Spamming as a part of Free Speech!!

In September, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that the State law that prosecuted those involved in sending spam emails was unconstitutional and in violation of the 1st Amendment of the Constitution that guaranteed free speech. The judgment used a rationale that doesn’t make much sense to me ;

“As Justice (G. Steven) Agee said in the court’s opinion, if the Federalist Papers were written today and disseminated by e-mail, the sender would be guilty of a felony under Virginia’s anti-spam statute”

With more than 1 billion spam emails sent out in a year, it is estimated a spam network rakes in somewhere to the amount of $3.5 million each product. While the statute has been declared unconstitutional, the Attorney General for the State has decided to take the matter upto the Supreme Court and ask the decision to be reversed.

Earlier, the ACLU president commenting on the judgment stated;

“”The internet is a uniquely democratizing public forum that provides ordinary people with an outlet to express a wide variety of opinions. Some of those views may be controversial, making anonymity or the use of pseudonyms essential for giving those ideas fair consideration in public debates. Speech on the Internet deserves no less First Amendment protection than in any other medium.”

• Bookmark on Delicious
• Digg this post
• Recommend on Facebook
• share via Reddit
• Tweet this
• Subscribe to this post
• Tell a friend
• Print for later

Related posts:

1. Free Speech and Libel Laws: Implications from two foreign judgements Libel laws in Canada and the UK have come into...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.