UPenn's Daily Pennsylvanian has an article on the campaign against JuicyCampus in which Matt Ivester makes an interesting claim:

"Some administrators and students have mistakenly recommended a massive spam attack," Ivester said. "It's a felony, and it's not a great idea."

Hrm. Putting aside questions of effectiveness (I do appreciate the arguments of those claiming that "spam" attacks are ineffective and possibly counterproductive), this is serious business.

I'm not a lawyer, and I'm aware that Ivester has a few in his retinue, given the legal rigmorale through which some state governments have put his site, so I'll post this question to him (or to any of our readers with more than a passing understanding of internet law): are we experiencing a confusion of definitions here? What, exactly, does "spamming" denote according to the law? Is its definition wide enough to make "spammers" of students who casually post song lyrics, Whitman's poetry, Bible verses, or Wikipedia articles on JuicyCampus?

And one further question of personal relevance to those of us here at The Patriot who have advocated the "misuse" of JuicyCampus: should we look into obtaining counsel, Mr. Ivester?