this is a shame

[frebo]

http://apnews.myway.com//article/200...D935CR600.html

[104456]

It just shows how a hastily and badly written piece of legislation will come back and bite you in the rear.Now Im sure we will see a multi million dollar clain going in [paid for by the tax payer] for loss of earnings

By LARRY O'DELL

(AP) In this April 18, 2005 file photo, Jeremy Jaynes, left, leaves the Loudoun County Courthouse in...
Full Image

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - The Virginia Supreme Court declared the state's anti-spam law unconstitutional Friday and reversed the conviction of a man once considered one of the world's most prolific spammers.

The court unanimously agreed with Jeremy Jaynes' argument that the law violates the free-speech protections of the First Amendment because it does not just restrict commercial e-mails - it restricts other unsolicited messages as well. Most other states also have anti-spam laws, and there is a federal CAN-SPAM Act as well, but those laws apply only to commercial e-mail pitches.

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.

[Broni]

It'd be nice to post Justice G. Steven Agee's email address in the open.
I'm pretty sure, he'd quickly learn what spam is....LOL

[lgbpop]

That's probably the only email he'd get.

[104456]

The point is not weather the judge agrees or disagees with a law its if the law is written in such a way that as it does in this case it contravene the constitution.Should you wish to abandon your constitutional rights then Im sure the politicians and courts would gladly welcome it.Dont shoot the messenger

[lgbpop]

You've got a point, to a point...problem we have here of late is the creative interpretation of plain English used by some judges to declare laws unconstitutional. For example, freedom of speech has been stretched and misshapen sufficiently to include printed opinion and works of "art" as opposed to the freedom to speak one's mind that the Framers apparently intended originally - and when one speaks his mind to object, he's shouted down for not thinking correctly.

[104456]

Jaynes' attorney, Thomas Wolf, has said sending commercial spam would still be illegal under the federal CAN-SPAM Act even if Virginia's law is invalidated. However, he said the federal law would not apply to Jaynes because it was adopted after he sent the e-mails that were the basis for the state charges.

http://www.theoaklandpress.com/stori...80913345.shtml

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," Justice G. Steven Agee wrote

http://www.dailypress.com/business/d...,7054989.story

Agee wrote that "were the Federalist Papers just being published today via e-mail, that transmission by Publius would violate the statute." Publius was the pseudonym used by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay in essays urging ratification of the Constitution.

"In my view, the case was never about Jeremy Jaynes -- it was about the First Amendment," said Jaynes' attorney, Thomas M. Wolf. "The argument was never that there's a constitutional right to send commercial spam. It was that the government cannot criminalize the sending of noncommercial e-mail for political and religious purposes, and that is what this statute did."

Lawyers for the state had argued that the First Amendment doesn't apply because the Virginia law bars trespassing on privately owned e-mail servers through phony e-mail routing and transmission information. The court rejected that characterization of the law.

http://www.courierpostonline.com/app.../-1/newsfront2

some judges to declare laws unconstitutional. For example, freedom of speech has been stretched and misshapen sufficiently to include printed opinion and works of "art" as opposed to the freedom to speak one's mind

I think the translation in this case is too literal to only include speech.Written matter i.e. newspapers provided it is not slanderous, could quite easily also be classed as freedom of speech too.

The court ruling from page 10 onwards
http://www.courts.state.va.us/opinio...wp/1054054.pdf

[lgbpop]

C'mon, you know what I mean. Flooding thousands of email boxes daily with worthless, unsolicited junk is not speech. It's flooding thousands of email boxes daily with worthless, unsolicited junk. If the issue was so cut-and-dried, the attorney for the appellant wouldn't have expanded his laundry list of defenses to include the ex post facto proscription against prosecution. It didn't apply anyhow; the appellant was charged originally because he continued his activities even after said activities had been made illegal.

Agee's nonsense regarding the Federalist Papers was also just that - nonsense. They weren't printed by the thousands and thrown willy-nilly without charge onto everyone's doorsteps several times a day, the way Jaynes distributed his emails. They were publications, which were printed by private presses and sold to interested buyers. The fact they were so well known in their day is a testament to the engagement of the average citizen of that day - something about which today's citizens should be soundly ashamed.

[buf]

Perhaps that court house in Loudoun County VA., where this judge Agee ruled in favor of Jaynes, should be spelled--LOW DOWN Maybe Agee is brown nosing for a spot on the U.S. Supreme Court

[lgbpop]

Perhaps that court house in Loudoun County VA., where this judge Agee ruled in favor of Jaynes, should be spelled--LOW DOWN Maybe Agee is brown nosing for a spot on the U.S. Supreme Court

Only if the executive branch takes complete leave of sanity.

Then again, if he'd displayed this kind of idiocy ten years ago Clinton would've nominated him for sure.

[frebo]

edit

[buf]

Wrong again. Bush would would have had " first dabs" on him---somehow.

[lgbpop]

He's apparently a bipartisan muddlehead. Nominated by VA Gov. Mark Warner to the VA Supreme Court and by Pres. Bush for the federal circuit. You might be right about the Supreme Court, God forbid.