Spam for breakfast

Yesterday, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled the state’s anti-spam law unconstitutional. Good news to the ears of Jeremy Jaynes who gets a free pass. The spammer was previously convicted as the first felony spammer in the country in a 2004 trial. He had been sentenced to nine years.

Ugh. It’s still morning here on the West Coast.

Justice G. Steven Agee wrote the court’s unanimous decision, stating:

“The right to engage in anonymous speech, particularly anonymous political or religious speech, is ‘an aspect of the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment,’ ” Agee wrote, citing a 1995 U.S. Supreme Court case.

“By prohibiting false routing information in the dissemination of e-mails,” the court ruled, Virginia’s anti-spam law “infringes on that protected right.”

While Jaynes’ appeal certainly worked in his favor, prosecuting attorney, General Robert F. McDonnell immediately said he would appeal the case to the US Supreme Court:

“The Supreme Court of Virginia, has erroneously ruled that one has a right to deceptively enter somebody else’s private property for purposes of distributing his unsolicited fraudulent e-mails. . . . We will take this issue directly to the Supreme Court of the United States. The right of citizens to be free from unwanted fraudulent e-mails is one that I believe must be made secure.”