[gui-talk] Court hears former prolific spammer's appeal

[Ray Foret Jr]

Uh, question.  What in the world does this have to do with us?

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Ray
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God bless President George W. Bush!
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and God bless America
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Don Moore" <don.moore48 at comcast.net>
To: "Multiple recipients of NFBnet GUI-TALK Mailing List" 
<gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, September 14, 2007 11:22 AM
Subject: [gui-talk] Court hears former prolific spammer's appeal


Court hears former prolific spammer's appeal

LARRY O'DELL

Associated Press

September 13, 2007 at 10:21 AM EDT

RICHMOND, Va. - Virginia's law banning the massive distribution of junk 
e-mail is an unconstitutional barrier to free speech, a lawyer for a former 
spammer told the state's highest court Wednesday.

Jeremy Jaynes of Raleigh, N.C., was considered among the top 10 spammers in 
the world when he was charged in 2003 in the nation's first felony case 
against illegal spamming. He was convicted and 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. 
He was charged in Virginia because the e-mails went through an AOL server in 
Loudoun County, where America Online is based.

Almost all 50 states have passed anti-spamming laws.

"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 said anonymous speech is protected by the First Amendment. A person 
anywhere in the world sending anonymous political or religious e-mails in 
bulk could unwittingly break the law because some of the messages almost 
certainly would pass through servers in Virginia, he said.

But State Solicitor General William E. Thro said the law doesn't bar 
speech - 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.

In Jaynes' case, prosecutors presented evidence of 53,000 illegal e-mails 
sent over three days in July 2003. However, authorities believe Jaynes was 
responsible for spewing out 10 million e-mails a day in an enterprise that 
grossed up to $750,000 per month.

Thro said that on a typical day, about three-fourths of the e-mail sent 
through AOL is rejected as spam. Customers of AOL and other Internet service 
providers expect to be protected from spam, and all providers have filters 
intended to do just that, Thro said. Spammers use false information to try 
to circumvent the filters.

The Virginia Court of Appeals, the state's intermediate appellate court, 
upheld the law and affirmed Jaynes' conviction last September. In a 
unanimous ruling, the court 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' lawyers also claim the law is unconstitutionally vague and that it 
impermissibly regulates activity outside Virginia - points that also were 
rejected by the state appeals court.

Jaynes has remained free while his case is appealed. The Supreme Court 
likely will issue its ruling in November.


http://www.theglobeandmail.com:80/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070913.wgtantispam0913/BNStory/Technology/home
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