Jeremy Jaynes gets away with spamming - VA law anti-spam law overturned
The judges should be buried alive in SPAM.
These morons have the audacity to rule that I have to receive the mailings of religious nuts, politicians I hate or ANY mail I didn’t solicite.
These God damned judges enjoy their generous salaries with wonderful benefits and have clerks take care of THEIR spam at the tax payers’ expense.
Of course I have a choice.
I’ll just go out of business.
I don’t need to have a public email address. I don’t need to have a fax machine. I don’t need to receive any mail. I can just remove myself from society and I can’t wait for the day when I can afford to do just that. No more business, just one PRIVATE email address for a few select people which I’ll just change every few months as some idiot puts my email address on some freaking chain letter and I get spammed again.
The upside is that these types of rulings GREATLY contribute to the collapse of the economy.
People are continually defrauded and waste their time on spam INSTEAD of being productive.
The mail from prospective clients is in the SPAM trap and I sure don’t have time to go through the LITERALLY many thousands of spams I get at my public email addresses.
You can’t imagine how many spammers submit comments at my blogs. America is one sick country, everything revolves around marketing and it just about marketed itself to death.
It would make my day if one day these judges had to get a REAL job and find out what it’s like to WORK because the government is bankrupt and their paychecks bounce.
The way things are going, I’m hopeful ...
Top501 IT: Va. Law Struck Down, Spam Kingpin Goes Free
In reversing the conviction of spammer Jeremy Jaynes, the court said the law is unconstitutional because it restricts more than just commercial e-mails. Justice G. Steven Agee said the law “is unconstitutionally overbroad on its face because it prohibits the anonymous transmission of all unsolicited bulk e-mails, including those containing political, religious or other speech protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” the Post reported. Many other states have regulated unsolicited bulk e-mail but, unlike Virginia, have restricted such regulation to commercial e-mails. There is nothing in the record or arguments of the parties, however, suggesting that unsolicited non-commercial bulk e-mails were the target of this legislation, caused increased costs to the Internet service providers, or were otherwise a focus of the problem sought to be addressed. Therefore, viewed under the strict scrutiny standard is not narrowly tailored to protect the compelling interests advanced by the Commonwealth. The court held that the law “is unconstitutionally overbroad on its face because it prohibits the anonymous transmission of all unsolicited bulk e-mails, including those containing political, religious or other speech protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.” According to this AP report, Jaynes’ attorney, Thomas Wolf, has said sending commercial spam would still be illegal under the federal The judges ruled that because the law does not discern between commercial and other forms of mass email, it places an unconstitutional restriction on free speech. “That statute is unconstitutionally overbroad on its face because it prohibits the anonymous transmission of all unsolicited bulk emails including those containing political, religious or other speech protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” the court said in its ruling.
Even though Jeremy Jaynes is indeed guilty, people tend to have extremely different opinions with some in favor of the decision and others very upset. “That statute is unconstitutionally overbroad on its face because it prohibits the anonymous transmission of all unsolicited bulk e-mails including those containing political, religious or other speech protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution,” the ruling stated. Jeremy Jaynes is not available for comments at this time and his official statement should arrive over the weekend. Action under the Can-Spam Act may be unlikely; it wasn’t signed until December 2003, when Jaynes was already being arrested. The Virginia law “is unconstitutionally overbroad on its face because it prohibits the anonymous transmission of all unsolicited bulk e-mails, including those containing political, religious or other speech protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” Justice G. Steven Agee wrote.
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One of the world’s most notorious spammers won a victory in the Virginia Supreme Court yesterday, but it won’t free him, and the state plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices declared Virginia’s tough Anti-SPAM Act of 2003 unconstitutional because it bars all anonymous, unsolicited bulk e-mails, including those containing political, religious or other protected speech. In so doing, the court reversed itself, having upheld the world’s first felony spam convictions in a close decision earlier this year. The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday decided that the state’s anti-spam law is unconstitutional. The Court announced that the 2003 Virginia spam law didn’t distinguish between commercial e-mails and those with political messages, and thus was an overly broad prohibition on free speech protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Therefore the conviction of a man who was once considered to be one of the most notorious spammers was canceled. Back in 2004 the state of Virginia convicted Jeremy Jaynes under a then-new anti-spam law and sentenced him to nine years in prison for spamming. He has been appealing the conviction based on the argument that he has the right to spam others because of the Free Speech part of our constitution. The Virginia Supreme Court The Virginia Supreme Court has just declared the state’s anti-spamming law, unconstitutional. The unanimous ruling this morning reversed the conviction of a man once considered one of the world’s biggest spammers, Jeremy Jaynes. Jaynes was the first in the country convicted under anti-spamming laws four years ago after authorities accused him of sending up to 10 million emails a day. He was charged in Virginia because the emails went through AOL, which is based here. He claimed the law violates free-speech protections. Attorney General Bob McDonnell will contest the ruling before the U.S. Supreme Court saying Jaynes committed fraud. Jaynes was the first person to be convicted under Virginia’s anti-spamming law in 2004 for sending up to 10 million e-mails a day from his home in Raleigh. He was sentenced to nine years in prison in Virginia, the location of the AOL server that received the spam e-mails.
Agee wrote, citing a 1995 U.S. Supreme Court case, that 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. This Virginia court ruling sounds a lot like the one last week out of “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 case. The court determined that the law does not limit its restrictions on spam to commercial or fraudulent e-mail or to such unprotected speech as obscenity or defamation.
Jeremy Jaynes, described as a notorious American spammer, had his nine year prison sentence overturned due to fact that the Virginia Supreme Court declared the state’s anti-spam law unconstitutional, since its statute violates the First Amendment right to free and anonymous speech. A serial mass spammer has walked free after a Virginia’ Supreme Court
The Supreme Court said that Virginia’s law violated the First Amendment and overturned Jaynes’ 2004 felony conviction. He was serving a nine-year sentence. Jaynes was tried in Virginia because he was using an AOL (TWX) server in the state to send the e-mails. The nation’s strictest anti-spam law is unconstitutional because it blocks unsolicited political and religious bulk e-mail as well as commercial messages, the Virginia Supreme Court said Friday. The state’s highest court in a rare rehearing reversed its February decision upholding the felony conviction of Jeremy Jaynes, who once led what authorities believed to be the eighth-biggest spamming operation in the world. The Virginia Supreme Court Friday declared the state’s anti-spam law unconstitutional, reversing the conviction and nine-year prison sentence of a Jeremy Jaynes, a man once considered to be one of the world’s most active spammers.
Bad news for your Inbox: The Virginia Supreme Court struck down an anti-spam law that was used to convict Jeremy Jaynes, a North Carolina man who was was sending 10 million junk e-mails a day. The Virginia State Supreme Court ruled that the state’s anti-spam law, designed to prevent the sending of masses of unwanted e-mail, violates the First Amendment right to freedom of speech. The Virginia Supreme Court today overturned the state’s anti-spam law, saying it violated First Amendment protections on free speech, the Washington Post has reported.
The high court ruled that the anti-spam law violates rights for free speech found in the First Amendment. The law was declared “unconstitutionally overbroad,” as it bans all unsolicited bulk email with false originating addresses, referring to both commercial and noncommercial. The court unanimously agreed with Jaynes’ argument that the law violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution because it restricts non-commercial e-mail as well as commercial messages. Virginia’s Anti-Spam Act prohibits the sending of unsolicited bulk e-mail by fraudulent means, such as changing the header or routing information to prevent recipients from contacting or determining the identity of the sender. According to prosecutors, Jaynes in 2003 sent tens of thousands of unsolicited e-mails with false headers and return-address information to AOL subscribers advertising dubious products such as a Fedex refund-claim product, a penny stock picker and an Internet history eraser.
The ruling came on an appeal of Jeremy Jaynes’ conviction and set free the first person to be convicted under Virginia’s tough anti-spam law. Jaynes had sent to AOL subscribers 12,197 pieces of spam (complete with falsified headers) on July 16, 2003, then 24,172 on July 19, and then another 19,104 on July 26, all of them offering such valueless items as a “penny stock picker,” a FedEx refund product, or a “history eraser.” When police raided Jaynes home, they found CDs with 176 million e-mail address and another 1.3 billion e-mail user names, many of them AOL usernames that had been stolen by a former AOL employee. The decision also frees notorious spammer Jeremy Jaynes, convicted under the law in 2004, stood to serve 9 years of prison time for sending tens of thousands of spam emails through AOL servers in Loudoun. Jaynes allegedly made $24 million from sales yielded by his massive spam campaign, according to prosecutors who convicted him. The Virginia anti-spam law considers sending more than 10,000 emails with false transmission information during a period of less than 24 hours a felony, and this applies to both commercial and non-commercial emails. Jaynes had been convicted in 2005 of violating the state’s anti-spam law, which prohibited the sending of unsolicited bulk emails. At the time of his arrest, the North Carolina resident was said to be among the world’s 10 most prolific spammers, allegedly sending some 10 million emails every day through AOL email servers. Jaynes conviction gained national attention because it was the first such conviction for a spammer. Several other so-called “spam kings” have been charged or sued for their actions. Jeremy Jaynes was the first person to be convicted on the state anti-spam law and the first American to be convicted of a felony for sending bulk email. Even with the Virginia law overturned, Jeremy Jaynes is still guilty of violating the 2003 CAN-SPAM Act, although he cannot be prosecuted for it because the federal law was instated after Jaynes’ spam emails were sent. The big court news of the day comes to us from Virginia, where Jeremy Jaynes who in 2004 became the first person in the country to be convicted of a felony for sending spam has been vindicated by the state’s high court. Jeremy Jaynes, left, leaves the Loudoun County Courthouse in Leesburg, Va., with his attorney David Oblon, right, after Jaynes’ sentencing hearing, April 18, 2005.
Virginia’s anti-spam law was one of the first enacted in the United States to stem the overwhelming tide of unwanted e-mail. McDonnell said in a statement to the press, that the Supreme Court of Virginia has erroneously ruled that one has a right to deceptively enter somebody else’s private property for purposes of distributing his unsolicited fraudulent e-mails. There is no doubt that there will be lots of heated rhetoric on the pros and cons of this decision. Possibly an anonymous lawyer will make a tidy sum of money following this one through to its final conclusion. Tough day for Virginia’s anti-spam law: The state supreme court on Friday declared it “unconstitutionally overbroad ” in restricting not just commercial but all types of speech in mass e-mail messages, The Associated Press reports. The court ruled the state was mistaken, and said that Jayne had standing to bring a constitutional charge under “freedom of speech”. He argued, and the court agreed, that the state law is “overbroad” and bans constitutionally-protected political and religious e-mails that someone else might send. University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias says even though Jayne’s e-mails were all commercial, case law allows him to argue on a law’s constitutionality on behalf of a “third party”. He says the General Assembly, if it still wants an anti-spam law, will have to rewrite a statute. although he’s not entirely sure what that would look like.
The court said the law is flawed because it bars the anonymous transmission of e-mails concerning political, religious or other speech protected by the First Amendment in addition to commercial speech which the law sought to control. The court, ruling in an appeal to the conviction of a North Carolina man accused of sending millions of spam emails, said the law unfairly bars the anonymous sending of emails concerning politics, religion or other subjects protected under the First Amendment’s freedom of speech, not just commercial spam, and is therefore unconstitutional. Justice G. Steven Agee, who presided of Jaynes’ second appeal, reversed the ruling that convicted Jaynes six months ago, calling the 2003 law “unconstitutionally overbroad” and said that it “infringes on that protected right” to “engage in anonymous speech, particularly anonymous political or religious speech” granted by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Jaynes was saved by the constitutional right to engage in anonymous speech, which in confederation times particularly addressed anonymous political or religious speech. The court held this right as “an aspect of the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment.”
Attorneys for Jeremy Jaynes of Raleigh, N.C., asked the court to reconsider the case. It did and reversed its decision. It found that under the law, the prohibition on unsolicited mass mailings could apply to political or religious speech, not just junk mail intended to make a buck. It violated the First Amendment.
Mr. Jaynes has spent the past three years under house arrest, Mr. Wolf said. The Virginia Supreme Court in February upheld Mr. Jaynes’ conviction by a vote of 4-3, but later agreed to reconsider his First Amendment arguments against barring noncommercial spam, even though his messages were commercial in nature. September 12, 2008 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — The Virginia Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment applies to spam, in a decision that has letting one of the internet’s most prolific spammers go free.
Today, in a precedent-setting ruling, the Virginia Supreme Court invalidated a 2003 anti-spam law on the grounds that it violates the First Amendment. In a unanimous ruling, the Virginia Supreme Court on Friday struck down one of the country’s first anti-spam laws and, as a result, has overturned the conviction of a prolific spammer. The Virginia Supreme Court has struck down a state anti-spam law and has thrown out the conviction of a man considered one of the most prolific spammers, reports Brian Krebs at The Washington Post.
The Virginia Supreme Court has declared the state’s anti-spam law unconstitutional. Richmond, VA ( 1140wrva.com ) — The Virginia Supreme Court has thrown out Virginia’s anti-spam law used to convict a notorious Raleigh, N.C. spammer. The Virginia Supreme Court today declared Virginia’s anti-spam law unconstitutional.
Having already been found guilty of charges by lower court, the supreme court overturned Jaynes’ three charges of sending unsolicited bulk electronic mail under the Virginia Computer Crimes Act that would have resulted in almost a decade of jail time. In July, Seattle spam king Robert Soloway The Virginia Supreme Court made the ruling Friday. It reverses the conviction of Jeremy Jaynes, who was considered one of the world’s biggest spammers. The Virginia supreme court has overturned the conviction of infamous spammer Jeremy Jaynes.
The Virginia Supreme Court took an unexpected decision and overturned yesterday American AOL spammer Jeremy Jaynes’ nine year federal prison sentence.
The Supreme Court disagreed, however, since evidence showed that all of Jaynes’ recipients were from AOL, which is widely known to be based in Virginia. “By selecting AOL subscribers as his e-mail recipients, Jaynes knew and intended that his e-mails would utilize AOL servers because he clearly intended to send to users whose e-mails ended in @aol.com,” according to the ruling. Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell vowed to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. “The right of citizens to be free from unwanted fraudulent e-mails is one that I believe must be made secure,” he said. Publius was the pen name for James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay, all signers of the Declaration of Independence. Virginia Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell (R) promptly said he would appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Virginia Attorney General Robert McDonnell informed that the state would appeal the decision to overturn the law to the United States Supreme Court.
Virginia State Supreme Court Justice G. Steven Agee, who has since moved to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, wrote the unanimous opinion for the court.
Virginia’s statute “would prohibit all bulk e-mail containing anonymous political, religious, or other expressive speech,” Justice G. Steven Agee wrote in the court’s opinion.
In a unanimous opinion, the court sided with Mr. Jaynes, saying that Virginia’s interest in preventing spam fails to justify the law’s curtailment of free speech. Jaynes had used AOL servers to send spam. He was tried and convicted in Loudoun County because that is where AOL’s servers are located. The law is unconstitutionally overbroad, the court said in issuing its opinion, that also overturns Jaynes conviction. The ruling involves the 2004 conviction of Jeremy Jaynes, the first person tried and convicted of a felony in connection with spam email, in Loudoun County. The ruling vacates the 2004 Loudoun County convictions of Jeremy D. Jaynes, the first felony spam conviction in the country.
The case was the nation’s first felony conviction for spamming. After Jaynes was sentenced in 2005 to nine years in jail, he appealed, claiming Virginia’s spam law is unconstitutional. Jayne was convicted in northern Virginia and sentenced to nine years in prison on three felony counts of excessively sending spam to AOL and Verizon ISP subscribers. The case was prosecuted in Virginia because this Commonwealth is the location of those servers.
Wolf said “there’s no question that commercial spam can be regulated.” He added, there was not reason for the General Assembly “to criminalize the sending of noncommercial e-mail.” In doing so, he said, “they made Virginia’s anti-spam statute the toughest in the nation but in a way that trampled on the First Amendment.” He also said Jaynes was not accused or convicted of doing anything fraudulent. Speech on the Internet deserves no less First Amendment protection than in any other medium,” Willis said. McDonnell said that “when the Virginia Anti-SPAM Act was passed by the General Assembly in 2003, it was understood that this was an innovative law that would break new ground in protecting citizens and would necessarily entail court challenges.” I’m not an idiot. I know about free speech — and by the way it’s not “laws”, it’s the First Amendment and its various interpretations by the courts. You, like almost every other poster on this topic, completely misses my point.
If you can find me spam that does not potentially harm others, then absolutely I think that that form of spam is Constitutionally protected. Personally, I think the Constitution is constantly misinterpreted and twisted by people based on their agenda (the issue of “privacy” being amongst the biggest ones) and this place is no different - which is why I said I didn’t necessarily disagree with you but if I’m to look at consistency from the courts that have ruled that some forms of free speech that are harmful is not protected - I have to believe that spam falls in that category. Since when is free speech protected if it can harm others? I am simply pointing out that this site applies Constitutional arguments selectively as it suits their agenda — and that pretending that you are defending the Constitution against the oncoming police state via the courts on “warrantless wiretapping” is hypocritical unless you AGREE with this Court decision.
With that definition in mind, I disagree with the court’s decision and do not think it is covered by free speech. Just like I have a no soliciting sign on my front door and when a salesperson ignores and knocks anyway, I close the door in their face. They have the right to free speech, but I have to right to not have to hear it in the privacy of my home, too. The Supreme Court requires the government to provide substantial justification for the interference with the right of free speech where it attempts to regulate the content of the speech. “I respectfully but fervently disagree. We will take this issue directly to the Supreme Court of the United States,” McDonnell said in a prepared statement. He added: “The right of citizens to be free from unwanted fraudulent e-mails is one that I believe must be made secure.
In other words the state Supreme Court said the law didn’t make any distinction between types of e-mail. Tobias says supreme courts, neither at the state or federal level, often rehear cases. He notes the new opinion is unanimous, and written by Justice Steve Agee who wrote the previous opinion upholding Jayne’s conviction.
Mr. Jaynes’ lawyer, Thomas M. Wolf, said the state would be better off rewriting the statute to cover only unsolicited, bulk commercial e-mail rather than appeal to the nation’s highest court. “This case was never about Jeremy Jaynes or about whether the government can regulate commercial spam. However sending commercial spam is still illegal in Virginia under the federal Can-Spam Act. It’s not Jaynes’ case because the law was adopted after he sent the e-mails that were the basis for the state charges. Many other states have laws outlawing spam, but Virginia’s was the only one in the country that criminalized noncommercial messages - a move that Justice Agee said subjects it to strict judicial scrutiny, meaning that it must be narrowly tailored so as to advance a compelling state interest. The law “is not limited to instances of commercial or fraudulent transmission of e-mail, nor is it restricted to transmission of illegal or otherwise unprotected speech such as pornography or defamation speech,” he wrote. The federal CAN-SPAM Act outlaws commercial spam but was adopted after Mr. Jaynes sent his e-mail.
Many other states and the federal government drafted anti-spam laws after Virginia, but often specifically restricted the regulations to commercial e-mails, the court found. Virginia’s high court has just ruled the State’s anti-spam law is unconstitutional.
The court found that Virginia’s law does not specifically apply to commericial e-mails, as is the case with many other state laws and the federal Can-Spam Act.
Virginia’s first-in-the-nation law prohibiting unsolicited email was struck down Friday by the Virginia Supreme Court. Second: The unanimous opinion of the Virginia Supreme Court is just a bit longer than your three sentences, and it disagrees with you. Maybe you should tell them they are “incapable of logical thought”. When the courts agree with you, they are defending the Constitution. When they disagree with you, they are idiots or stooges. You can’t have it both ways. The Virginia Supreme Court in March also upheld the decision, but later agreed to reconsider the first-amendment question. As expected, the Supreme Court’s decision prompted a response from the Internet Service Providers, which were outraged at hearing the news and stated that intruding on someone else’s mail servers was much the same as a burglar breaking into one’s home. “I am deeply disappointed” by the decision, Attorney General Bob McDonnell said in a statement. “We will take this issue directly to the Supreme Court of the United States.”
Mr. McDonnell said the bill’s passage five years ago by the General Assembly came with the understanding that it “would necessarily entail court challenges.” He promised to appeal the court’s ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The ruling also means that Jeremy Jaynes, one of the world’s most abundant spammers, goes free. Jaynes “For example, were the Federalist Papers just being published today via e-mail, that transmission by Publius would violate the statute.” Mr. Jaynes used several computers in his Raleigh, N.C., home to send 53,000 e-mails over three days in July 2003. He was convicted the following year in Loudoun County Circuit Court chosen because the e-mails traveled through an AOL server in Sterling - and sentenced to nine years in prison. In November of 2004, Jaynes was convicted by a jury in Loudoun County Circuit Court on three counts of violating Virginia’s Anti-Spam Act, which was passed in 2003.
My reading agrees with yours, TK, although I still sense that the court erred. It’s natural extension is that every law ought to have an expressed escape clause allowing for anonymous political or religious expression. That’s pretty crazy, especially considering that Jaynes had no injury owing to the omission of such an escape clause. If you do start spamming anti-Obama crap, you’d be earning your name “Junk Mail.” — Robb Topolski -= In the ruling, 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. Oh I didn’t realize the First Amendment said “Congress shall make no law. abridging the freedom of speech.
The case was about whether in the zeal to regulate commercial spam, the government will respect the First Amendment,” said Mr. Wolf of Richmond-based LeClairRyan.
When it comes to the 4th amendment you are hard, hard over on “the courts MUST approve ANY police or national security investigation — MY RIGHT TO PRIVACY trumps ALL criminal or terrorist investigation activity”. Now, when it’s the 1st amendment vs SPAM, suddenly you don’t think the Consitution is so important. We have a right to free speech, and a right to not have 500 scams, phishes, and other ILLEGAL stuff pushed on us every time we check our email. If someone started handing out “Free Herbal Viagra” flyers in town square, they would (hopefully) end up in jail, 1st amendment or not. — The “duh” is the basic unit of measurement of human stupidity. While one may try to measure stupidity in megaduhs(10^6) or gigaduhs(10^9), larger units such as exaduhs(10^18) or yottaduhs(10^24) are more appropriate for measuring on a global level. If I did not give a spammer my personal email address, or give the spammer permission, and the spammer sends me spam, is that not an invasion of privacy? The spammers steal or “find” email addresses to send spam to under the guise of free speech. Something does not seem right with this picture. Wrong, because free speech does not cover spam in the sense that someone going door to door or speaking on the corner of two streets does. In those two cases there isn’t any cost associated with the exercise of their free speech, however, in the case of spam their is a cost - the cost of my bandwidth, my disk space on the server and the client, etc. In other words, the exercise of their freedom of speech (the spammers) impinges on my rights and property. It would be akin to a person coming in through your front door, taking out a staple gun and posting advertisements on your walls, ceiling or floor. — Eleven years of carrying “Virginia has been the worldwide leader in the fight against spam and online crime, and we will continue to lead in the years ahead.” Jaynes also argued that Virginia had no right to even take the case since he was physically located in North Carolina, and he allegedly had no intention of targeting Virginia consumers.
The Virginia attorney general’s office argued that Jaynes did not have standing to challenge the constitutionality of the law and that, in any case, deceptive speech, as opposed to anonymous speech, is not constitutionally protected.
Virginia’s anti-spam law made it a felony to send unsolicited bulk e-mail by using a false domain name or Internet protocol address. Under the law, spamming is considered a felony if someone sends more than 10,000 unsolicited e-mails in any 24-hour time period, 100,000 in 30 days, or 1 million over the course of a year.
The entire incident with Jaynes began back in December 2003 when the North Carolina resident was indicted. In 2005 he was sentenced to nine years in prison and the prosecutors’ estimates at the time showed that he managed to earn close to $24 million in sales, money he partially used for a restaurant and also a chain of gyms. When the police first searched his home, they found a CD archive with more than 176 million email addresses and 1.3 billion email usernames. He used American Online servers based in Virginia’s Loudoun County as part of his operation. Authorities alleged that Jaynes sent out about 10 million spam e-mails a day. When police searched his Raleigh, N.C., home, they seized compact discs with more than 176 million e-mail addresses and 1.3 billion e-mail user names. He was prosecuted in Virginia for sending about 46,500 e-mails with falsified routing and transmission information through AOL’s network during a three-day period in 2003. In 2003, Jaynes sent more than 12,000 e-mails on July 16, more than 24,000 on July 19, and exceeded 19,000 on July 26. Though he was a resident of North Carolina, the spam messages were sent to subscribers of AOL, which houses the majority of its servers in Virginia.
If you’re curious about Jayne’s spamming transgressions, here’s what happened, according to the factual record laid out in the opinion. From his home in Raleigh, N.C., Jaynes used several computers, routers and servers to send over 10,000 e-mails within a 24 hour period to AOL subscribers. While executing a search warrant of his home, police found a cache of compact discs containing over 176 million full e-mail addresses and 1.3 billion e-mail user names. Jaynes was prosecuted for sending almost 46,500 e-mails with falsified routing and transmission information through AOL’s network during a three-day period in 2003. Jaynes’ attorney, Thomas M. Wolf, said the statute criminalizes the sending of noncommercial e-mail for political and religious purposes, which the government cannot do.
Sending commercial spam is still illegal under federal law through the CAN-SPAM Act, but because that legislation was adopted after Jaynes sent the emails, it could not be applied. The decision to overturn the law was made because it aimed at outlawing all forms of unsolicited e-mail, not just the commercial junk type, president of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email John Levine stated. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, a number of approximately 38 states have anti-spam laws, most of which apply to people who send junk e-mail in order to promote a business or financial gain of any sort. These laws are similar to the federal CAN-SPAM Act, which also takes aim at commercial e-mails only.
Reversing a 4-to-3 February decision, the state high court in a rare rehearing unanimously called the 2003 law unconstitutional. The law was the first of its kind and sparked similar laws in other states. The Virginia Court of Appeals upheld the decision in September 2006, and the Loudoun County Circuit Court followed suit in February 2008. Friday’s decision reversed those rulings. The court’s ruling elicited disappointment from Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell, a Republican expected to run for governor next year.
The Supreme Court has also recognized that the government may prohibit some speech that may cause a breach of the peace or cause violence. You can’t even begin to compare commercial solicitation using the private property of others without permission or compensation to wiretapping. This is just more of the same courts making up Constitiutional rights that don’t exist. Now these spammers have a Constitutional right to use my hardware and services to advertise to me. I should have a right to not have MY services that I pay for used for commercial gain by others. If Jaynes wants to speak he’s free to, just not using MY services. Same should go for faxing where they jokers use MY machines, MY toner, MY paper for their speech. Free speech does not mean you have to listen to my opinion and can keep it from being viewed on your own internet connection if you choose. That’s your choice, and I have no right to enforce that you listen to me. I have not kondone this nor do I ever — If you have a topic in the direct forum please reply to it or a post of mine, I get a notification when you do this. If you can’t understand that, then you are incapable of logical thought. This is possibly the stupidest response to my posts I have ever seen here. First: I never in this entire thread expressed an opinion one way or the other on spam vs. free speech.
If you knew a little more about laws surrounding free speech, you would know that not all speech is protected as free speech. Sure, you have the right to free speech, but you don’t have the right to waste my time, resources, and money. Apparently it’s now OK to talk about bombs at airport security or speak rudely and graphically about/towards others in public, private, at work etc because hey, it’s my right to free speech. Screw you if you feel offended, threatened, harrased, insulted, etc. That’s YOUR problem.
The Va law got in trouble because it banned ALL spamming and not just commercial spam. If they had stuck to the same rules as the Can Spam act and other acts, the guy would have been convicted as the judge said. He also would have been guilty under Can Spam, except he committed his offenses BEFORE those laws were passed. You can throw all the free newspapers you want on my front lawn, but if you open my mailbox and put it in, you will be guilty of a federal crime. They should have taken a different approach at stopping spam. What they did in the end was waste a lot of tax payer money on a poorly written law.
Why doesn’t our legislature fashion laws that are used for sending faxes to apply to anyone sending email? It seems like these SPAM laws are useless unless they get equated to something that already has widespread support. The Virginia Anti-Spam Act was enacted in 2003 and was the first in the country to make sending spam a felony. Any violation was a felony if the spam volume exceeded 10,000 messages per day or one million every year. At his trial, Jaynes’ business was revealed to be a real money-maker. The prosecutors said he was pulling in $750,000 per month. In a typical month, they said he might receive 10,000 to 17,000 credit card orders, and claimed Jaynes had a net worth of $24 million. The spammer was previously convicted as the first felony spammer in the country in a 2004 trial. A year later he had been sentenced to nine years.
In 2004, Jaynes was the first person to be tried under the law which had been enacted one year before.
One of the most incredible aspects of the case, the Post’s Tom Jackman points out, is that the Justice G. Steven Agee, who has since moved to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, wrote the unanimous opinion for the court. For example. the recent debates on “warrantless wiretapping” and “retroactive immunity” (which by the way are completely polarizing phrases that assume a conclusion). All I am saying is either (a) be consistent and uphold the Courts when they interpret the Constitution (which is, after all, their Constitutional role) or (b) stop pretending that you are a Constitutionalist and admit that your positions are just YOUR OPINION. Let me try ONE. MORE. TIME. Then I’m out. Try listening this time. When the Courts strike down the Executive or Legislative branch on Constitutional grounds, and it’s an issue where you are AGAINST the Government’s position, you are all cheering and wrapping yourselves up in the Constitution and declaring anyone on the other side is “trampling the Constitution” and “breaking laws”.
Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell vowed an appeal. He complained that the justices “erroneously ruled that one has a right to deceptively enter somebody else’s private property for purposes of distributing his unsolicited fraudulent e-mails.”
Sending unsolicited bulk emails is considered a felony if more than 10,000 recipients are mailed in a 24-hour window.
Referral Sources:
1. Untitled2. Virginia Supreme Court Declares State Anti-Spam Law Unconstitutional, Overturns Conviction Of Spammer | AHN | September 16, 20083. Anti-spam law struck down as unconstitutional - SC Magazine US4. Also in the news: Virginia court strikes down state’s anti-spam law5. Law Blog - WSJ.com : Virginia is for Spammers? High Court Shoots Down Anti-Spam Law6. Spammer walks free in Virginia - vnunet.com7. New Unexpected Turn In AOL Spam Case8. Virginia Supreme Court Struck Down Anti-Spam Law9. Va. Supreme Court strikes down state’s anti-spam law - News - inRich.com10. You Have a Constitutional Right to Send Spam - Jaynes’ spam conviction overturned - dslreports.com11. Anti-Spam Law Unconstitutional|ABC 1312. Virginia anti-spam law unconstitutional13. Spammer Walks Free as Virginia Anti-Spam Law Is Declared Unconstitutional14. Spammer walks free | News | TechRadar UK15. Court Lets Spammer Off The Hook16. Washington Times - Court strikes spam statute17. VA Court Declares Spam Law Unconstitutional18. Virginia Court Frees Spammer Convicted Under Anti-Spam Law19. 1140 WRVA | WRVA.com | WRVA HD | Richmond, VA20. Va. Supreme Court says anti-spam law unconstitutional - Police Beat - inRich.com21. Virginia Supreme Court rules anti-spam law unconstitutional - Washington Business Journal:22. Web Host Industry News | Virginia Court Lets Spammer Walk23. Virginia Court Throws Out Anti-Spam Law - Headline Watch24. Display Story25. Va. Law Struck Down, Spam Kingpin Goes Free - News and Analysis by PC Magazine
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*** Absolutely NO SPAM! A $50 handling and removal fee applies to each advertisement and occasionally I feature an advertised site as the scam it is.
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