VA Court Declares Spam Law Unconstitutional

The Virginia Supreme Court Friday declared the state's anti-spam law unconstitutional, reversing the conviction and nine-year prison sentence of a Jeremy Jaynes, a man once considered to be one of the world's most active spammers.

The court unanimously agreed with Jaynes’ argument that the law violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution because it restricts non-commercial e-mail as well as commercial messages.

In rendering the court’s opinion, Justice G. Steven Agee wrote Virginia’s anti-spam law is “unconstitutionally overbroad on its face because it prohibits the anonymous transmission of all unsolicited bulk e-mails, including those containing political, religius or other speech protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.”

Virginia’s Anti-Spam Act prohibits the sending of unsolicited bulk e-mail by fraudulent means, such as changing the header or routing information to prevent recipients from contacting or determining the identity of the sender.

According to prosecutors, Jaynes in 2003 sent tens of thousands of unsolicited e-mails with false headers and return-address information to AOL subscribers advertising dubious products such as a Fedex refund-claim product, a penny stock picker and an Internet history eraser.

Police searching Jaynes’ home found discs with more than 176 e-mail addresses and 1.3 billion users names on them, according to officials. They also reportedly found discs containing 107 e-mail addresses that had been stolen by a former AOL employee.

In November of 2004, Jaynes was convicted by a jury in Loudoun County Circuit Court on three counts of violating Virginia’s Anti-Spam Act, which was passed in 2003.

The case was the nation’s first felony conviction for spamming. After Jaynes was sentenced in 2005 to nine years in jail, he appealed, claiming Virginia’s spam law is unconstitutional.

In September of 2006 the Virginia Court of Appeals upheld the conviction.

The Virginia Supreme Court in March also upheld the decision, but later agreed to reconsider the first-amendment question.