of the United States of America would be referred to as Americans.

Re:What about the parents?

[Mitreya]

Yeah, but this isn't even about that. A school isn't a court. If she'd refused to give them any information, what could they do - jail her for Contempt of Principal?

Nothing, but it is a 12-year old girl. If they had invited one of her parents (in addition to the sheriff's deputy), the parent would certainly tell them to shove it. A 12-year old girl is easy to intimidate.
I think every administrator involved should be re-purposed to janitorial duty as a more appropriate venue. I do hope ACLU includes that in their lawsuit demand.

Re:What about the parents?

[firex726]

Yea, they are so worried over a kid hurting themselves that they take away the monkey bars, or sand pit; but see no issues with forcing them to hand over login creds, or activating webcams in supplied laptops.

Re:What about the parents?

[Fjandr]

At least in the USA police are typically not allowed to interview minors without at least notifying the parents, so it wouldn't surprise me if either department policy or state law was broken during these proceedings. However, it's hard-to-impossible to get abusive officers (or departments) disciplined for anything unless there is video and a willing district attorney (something of a rarity in itself), so it probably doesn't matter much if the former is the case.

Re:What about the parents?

[Brian Feldman]

"We" being pedants who have no interest in being clearly understood?

Re:What about the parents?

[Anonymous Coward]

Legal dangers? Students have limited rights when it comes to the first amendment in the U.S.:
* http://articles.cnn.com/2007-06-25/justice/free.speech_1_principal-deborah-morse-banner-case-school-policy/2?_s=PM:LAW
* Some public schools feel they need to the decide what students wear, public uniforms. I know my school tried to enforce uniforms after a suicide threat by a kid who brought a knife into school and after seeing this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Epeo8Pfm1xM . They just made us tuck in our shirts when the district and the parents refused to pay for uniforms.
* Webcam monitoring was already attempted: http://articles.cnn.com/2010-02-20/justice/laptop.suit_1_webcam-district-court-laptop?_s=PM:CRIME
* And requesting social media passwords aren't unheard of considering other things: http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/06/10585353-govt-agencies-colleges-demand-applicants-facebook-passwords

Requesting passwords seems to be well within the gray area where a non-timid district would be willing to make a power grab, and hope to gain such abilities. The gov is brushing up against warrantless cellphone searches (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/03/obama-admin-wants-warrantless-access-to-cell-phone-location-data.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss), so an organization tasked with keeping our children safe from even themselves could easily make the argument to sympathetic members of the public that they need this power.

Actually, reading the article I see that last statement is a bit truer. They brought in law enforcement to force a hand over of information without a warrant. The Superintendent's response to the lawsuit: [quote]"We're taken aback by it," he said.[/quote]. Worrying about the legality didn't seem to even cross their minds it seems.

The part that has me tweaked is they did this. She's twelve. Facebook, last I checked, requires you to be thirteen. They had a perfectly jerkwad path to take to get her off/limit her Facebook activities already if they could get the company to comply, and possibly a lawsuit they could win if Facebook didn't.

Re:What about the parents?

[silentcoder]

Well here is your counter story. When I was all over 9 years old I suffered from bad handwriting called by small-muscle coordination problems. I still haven't got great handwriting to this day.

But with teachers lumping me under "doesn't bother to be a neat writer" there came a day when I had to erase something (at that stage we only wrote in pencil). The eraser I used had, unbeknownst to me gotten some pencil soot on it and left a big black mark in my book. Like a good little boy I went to my teacher to ask for advice. Instead of advice I was shouted at for making a mess in my book before I even finished my sentence... then sent to the teacher next door to be further ridiculed.
A ridicule process that continued for some time all the way back to my own classroom where she then proceeded for the first time to ask my name. I told her my name ... and she said "I think 'varkie' would be a better name for you." (Varkie in my language literally means piglet - but without any of the 'cute' connotations... little swine is a better translation).

The nickname stuck with me until I finally left for highschool - I got into fights all the time against kids calling me that, but nonetheless made it onto the student council in my final year of primary school and ended it as one of the top-scorers - but make no mistake that my social life was irreperably harmed and my ability to make friends suffered greatly.

Like most kids in such a situation, I felt ashamed and didn't tell my family, big mistake, I told my dad some 4 years later (just before I would leave primary school) and then he was furious and told me if I had told him the story on the day he'd have had that teacher fired.

That message changed my life... for the first time I understood that shit happens, but you don't have to be a victim - you can make bad people pay, you can hold people to account for their actions - even if they are authority figures. I went through high school a great deal happier, and made some real friends. I went to University where I was very successful and today I am 32 and I can say that I earn more money in a day than that teacher likely earns in month.

There's a last little tail to the story. Just before I left primary school I bumped into that teacher one day, and she spoke to me, and talked of how "you don't like me because you're afraid of me" ... in retrospect, I hadn't fully understood why she chose to stop me and say that, nowadays I would outright have said to her "no, I don't like you because you horribly abused your position of authority and ruined my childhood you fucking bitch" and dared her to do anything about it.

The thing is - your fairytale happened. I'm a happy and successful person. I remember these events, but they didn't define me - except to give me a perpetual soft spot for the underdog. The good guys won - even if the bad guy wasn't punished, it was the LAST teacher who did something wrong to me and didn't get in deep shit.
There is a massive culture of power-abuse by teachers who think discipline is their job. I don't agree. Their job is to educate. Discipline is at best an evil they require to do their jobs and should be minimized not maximized. Their power, like that of any authority, should be the LEAST amount with which they can do their jobs, not the most.

But don't think she's doomed. Her parents are doing exactly the right things. She may suffer a while but don't be surprized if she comes out stronger - and with a lifelong belief in being a champion for those who are stepped upon.

Re:What about the parents?

[netsavior]

You joke, but I was expelled in 9th grade for something vaguely similar (admitting I had done something off campus that was neither illegal, nor against student code of conduct). My kids (age 7 and 5) have explicit instructions from me. If the principal, teacher, or a policeman want you to say something that you do not want to say or do something you do not want to do (other than normal school work) then you need to say:

"I don't want to do that unless you call my parents"

will it result in false positives? Maybe. Will I honor that phone call? ABSOLUTELY.

Kids don't actually have many rights, especially during school hours. They are not protected by our laws because they can't vote. The only ones that can protect them from abuse of power is their parents, so whereas you are entitled to trial, counsel, not incriminating yourself, children are only really entitled to not being denied access to their parents. It is my job to extend my civil rights to my children in this situation, because they have none. So the earlier I am involved in an incident, the better.

Re:What about the parents?

[g0bshiTe]

Of course not, it programs the child to think that it is ok to give up freedoms if authorities say so.

Re:What about the parents?

[gv250]

To foreigners, a Yankee is an American.
To Americans, a Yankee is a Northerner.
To Northerners, a Yankee is from the East.
To Easterners, a Yankee is from New England.
To New Englanders, a Yankee is from Vermont.
And in Vermont, a Yankee is somebody who eats pie for breakfast

Re:What about the parents?

[berzerke]

...It boggles the mind that some would step so clearly out-of-bounds and risk something exactly like this...

Not really. It's that corporate (or government) shield thing. The people directly responsible aren't paying to defend the lawsuit, and they won't pay a single penny of any damages that may be awarded. They certainly won't do a single day of jail time if they are found to have broken some law. At best, they may get some extra training and be reassigned.

Since there is no real risk, they have no reason not to step out-of-bounds.

Re:What about the parents?

[TheRedSeven]

They actually *do* have the ability to enforce things outside their school grounds. At least in my school district.

(Reposting a comment I have also posted below...because it's relevant to your comment. Sorry for dupe-ing.)

I'm a member of a Local School Council in a neighborhood elementary school in Chicago Public Schools. I heard of a kid (7th grade) that was punished in the school (suspension, possible expulsion) for bullying remarks made on Facebook--stuff he posted outside of school hours, off school grounds, and on his own computer. (He basically called some other kid 'gay' and threatened to beat him up, swore a bunch, etc. It was nasty stuff.) I wondered how the school was able to discipline a kid for something that was done completely outside the school's area of control.

I decided to ask the assistant principal/disciplinarian at the school what the guidelines were. He pointed me to the "Student Code of Conduct" (SCC) (it's a .pdf):

5.14 Use of any computer, including social networking websites, or use of any information technology device, or hacking into the CPS Network to threaten, stalk, harass, bully or otherwise intimidate others, to access student records or other unauthorized information, and/or to otherwise cause a security hazard. [emphasis mine]

(On a side note, Group 5 offenses are considered those that "most seriously disrupt" school functioning, and include aggravated assault, inappropriate sexual conduct battery, criminal damage to property/vandalism over $500, and physical assault to a teacher. Does social network bullying really belong in that list? ...discussion for another time...)

Still, I wondered how the school could enforce that regulation outside of school hours, off school property, on a privately-owned computer. The disciplinarian told me that they were allowed to, and again pointed to the preface of the SCC:

The SCC applies to actions of students during school hours, before and after school, while on school property, while traveling on vehicles funded by the Board, at all school-sponsored events, and while using the CPS Network or any computer, Information Technology Device, or social networking website, when the actions affect the mission or operation of the Chicago Public Schools. Students may also be subject to discipline for Group 5 or 6 Inappropriate Behaviors that occur either off campus or during non-school hours, including actions that involve the use of any computer, Information Technology Device or social networking website, when the misconduct disrupts or may disrupt the orderly educational process in the Chicago Public Schools. [emphasis mine]

Now, I don't know what kind of standard is required to be met to say that something "may disrupt the orderly educational process." I'd suppose that calling a kid a name on the playground could accomplish that, but there's no written proof of such events as there is on Facebook. Sure, the bullying kid should have gotten a tough talking to about appropriate behavior. Probably the school should have called the parents of the bully to deal with the situation. Maybe they did those things too, I don't know. But they definitely disciplined the kid in school because of something he did outside of school.

It still kind of boggles my mind that we give teachers and administrators (who are largely untrained in such matters) the power to enforce school discipline outside the purview of their schools. But that's the system we have in the city I live in.

Re:What about the parents?

[Ihmhi]

I had something similar happen to me in... 6th or 7th grade? Might have been 8th. (So we're talking late 90s, early 00s.)

I was doing arts and crafts at some... library thing. Might have been boy scouts. The point is, it was also an out of school function. We were making our own bookmarks and then laminating them. I made one that said something like "Some people are nice..." on one side and "...and I'm not one of them!" on the back. Just something silly and teenage-y.

I go to school the next day, and I find out that I had left my stupid little bookmark there. The person running the class (who also happened to be my school's art teacher) showed it to my teacher, and my teacher talked to me and stated how it was inappropriate. I replied with it was none of her business at it had taken place outside of school. I suppose she was power tripping or one of those "think of the children" people, but she was really fishing for me to apologize or admit guilt or something. She threatened to escalate it to the principal. I said "Go ahead," sat down, and went back to my schoolwork.

Still have that bookmark somewhere...

Long story short, make sure you teach your kids how to deal with authority figures who are asshats. Teach them to say no to the authority when they make an unreasonable request. Teach them to stand up for themselves like my parents did.

Re:What about the parents?

[demachina]

Just because a school board/administrator writes it in to their policies doesn't make it legal or right. Those policies grossly exceed their jurisdiction when the activities occur outside school hours, on a students personal computer, and not on school property. The student is only subject to local, state and Federal law at that point not the whims of the school board.

People with some power often seek to acquire more power, and it regretably often falls on the shoulders of the people whose rights are being trampled to try to stop them.

For example the U.S. President and Attorney General have recently bestowed upon themselves the power to assasinate American citizens without any judicial oversight. Just because they say they can doesn't change the fact that they are probably violating the Constitution and their oath of office to uphold the Constitution. The burden has now shifted on entities like the ACLU to engage in a multi year battle in the courts to try to prove them wrong.

In a similar vein the Bush administration gave themselve the power to torture people which is also a violation of Federal laws and international treaties.

A problem may arise when the politicians who are breaking the laws manage to stack the judicial process, especially the Supreme court, so the courts also fail to do the right thing, and let them get away with it.

Another problem arises when you have a two party system and both parties have become equally complicit in dismantling the rule of law and trampling civil liberties.

When those two things happen all the checks and balances the founding fathers built in to the Constitution are gone, and you are on the road to a totalitarian state unless the actual people up and say NO. That is a hard thing though, most people are too afraid.

Oh, oh, me too!

[neiras]

I hate Anonymous Cowards. Also, the fucking mods are mean to me.

Tee hee.

Freest country in the world

[gnasher719]

Whenever I hear Americans make that claim, I don't know whether to laugh or to cry.

I had school teachers who thought it was their job to teach the kids how to stand up for themselves and how to stand up to authority. Including theirs.

Re:Freest country in the world

[sosume]

In this regard (free speech being regulated by schools, universities, employers, etc) the US is starting to look a lot like former Eastern Germany. I mean, like in this movie http://imdb.to/2fC1aE I find it really hard to understand how the US justifies this spying on each other's thoughts.

Re:Freest country in the world

[Rogerborg]

It's a State that indoctrinates children to swear allegiance to it. That's really all that you need to know.

Re:Freest country in the world

[Mitreya]

Freest country in the world... Whenever I hear Americans make that claim, I don't know whether to laugh or to cry.

I fail to see your point. This was a shitty thing that someone did and they will be smacked down by ACLU. Your comment would be appropriate if this was an accepted behavior with no recourse.

Re:Freest country in the world

[Phrogman]

Same up here in Canada. My High School (grades 8-12, ~250 students) was mostly farm kids. The teachers were mostly unqualified or should at the least never have been allowed to teach. The overwhelming pressure from the students was such that if you were too smart you would often find yourself being beaten up. Some sample moments from my school:
* The math teacher teaching grade 12 math was living with one of his female students. She got straight A's of course.
* The grade 9 English teacher I had, had to the best of my knowledge no teaching credentials. He had been hired before they were required. He taught English and the Agriculture courses (we had a barn attached to the school). He liked to separate his class into 2 halves - those he liked (farmer's kids) and those he didn't (anyone unusual, males with long hair (this was the 70's). The first group was referred to as the Wolves (or something like that) the second as the Rabbits (or something like that). Essays written by Rabbits got written up on the board so we could review them word by word in class.
* Grade 10 English teacher. She was nice but was qualified to teach Phys Ed and Biology. They hired here but then had her teach English. I ended up teaching most of the grammar lessons because she didn't understand it at all.
* Chem teacher 10-12. He was an alcoholic type, and we students periodically met him in the local bar after class. He delivered all his lectures via overhead projector and never looked at students most of the time.
* Our guidance counselor was a bitter ex-nun. She hated the students I suspect. I know she told me that I was "too stupid to go to university, you should go learn welding or something".
* We had a music teacher who lived near the school. He would regularly hold all-night parties featuring mostly free booze and weed. He invited a lot of the band students to these parties, particularly the young females.

Nothing was ever done about these situations sadly.

Re:Freest country in the world

[arth1]

Exactly. The US is not free because no one tries to curtail our freedoms. The US is free because when people try to curtail our freedoms we have strong recourse.

You actually believe this?

A strong recourse would be the school admin losing his job and the cop going to jail. Please post back to let us know when this happens.

Re:Freest country in the world

[Hatta]

We have no recourse. If there were recourse in the US we'd have never have gone to Iraq, our jails would be stuffed with bankers, and we'd all be buying pot OTC. What we have instead is tyranny.

What are the adults' priorities?

[bughunter]

This is disturbing not necessarily because of the password coercion, but because of the entire premise. What are the school administrators, the parents, and the entire adult community *thinking* when they make such a big friggin deal about "I hate you" comments that are clearly just juvenile emoting? Why are they getting involved in such petty hall locker politics to begin with?

Did they never mature past a high school emotional age?

Were they itching to make an example of someone?

Do they have some policy or quota that they need to demonstrate compliance with?

In other words, it's just like when my wife flips out after I leave dirty socks on the floor. The socks aren't the real problem; something else is. She's been bottling it up, and the socks were just the trigger for some other pent up stress... it may or may not be something I did, but it certainly means there's something I need to fix. In the same sense, something else is going on in Minnewaska... something else that needs fixing. And it's not middle school drama.

Re:What are the adults' priorities?

[Surt]

They are thinking that the columbine kids said they hated people too. And that the admins from that school have a terrible reputation for failing to pay attention to a serious problem.

Re:What are the adults' priorities?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Years and years of political pressure for "zero tolerance," a.k.a. "zero intelligence." The idea that most of the things kids get up to are individual incidents and should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis is anathema to this mentality. But it sells well to parents (until their kids get caught up in it, anyway), to legislators, and to voters in school board elections.

Re:ACLU

[madhi19]

It the sheriff's deputy action that I found weird and mostly inexcusable of all peoples the cop should have been the voice of reason and told the Principal that he was treading in murky water to say the least.

Damned if they do damned if they don't

[VinylRecords]

Welcome to the New American Nanny State.

Right now, schools are under heavy pressure to reduce "bullying". The politicians and money groups have seized on an issue that is easy to win over the hearts of American voters and donors. That's why "bullying" is such a hot issue right now and gets tons of media coverage.

Kids talking about sex, something mentioned in the article as being another reason why the police and school went after this student, is another always hot issue especially with American "conservatives". We must avoid talking to children or exposing them to sex at all costs.

So we have a school where a kid is accused of bullying, and also talking about sex, on Facebook. The school knows if it does nothing they'll get blasted by moms, and the media, about how they failed to protect other children from bullies and perverts. They let a student make hate speech and promote sex talk amongst pre-teens or whatever. But if the school acts then they'll get blasted by people who think that the schools should mind their own business and let the parents handle things. And we know how well parents handle things in modern America.

Instead of finding a middle ground, the school feels the pressure from all sides and.....calls the cops. Huge overreaction in hindsight of course but they must have felt at the time that it was warranted.

But seriously? A kid can't say that they hate their teacher anymore? A kid can't talk about sex with another kid? When I was in school it didn't matter if a kid said he hated a hall monitor or a teacher. Most of the teachers had been around long enough to recognize which kids disliked them. And most of my teachers could tell which boys and girls had started puberty earlier than others because we behaved much differently around the opposite sex. Times have changed.

The school should have just called the student's mother or father and said "some kid tattled on your kid, it's not a big deal, but you should monitor your kid's facebook and just check to see if they are doing anything that is inappropriate". No cops. No teachers. No detention even. Let the parents do their jobs.

Re:ACLU

[mosb1000]

I take it you don't have much experience talking to the police?

What can happen to a naughty little girl...

[Anonymous Coward]

Someday we'll end up with this. Keep in mind shit like this has happened before:

A few years after the WW-II a young teenage girl called Erika Riemann defaced the moustache on picture of Stalin at school in then soviet occupied Germany. She got ratted out and then they sent her to Sachsenhausen, a nazi concentration camp the soviets had reactivated. She spent 8 years there where she was continously brutally raped by the guards who knocked her front teeth out in one episode.

Not to mention the state prosecutor

[The Creator]

Accessing computer systems with stolen passwords is a crime.

Re:ACLU

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Sometimes the ACLU's actions make me roll my eyes, but on this one, they're right.

Why is it that so many posts praising the ACLU in any way contain this kind of ritual disclaimer? Can you give actual examples of some of the eye-roll-inspiring things the ACLU has done, or is it just "I've heard they're a liberal organization, and liberals are icky"?

Re:Incredible

[silas_moeckel]

And the correct fix for this is to fire the involved parties with cause. To insure that that principle and cop never work in there respective fields again. They each knew what they were doing and exceeded there powers. Hell the principle should have been informing the kid that they did not need to talk to the officer without there parents and should not do so, they have a responsibility to act in the parents stead in there absence, that's where a lot of there powers come from in the first place.

Re:More Information Please.

[sociocapitalist]

I have to disagree a bit here. I had similar issues and I was jumped by five boys after school one day. I fought back out of sheer terror and ended up putting two of them in the hospital.

They nor anyone else in the school ever bothered me again.

The only way to deal with bullies is to hurt them badly enough that they're too afraid to come back.

Re:Dangerous

[flimflammer]

You'll want to take this up with the 1st and 4th amendment of the constitution.

The school doesn't have the authority and it never will. The ACLU isn't being foolhardy. They're entirely right here. If the school suspected something dangerous, they should have alerted the authorities and the parents with the information they had and been done with it. They had no rights to threaten a little girl into handing over her login details for things she has done off school property.

Every example you gave have procedures to deal with them. Defamation? That is a civil matter. Stalking, violence? That is a job for the police.

Schools should never have the right to discipline a child for something said off school property. That's why this whole cyber-bullying thing is such a joke. Parents expect the schools to be able to do something, but they can't do anything. Nor should they be able to. If it doesn't happen on school property, there is no reason for the school to be involved.

Re:ACLU

[Fjandr]

In a perfect world, I'd agree with you. In the real world, it's fairly rare for an on-duty cop to be anything resembling "the voice of reason" when it comes to someone showing the slightest defiance to an authority figure. Whether that defiance is warranted or not is usually not ever something that would even cross the mind of most cops I've met.

Re:Incredible

[Sique]

They didn't just exceeded their powers. They were accessing a computer system with stolen or coerced passwords. This is a federal crime. They are just criminals.

Re:ACLU

[jdev]

Here's what the ACLU was actually saying in this particular case.

"The law is overly broad, criminalizing not only commercial SPAM but also anonymous non-commercial bulk emails containing political and religious messages"

http://www.acluva.org/docket/jaynes.html

So the complaint here is Virginia's own anti-SPAM legislation was written to also penalize anonymous non-commercial free speech which is a violation of the first amendment. This is different from the federal CAN-SPAM law that specifically mentions that emails need to be commercial in nature to apply.

I also find it very funny that you pick this particular case because the Virginia supreme court eventually sided with the ACLU that the Virgina law was overly broad. Like most people that criticize the ACLU, I feel like you don't understand the issue they were trying to address.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/151014/court_overturns_virginia_spam_law_conviction.html