Anti-spam law struck down by Virginia court (Silicon Valley)

[Drew Wilson]

The Virginia Supreme Court declared the state's anti-spam law unconstitutional Friday and reversed the conviction of a man once considered one of the world's most prolific spammers.

The court unanimously agreed with Jeremy Jaynes' argument that the law violates the free-speech protections of the First Amendment because it does not just restrict commercial e-mails. Most other states also have anti-spam laws, and there is a federal CAN-SPAM Act as well.

The Virginia law "is unconstitutionally overbroad on its face because it prohibits the anonymous transmission of all unsolicited bulk e-mails, including those containing political, religious or other speech protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution," Justice G. Steven Agee wrote.

In 2004, Jaynes became the first person in the country to be convicted of a felony for sending unsolicited bulk e-mail. Authorities claimed Jaynes sent up to 10 million e-mails a day from his home in Raleigh, N.C. He was sentenced to nine years in prison.

More...

In other news, the spammer population of Virginia went up 10,000% recently...

[w31n3r]

the irony of this is just killing me...

[Signa]

wow. just... wow.

(the irony i mean)

I don't know about this one. This guy was "exercising his free speech rights," while costing thousands of man-hours for other people and companies. He deserves punishment. It's not his right to be wasteful of other people's time.

Some larger corporations who employ thousands of people should at least sue him. He cost them lots of money from the man-hours they had to pay out for his spam to be deleted. A far more realistic and fair punishment than a felony.

[mountain_rage]

Well if he looks like an asshole, talks like and asshole then he must be an asshole. He is also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which is arguably cult rooted religion much like Scientology is today.

[Signa]

Um, Mormons and Scientologists are a poor comparison for each other.

Sure, both have wacky stories in their beliefs, but your average Scientologist is batshit insane while Mormons are cool people

[mountain_rage]

Um, Mormons and Scientologists are a poor comparison for each other.

Sure, both have wacky stories in their beliefs, but your average Scientologist is batshit insane while Mormons are cool people

Mormons were the batshit crazies of the early 20th century, although they seem to have reformed quite a bit since its inception. If you look at the history of it, many legislators were trying to shut them down as is being done to Scientology. Hell many laws were created as a direct way of controlloing Mormon behavior. It would appear that Scientologists are the batshit crazies of the 21st century, hopefully they start to reform in the future.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...wikileaks.html

[Signa]

I thought that the anti-mormon movement was based more on the fact that they weren't catholic. Not that they were going around video taping people so they can sue them, teaching their followers to abandon their families for not supporting them, and locking people in rooms because they needed medical treatment.

I love the part where they dont tell you all the beliefs of the religion until you have paid enough money to them.