Court Strikes Down Anti-Spam Law

[linyanti]

It will be interesting to see what a good legal analysis of this shows. My first impression is that any law that restricts speech has to make a provision regarding protected speech. If the law does not protect this speech then no matter how bad anyone behaves they cannot be convicted on this particular law. This is the first case so it is natural that the law will need some tweaking.

Consequently, all Virginia has to do is pass an amended version of this law that provides for protected speech.

These rulings at the state or federal supreme court level are usually not about what is right or wrong but whether the rules are correct.

The following is a case where a mass mailing made annonymously may be correct. "Someone has unleashed a virus that eats human brains and makes people Zombies. Watch out! They have already eaten the brains of our governing officials."

No one would make a case that ads for anti-impotence drugs are protected speech. But Anti-Zombie notices are always protected.

 

[zzatz]

How does the spammer’s rights trump my rights?

They don't, and that's not what the court said.

The court found that the law applied to NON-spam mail as well as spam, and therefore imposed an unjustified restriction on speech. In no way did the court say that spam can't be limited by law.

You do realize that the court pointed that this law also made illegal mail that you wanted? That's where the law was too broad, and why it was overturned. The court can't rewrite the law, so the legislature needs to try again, and get it right this time.

There are many people and organizations who want to be able to receive anonymous email - reporters want mail from whistle-blowers, support groups want to encourage people to share their experiences so they can provide help, and so on. That's not spam, but the law treated as if it were.

 

[MrGuvernment]

the issue is canspam is already in place to try and cut back BUT the problem is EMAIL PROVIDERS do not follow guidelines and THUS let this crap get into YOUR inbox..

 

[xX_Jack_Carver_Xx]

SCOTUS has already ruled on this issue, the law was dead the day it was written...

"Under our Constitution, anonymous pamphleteering is not a pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an honorable tradition of advocacy and of dissent. Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority"

Sometimes it sucks to be free.

So other mechanisms will be needed to eliminate spam, NUMBER ONE on that list is to track down and KILL the WalkingDead (tm) who respond to and purchase shit from the spammers.

The % response rate for spam is among the highest of all direct marketing schemes out there. The electrons are not to blame, it is the stupid fucks who click and go "Ooooh a bargain".

How about someone makes a spam email with a special embedded subspace signal that makes the clicker's head explode?

Furhter, here's a shout out to the lawgivers to quit writing laws that are blatently unconstitutional and wasting all our time and money, dumb fucks.

 

[mynamehere]

Quick! Someone find out that Justice's e-mail address and mass spam Viagra and male enhancement e-mails and see how he likes it.

Everyone is forgetting the relevant info missing. WTF is this judge's email address and those of his immediate family. I have lots of friends who want to show him how to enlarge one of his digits as well as concerned friends who want to move their money out of locales unknown in Africa to the States. One other thing, I equate anti-spam laws with the nuisance laws we have. Sure you have a right to free speech but your 1st amendment doesn't guarantee you the right to scream loudly at me and annoy me (spamming my email address) even if you're doing it from the privacy of your home. That's how we ensure noisy neighbors don't affect the quality of life for everyone else on the block during the day or especially at night.

That gave me a good LOL. There were nine judges, they were sharply split 5-4. Obviously the "experts" disagreed with each other. Which judge are you siding with sir?

AGREED! Also find the email addresses of the judges who suported this, and then everyone forward all their spam to their acounts. Then see how long before they overturn their own ruling.

Whatever happened to that (law?) that all spam had to say they were an AD, etc. in the title?

I'm not contesting that at all, it's a total waste, but through the eyes of the law you can't limit it because it isn't against the law to waste resources and time. :-\

Spam costs time & money, be it my (valuable) time to got through & delete it, or IT dept's costs for time & hardware/software to keep all the company employees from spending the bulk of their day trying to find the relatively few legit emails. IMO, this should be equated to theft of time & resources. If you were to add up those costs it would amount to felony charges.

My email service has an hourly limit on sent mails (not sure of the limit, but i'd say it's not more than 50) & there are times I hit that just by limit bouncing spam, I realize these are "invividual" emails that are limited, but I think they should also put a limit on how many addresses an email can be sent to as well, that way the llimit could be hit with 1 email. Some email services have daily limits. I believe that the policy should be that if you abuse it too much within a set time frame the account gets suspended.

Maybe these inconveniences would slow down some spammers a bit. I know many use several accounts, but they'd all have limits. It's the ones running their own email servers that would pose the biggest problem.

I'm sure there are flaws in my ideas, but it would be a start, or at least something to build from.

 

[zzatz]

I'm sure there are flaws in my ideas...

We could eliminate spam by shutting down the Internet, but that solution is overly broad. It affects more than spam.

The Virginia law is also overly broad, and banned much more than spam.

Virginia's lawmakers may have aimed at spam, but they missed. Sort of like when Dick Cheney went hunting. He aimed at a bird, but shot his friend.

 

[solramin]

Why can't all these big companies that complain about the cost of security, spamfilters nad the like use their fancy lawyers and sue his pants off?
It might even win the lawyers a bit of their soul back in the process...
Honoustly isn't that part of how the market is supposed to regulate this sort of stuff?
I know this is a bit simplistic, but any company exist to make money, and when there is no profit because your getting sued you might decide to just quit and find a better scam...errr business.

 

[xX_Jack_Carver_Xx]

A much much much EASIER solution exists. Since it is the botnets and such that are the muscle behind the spamming efforts....

Make it a FEDERAL FELONY to have an infected botnet controlled machine. Say 1 year in jail and a $10,000 fine.

Let the spammers try to buy and manage thier own giant server farms to spew thier crap, on thier own dime, and watch the profitability evaporate.

The "industry" cough, doesn;t want that, because thier domains would get documented and blocked by the target audience. Ooops.

And the brightest side, it would make all we computery dweebs far more in demand by family/freinds/neighbors to get them out of the pickle thier pron fishing got them into!!!

Can I get a CHA CHING !!!!

 

[john2k]

i mean the constitusion was basically scrapped with anti-terrorism laws

As per Judge Andrew Napolitano (I read this in one of his interviews) the Patriot Act has been ruled unconstitutional 5 or 6 times already by Federal Court Judges. Just FYI, not all people in the legal world consider the "changes" in our law to be legal/constitutional.

Yeah the Constitution is more or less an economic document, meant to protect the rights and freedoms of the rich and (at the time) white voting class, a.k.a. business entities. It's been amended 27 times for everyone else (1-12thfor everyone, 13th, 14th and 15th for the minorities/blacks, 19th for women, 26th for 18-year olds, etc)

What part of the Constitution gives you that impression? I could see other laws giving that impression, but not the Constitution. The Constitution was written in order to restrain the powers of the federal government. Don't forget, back when it was written the founders were fighting against a tyrannical government that was out of control. The founders didn't want future Americans to be exposed to that sort of tyranny, therefore they wrote the Constitution in the way they did.

But, unfortunately, too bad those in Congress basically ignore it.

Believe it or not, some of the States are starting to wake up to the nonsense that we've been putting up with. Back in March the State of Oklahoma legislature voted 92 to 3 "Claiming sovereignty under Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution." You can see the legislation at http://www.okhouse.gov/51LEG/Leg_Votesxx.aspx?include=okh01983.txt It was BIG news and should have been reported all over the mainstream media, but hardly any outlets reported it.