The Virginia Supreme Court has decided that the state’s anti-spam law is unconstitutional and freed a man once considered one of the world’s most prolific spammers. The court unanimously agreed that the law violates free speech because it does not just restrict commercial e-mails it blocks all unsolicited messages too. Other states have anti-spam laws but those laws apply only to commercial e-mail. Justice G. Steven Agee said that the Virginia law was silly because prohibits the anonymous transmission of all unsolicited bulk e-mails, including those containing political, religious or other speech protected by the First Amendment. He pointed out that the famous Federalist Papers urging ratification of the Constitution would be labelled Spam under this law if they had been sent as email. The writers Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay would have gone to jail as spammers, rather than the French-backed terrorists against the lawful government, that they were. The move means that Jeremy Jaynes, the first person in the U.S. to be convicted of sending spam, will be freed from the charge. He sent up to 10 million e-mails a day from his home in Raleigh. In 2004, Jaynes was sentenced to nine years in the Clink. Fortunately for those who don’t like spam he remains inside jail because he is also serving time in federal prison for a securities fraud conviction. This has nothing to do with spam, where he was just expressing free speech, apparently.
