RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia's attorney general asked the nation's highest court Thursday to revive a state anti-spam law struck down by a lower court as unconstitutionally overbroad.
Virginia's Supreme Court ruled in September that the law violates the free-speech protections of the First Amemdent because it prohibits anonymously sending any type of unsolicited bulk e-mail, including political and religious messages. Most states have anti-spam laws, and there is a federal statute, but Virginia's is the only one that is not limited to commercial e-mails.
In asking for a reversal of the ruling, Attorney General Bob McDonnell McDonnell said that the state court erred in its conclusion that some "imaginary spammer" could be unfairly prosecuted for sending political or religious e-mails. The justices "invalidated a statute on its face based on a hypothetical application that occurs very infrequently, if it occurs at all," he wrote in his petition to the U.S. Supreme Court.
McDonnell said he expects a decison on the petition early next year.
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