Supreme Court Lets Virginia Anti-Spam Law Die 77
SpuriousLogic sends in a CNN report that begins "The Supreme Court has passed up a chance to examine how far states can go to restrict unsolicited e-mails in efforts to block spammers from bombarding computer users. The high court without comment Monday rejected Virginia's appeal to keep its Computer Crimes Act in place. It was one of the toughest laws of its kind in the nation, the only one to ban noncommercial — as well as commercial — spam e-mail to consumers in that state. The justices' refusal to intervene also means the conviction of prolific commercial spammer Jeremy Jaynes will not be reinstated." Jaynes remains behind bars because of a federal securities fraud conviction unrelated to the matter of spamming.
Supreme Court doesn't rule on everything (Score:5, Informative)
The SCOTUS does not take every case that crosses its path. These days, unless there is an important Constitutional interpretation at stake, the Court will typically pass on the case.
Since there really isn't much new in this case (the FA already forbids restriction on TFOS), it's hardly surprising that the SCROTUS decided to let precedent do its job.
No one likes spammers, but this law was clearly in violation of the civil rights of everyone it touched.
Re:Supreme Court doesn't rule on everything (Score:5, Informative)
I wouldn't move to Italy and expect them to have every label in English, (hell, maybe they do, but I doubt it)
Actually, its extremely common to find packaging with multiple languages in Europe. Many will be bilingual and some are even quadlingual.
The business logic is nothing to do with %'s of populations, its all about the flexibility of being able to ship the product to different countries, depending on where there's demand this week.
The reason the court didn't take this up (Score:1, Informative)
SCOTUS did not grant certiorari (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certiorari) Is one of evidence. The court may very well feel that this law should be upheld, but that the current case that is brought for cert involves an unconstitutional behaviour, a non-issue, or may lead to an undesirable counter-opinion. (http://books.google.com/books?id=eEoyK7ZCXjsC&pg=PA208&lpg=PA208&dq=why+the+supreme+court+motivation&source=bl&ots=MP2Trrpv9c&sig=B984XiR1TuBSlIliFnBy0e0n_zs&hl=en&ei=7C3SSfTJJIfmlQfhmdSXBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result)
In the initial conferences where the justices meet to grant cert, each justice votes on a case, and may have their own motivations for doing so. The outcome of these votes is generally sealed for a certain number of years - with the most recent release being the records of Justice White (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_White) who would diligently record each of the results of the cases - and in the instances that justices made an argument - grade the arguments of his fellow justices.
Nearly Everything You Wrote is Wrong (Score:3, Informative)
There's so much about what you wrote that is simply wrong. Let's run down the list.
1. Rick Boucher isn't a member of the Virginia General Assembly, he's a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
2. There was never a heyday of Virginia politicians who spearheaded smart internet laws. You can tell because, if there had been, then we'd have smart internet laws. The closest that we ever got was Gov. Jim Gilmore, who created the Secretary of Technology cabinet position and created those asinine "@" internet license plates. Oh, and he required censorware on all school computers. That was the high point for Virginia.
3. You speak of the legislature as a single unit, wondering why "they" did something or "they" didn't do something. It's made up of 140 members, each of whom is free to introduce legislation on a given topic. Do you live in Virginia? Did you ask your legislator to introduce such a bill? Nothing is "on tap for next year," because it's not possible. It's not possible to prefile a bill until summer, some months after the veto session. If you have an idea for a better UCE ban, I wish you'd write up a proposal to share with the legislature.
4. In fact, two bills were introduced into the Virginia General Assembly to deal with UCE, both by Del. Manoli Loupassi (R-Richmond). HB1796: Unsolicited bulk electronic mail; penalty [richmondsunlight.com] and Unsolicited bulk electronic mail (spam); penalty. (HB1797) [richmondsunlight.com]. The former was killed in a Senate Committee for Courts of Justice subcommittee, the latter was killed in a House Courts of Justice subcommittee.