Spam is free speech, claims spammer

According to ZDNet, Jeremy Jaynes of Raleigh, is in the dock appealing Virginia's law banning spam.

He was convicted and sentenced to nine years in prison but is appealing on the grounds that the law is unconstitutional.

Jaynes, used aliases and false Internet addresses, bombarded Web users with junk e-mails peddling sham products and services.

Jaynes' lawyer, Thomas Wolf said that while there was no question spam can be regulated, Virginia's statute attached severe criminal penalties to unsolicited bulk e-mail of a noncommercial nature.

Under the First Amendment, anonymous speech was protected and 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.

However State Solicitor General William Thro said the anti-spam law did not stop free speech it just prevented people falsifying Internet routing and transmission information to electronically trespass on a privately owned computer network. µ