The Virginia Supreme Court yesterday affirmed the country’s first felony conviction for spamming, rejecting claims that a state anti-spamming law is overly broad and violates free speech.
Jeremy Jaynes was sentenced in 2004 to nine years in jail by a Loudoun County Circuit Court jury that found he violated the Virginia Anti-Spam Act, which defines spam as unsolicited bulk e-mail sent by fraudulent means.
In a 4-3 decision, the state Supreme Court dismissed Jaynes’ argument that the law violates the federal Commerce Clause of the Constitution and said the First Amendment does not protect misleading commercial speech. It also upheld the jurisdiction of Loudoun, which was chosen because Jaynes’ e-mails traveled through a server from Sterling-based AOL.
Do you feel like donating to his defense committee?
Little hard to tell whats going on in that the article says describes the law violated in two very different ways.
1–“Virginia Anti-Spam Act, which defines spam as unsolicited bulk e-mail sent by fraudulent means.”
BUT ALSO:
2–“The statute criminalizes sending bulk anonymous e-mail, even for the purpose of petitioning the government or promoting religion.”
#1 should be illegal. #2 is I think a pretty clear violation of the First Amendment??????
Obviously sending email by a fraudulent means is not a violation of the First Amendment because this infraction relates to the method and not to the content.
The contention is with #2.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 of the Constitution states “The Congress shall have power…To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes,”
The key word here is commerce, which is to say the exchange of goods and services.
Apparently Congress has set a limit of 10,000 commercial emails a day (news to me, and apparently not well enforced). He way exceeded this limit, oops #1.
Opps #2 is where Jaynes received money for his services. If he had not received money (thereby not completing the requirement for commerce) he may have gotten away with it. But if you are not making money, then why Spam?
In summary:
A) If he had used his own servers to send the spam and not “fraudulent means”, and
B) If he had not engaged in commerce, then:
C) He would have walked.
By the way, this very same set of principles govern snail-mail fraud as well.
Send him to jail and make him Bubba’s bitch. I hate spammers!
#2–Ah Yea==you are wrong, but do trip on the right issues. The Commerce Clause is subordinate to the First Amendment. At issue here is the right of Congress to pass laws that regulate the time, place, and manner of free speech. This means commerce does NOT have to take place which is why Pt #2 in my post was a puzzler for me. On its face, it is still a violation of Free Speech to me, but with more details or history of the legislation, I think indeed spam can be regulated as implied.
Thanks for your help.
Have a TV in his cell that can only tune to Shopping Channels.
J/P=?
whatever now start jailing the assholes who try to sell me sex pills and online casino ads
What’s his email address? I want to send him my condolences. 😉
#2, Ah Yea,
I think you hit it pretty good, except for one item.
He was charged and tried under Virgina Law. As long as Virginia law is not in conflict with Federal interstate commerce laws, then they were good to go. Remember, many of those emails also ended up in Virginia and had false routing headers on them which gave Virginia jurisdiction.
Lock him up for good and throw away the key. He had it coming and he knew it. He just wanted the millions…. I hate spammers!!!!!!
Do you feel like donating to his defense committee?
Uh, NO!
#11, Gig,
You’re bad.
I say we put him in a business suit made of an american flag and parachute him down into the shiite sector of Baghdad, iraq.