Spam Protected As Free Speech

It's not easy to decide who's right here.

Spam is terrible but freedom of speech is important too.

Is it so different mailing 1,000 letters saying 'Free Tibet' as opposed to sending a million emails?

Well, anyway, the Court thought spam was protected:

'Antispam' law in Virginia rejected by state's top court

Waterloo Region Record
Sat 13 Sep 2008
Page: F3

Section: Business
Byline: Tom Jackman

The Virginia Supreme Court yesterday invalidated the state's "antispam'' law, designed to prevent the sending of masses of unwanted e-mail, by saying
the law broadly violated the First Amendment right to freedom of speech, in particular anonymous speech.

The ruling, arising from the criminal prosecution of Jeremy Jaynes of Raleigh, N.C., was also remarkable because the court reversed itself. Just six months ago, the same court upheld the antispam law by a 4-3 margin. But Jaynes' lawyers asked the court to reconsider, typically a long shot, and the court not only reconsidered but changed its mind.

Jaynes was convicted in 2004 of sending tens of thousands of emails through America Online servers in Loudoun. He was the first person tried under the law, enacted in 2003, and Loudoun circuit court Judge Thomas Horne sentenced him to nine years in prison.

Horne let Jaynes to remain free as his appeals were heard by the state Court of Appeals, which rejected them, and then by the state Supreme Court.

Yesterday's ruling was written by Justice Steven Agee, who participated in the new hearing but has since retired. There were no dissenters.

Virginia's antispam law makes it a misdemeanour to send unsolicited bulk e-mail by using false transmission information, such as a phoney domain name or internet protocol address. The domain name is the name of the internet host or account, such as "aol.com.'' The internet protocol is a series of numbers, separated by periods, assigned to specific computers. The crime becomes a felony if more than 10,000 recipients are mailed in a 24-hour period.

Agee noted that in order to send an anonymous e-mail, the sender must "enter a false IP address or domain name.'' And "the right to engage in anonymous speech, particularly anonymous political or religious speech, is "an aspect of the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment,'' Agee wrote, citing a 1995 U.S. Supreme Court opinion.

"By prohibiting false routing information in the dissemination of emails,'' Agee wrote, the Virginia law "infringes on that protected right.''
James Morton
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