As some may already know, Virgina courts are the first in the US to convict someone on felony charges for spamming. The convicted man faces 9 years for commercial shams and scams solicited by spam mail.
While the defense sought protection under the first ammendement, the court?s majority said misleading commercial speech is not entitled to First Amendment protection. (well done!)
I know it’s been discussed numerous times here, free speech only applies under certain circumstances and really only protects you from the government passing a law to inhibit you from peacefully speaking out or demonstrating against the government; it certainly doesn’t mean you can say what you want, when you want, without repercussions.
If people were given complete freedom of speech, TV commercials could advertise anything they wanted without having to live up to it, terribly misleading in the case of advertised car blowout sales etc. As for commercial speech, it must also fall under merchant laws restricvting false advertisement, bait and switch etc.
The man senetenced, Jeremy Jaynes, had been using SPAM to solicit scams by email.
[i]”Prosecutors presented evidence of 53,000 illegal e-mails Jaynes sent over three days in July 2003. But authorities believe he was responsible for spewing 10 million e-mails a day in an enterprise that grossed up to $750,000 per month. Jaynes was charged in Virginia because the e-mails went through an AOL server in Loudoun County, where America Online is based.”[/i]
I actually think this is correct application of law, that the person responsible is the lowest form of life, certainly not someone to be considered a businessman or merchant. I don’t see any reason this person should receive anything less than any other con man who sucks 3/4 of a million from citizens worldwide.
Hang ’em high!
Your thoughts?
Does this infringe on the first ammendment, specifically how?
Is 9 years to much or is that reasonable considering the amount of money ‘stolen’ from unsuspecting buyers?
Wikipedia reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Jaynes