In September the long strange Jeremy Jaynes spam case
took its most recent twist when the Virginia Supreme Court
reversed its previous
decision and threw out the state's anti-spam law on First
Amendment grounds.
The state is currently preparing one final appeal to the U.S.
Supreme Court, and interested parties are preparing their briefs.
I recently reread the decision, and was struck that the court's analysis
depends on a severe misunderstanding of the way that e-mail works.
On page 22 of the decision, the court wrote:
because e-mail transmission protocol requires entry of an IP address
and domain name for the sender, the only way such a speaker can
publish an anonymous e-mail is to enter a false IP address or domain
name.
It went on to say that we have a long First Amendment
tradition of protecting
anonymous political speech, but the law's blanket prohibition of false
routing information would prevent such speech, so the law fails
on First Amendment grounds.
But that's just not true, as I was recently reminded when the political
spam below landed in my mailbox.
I can guess that I probably got it because I'm well known to be a Unitarian
Universalist, but I don't know who uses the nom de plume "Al Walp".
The headers on the message (not reproduced here because it's already too long)
are 100% accurate.
The message really did come from Yahoo, from the account
urauu2@yahoo.com.
The transmission headers are also entirely accurate, and report that the
message was orignally sent from IP address 66.213.98.98.
That's the Mentor, Ohio, town library, where there is a public WiFi hotspot
that the sender presumably used to log in and send the message.
This message is just as anonymous as a paper flyer dropped on my front porch;
unless someone happened to notice the sender sending it, there's no way to
tell who it was.
I hope the briefs to the US Supreme Court make this clear--it's quite possible
to send mail with no identifying information, which is not the same
thing as sending it with false identifying the information.
The former is what the First Amendment protects, the second is what the Va.
law forbids, but they don't conflict.
(The odd formatting and extra punctuation are all in the original
From urauu2@yahoo.com Tue Dec 23 19:09:53 2008
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:09:22 -0800 (PST)
From: AL WALP
To: "urauu2@yahoo.com"
Subject: Has__the__right__wing__hi-jacked__the__Democratic__Party_?
____Why__Clinton__should__NOT__be__confirmed__as__Secretary__of__State.
President-elect Obama picked three
hawks for his foreign  policy  team
that some say will continueÂ
President  Bush's  foreign  policy :
  Hillary  Clinton:   Secretary of State,
  Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense,
  James Jones (Major General, Ret.),
           National Security Adviser.
(ConsortiumNews.com;Â Dec. 2, 2008)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Â
Should  Hillary  Clinton become
  our Secretary of  State ?
1. She has poor judgment -- demonstrated
by her vote (with some other Democrats)
in the Senate  to support  President
Bush's  "pre-emptive"  war  in  Iraq   .
Â
Apparently she has changed
her mind: She now says there's
no reason that US troops should
be in Iraq "beyond today," but
conceded that she might keep
combat troops in Iraq for years,
under the following conditions:
1. to continue operations to
   counter terrorism;
2. to counter Iranian influence;
3. help the Kurds;
4. protect the US embassy in Iraq;
5. train the Iraqi military forces.
(FactCheck.org;Â June 6, 2008)
During her campaign, she made
many misleading statements;
FactCheck.org says that her statement,
"Obama' s health care plan would
impose a $900 hidden tax on families,"
is so misleading as to be close toÂ
an outright falsehood.   Does she
have the caliber to be a diplomat?Â
Â
She spent two years of her campaign
to prove she's an "Iron Lady ready toÂ
handle 3 AM phone calls",  but she
was surprised:  the phone call was
the economy,  not national security.
(TheDailyBeast.com;Â Â Â Â Dec.1, 2008)
During her campaign she said she
went to the 1995 UN Fourth World
Conference on Women, but the
Chinese didn't want her to come.
Contrary to her claim, the Chinese
wanted very much for her to come
but didn't like the speech she gave..
They disliked it so much that they
blacked it out to all Chinese,Â
except 5,000 Party members.
(FactCheck.org;Â Â Dec. 5, 2007)
It appears that she has lost all
credibility with the ChineseÂ
government. What affect will her
loss of credibility have on future
relations between China and USA.?
Â
2. She sought the endorsement of
Richard  Mellon Scaife, a staunchÂ
conservative, shortly before the
primary election in Pennsylvania.
He endorsed her in  April  2008.
This action raises the question:
  Is she conservative or liberal ?
   Â
Who  is  Richard Mellon Scaife ? Â
According to WorldNetDaily.com,
he's a principle owner of NewsMax.com,Â
and an heir to fortunes in aluminum,Â
banking and  oil;   he  underwrites
numerous conservative and Republican
causes -- including the "Arkansas Project"Â
(designed to expose the
Clinton scandals)  and Joseph Farah'sÂ
Western Journalism Center,
before he funded WorldNetDaily.com.
  Â
Scaife  also funded : Â
Free Congress Foundation (Paul Weyrich),Â
GOPAC (Newt Gingrich),
Heritage Foundation,Â
Judicial  Watch   (Larry  Klayman),
Landmark Legal Foundation  (Mark Levin),
Media Research Center (Brent Bozell), etc.Â
   Â
Scaife's  net worth  is about
$1.4 billion, making him one of
the richest men in the U.S.  Â
The Washington Post characterized
him as  "the  funding  father  of
the  Right." The 2008 edition of
FORBES 400 put him  in the
"Relentlessly  Rich"  category.
Â
Why has Hillary sought such an
endorsement? How can she
represent  the views of the
average American ?
Has the radical right hi-jacked
the Democratic Party?  Is this the
end of our two-party system?
Is our  democratic republic
being transformed into
a one-party state?
                                     Â
3.  Bill Clinton,  using his Clinton
Foundation, enlists corporate
and private help to tackle
concerns from AIDS to childhood
obesity. The Clinton Global Initiative
has more than 570 commitments
worth $10 billion, involving more
than 1,000 organizations that
target 100 nations.
He is doing exemplary work and
is acting as a positive force
for the United States,  but his
activities will undoubtedly create
many conflicts of interest  if
Hillary becomes Secretary of State
in 2009,  according to Sharon
Theimer (Associated Press):
(a)Â Â The Clinton foundation
revenues in 2007 were
$132,000,000+. Â
Important donors are:
 Aus Aid $10-25 million;
 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,
        $10-25 million;
 Haim Saban, media investor,
        $ 5,000,000+;
 Taiwan's economics office,
               $1,000,000+;
 Dubai foundation,
                $1,000,000+;
 Kuwait, Oman, Qatar,
            $1,000,000+ each;
James Murdoch,
              $ 500,000;
News Corporation
Foundation,
              $500,000;
Walid Juffali (Saudi billionaire),
              $500,000+
Indian Industry Confederation,
               $500,000+.
Lakshmi Mittal (Indian steel),
Victor Pimchuk (Ukraine oligarch),
Denise Rich (former wife of Marc
Rich who got a controversial
pardon in 2001 from Bill Clinton,
Â
According to the book,
Freedom in the World 2008,
by Freedom House,Â
(pp. 879-880), Â
many of these 100 nations are
"not free" or "partly free." Â
Will Bill Clinton return funds
from such nations because of
the apparent conflicy of interest ?
(b) The ClintonFoundation.org
received money from a Chinese
internet company that posted
a "MOST WANTED" message
online for the Chinese
government  that  sought
information  on human rights
activists who were involved
in demonstrations  in Tibet..
Do the Clintons not consider
human rights when they
make investments?
(c) Bill Clinton invested in a
Brazilian company that produces
ethanol from sugarcane -- the
company employs workers under
degrading living conditions.
Do the Clintons not consider
working conditions of employees
when making an investment
in a company ?
  Â
(d)Â Bill Clinton and Frank Quistra,
a Canadian tycoon, traveled to
Kazakhstan and met with its
president. A short time thereafter,
Quistra's company  received
agreements with rights  to buy
into uranium projects controlled
by  a state-owned enterprise.
Do such dealings not involve
a conflict of interest ?
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
ACTIONSÂ Â Â TOÂ Â Â TAKE :
Â
1. Please contact  the two
U.S. senators in your state.
_
On the  web page  at
Senate.gov,
in  the  top right corner,
click  on the boxÂ
"find your senators"
to get the phone numbers
or web pages of your
senators.
Â
Ask  your senators   NOT
to confirm Clinton as
Secretary of State.  Â
 Â
 2. Please forward this message
to your friends and relatives.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =To remove your address from
 this list:
contact URAUU2@YAHOO.COM
and put the word  DELETE
in the subject line.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
