September 12th, 2007
Spammer says state law is unconstitutional
Is an anti-spam law unconstitutionally infringe on free speech? That’s what a former spammer is arguing to the Virginia Supreme Court, The Washington Post reports.
Jeremy Jaynes of Raleigh, N.C., was convicted in 2003 in the nation’s first felony anti-spamming case sentenced to nine years in prison. Prosecutors said Jaynes, using aliases and false Internet addresses, bombarded Web users with junk e-mails peddling sham products and services.
“There’s absolutely no question spam can be regulated,” Jaynes’ lawyer, Thomas Wolf, told the Virginia Supreme Court. “The problem with Virginia’s statute is that it attaches severe criminal penalties to unsolicited bulk e-mail of a noncommercial nature.”
Wolf told the Court that anonymous speech is protected by the First Amendment and that Virginia’s anti-spam law violates free speech protections because any anonymous message passing through Virginia servers would expose the sender — even a political or religious writer — with imprisonment.
The state said the law doesn’t prohibit speech at all: it prohibits falsifying Internet routing and transmission information to electronically trespass on a privately owned computer network.
“There is no constitutional right to use the property of others to engage in speech,” Thro said. He said using unsolicited bulk e-mail to “commandeer” a privately owned computer network is akin to stealing a car to drive to a political rally.
That was the holding of the state Court of Appeals, which said the statute “does not prevent anonymous speech … but prohibits trespassing on private computer networks through intentional misrepresentation, an activity that merits no First Amendment protection.”
Jaynes has remained free while his case is appealed. The Supreme Court likely will issue its ruling in November.
