Virginia Top Court to Re-Hear Spammer's Conviction 216
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."
First Amendment covers ads? (Score:5, Interesting)
Unintentional Humor??? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:First Amendment covers ads? (Score:1, Interesting)
Free Speech means you won't get locked up for standing in the park talking to anyone who will listen.
Please try to understand the difference.
First Amendment? (Score:2, Interesting)
Perhaps he should be tried for several hundred thousand counts of harassment if he's successful here.
Re:First Amendment covers ads? (Score:4, Interesting)
The first amendment doesn't cover theft of resources, scamming, lies, shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre, etc.
The "theft of resources" was already dealt with by people who successfully sued for junk faxes. The first amendment doesn't apply.
The scamming and lies are covered by various legislation that requires truth in advertising.
The "shouting fire" was decided LONG ago
The first amendment does cover ads. see discussion below of central hudson, see also 44 liquormart.
But this case isn't about ads. The first amendment covers lots of dangerous speech, lots of communication about illegal activities, lots of bad ads.
This is a case about whether the statute he was charged under is constitutional. If it's not, it's void and isn't law, and he can't be kept in jail under it, no matter how much we don't like the guy.
The shouting fire case was indeed decided long ago, 1919, schenck v united states. Schenck was put in jail for passing out pamphlets claiming that the draft was unconstitutional under the 13th Amendment. Personally, I think he was right.
The case was overruled in 1968 or 69 in Brandenburg. The reason Schenck is still the first case taught in First Amendment classes is that it was wrong.
Sometimes the theater really is on fire.
It's hard to write a statute that does what you want but stays within the first amendment.
It's easy to write a statute that bans spam, but also accidentally bans slashdot.
- arbitrary aardvark
Re:Doesn't matter if it's ads. (Score:5, Interesting)
Note that I said I wouldn't *mind* spam in these conditions. I'd be even happier to receive no ads, period, but as long as they have to pay their own way and not hide their identity then I figure it's not AS bad as what they do now. I *would* accept an inbox full of junk mail if it meant that acres of trees didn't have to die to keep my physical mailbox full of junk. I don't disagree with people who say "you have no right to be in my inbox, period"--I just don't personally feel as strongly. Marketing assholes will be marketing assholes until they're all exterminated; so we may as well give them a less-wasteful outlet for their bullshit.
Spamming is a major crime, treat it that way. (Score:3, Interesting)
My mail server gets 1.2 million spams a day compared to about 5,000 messages a day of legitimate traffic. My business has suffered from lost customers and lost business from mail delays caused by spam storms, much ill-will from customers has been caused and much time and money has been spent on anti-spam resources, not to mention all the lost technical time which could have gone into research and development of innovative products which instead gets wasted fighting spam storm related issues.
Spamming is not a first amendment issue, it is basic fraud and theft. Mega-jail sentences should be applied because the damage being done is major. It's not just a waste of bandwidth and people's time to delete the messages, it is real dollars and cents damage to the point where it is helping to drive my business under.
If one of my family members were a spammer, they'd be lucky to just have a busted nose and broken limbs. I'd go berzerker on their sorry ass. No mercy for spammers. None.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)