EDITORIAL SPAMS-A-NOT FIRST SPAMMER UNDER FED LAW GOES TO JAIL. HOORAY!

THE first person to be caught and tried under the federal anti-spam law was convicted Friday. And no doubt, e-mail users across the nation would offer the judge the same recommendation for the upcoming sentencing of Jeffrey Brett Goodin, 45, of Azusa:

Lock him up and throw away the key.

Well, that might be a bit of a stiff sentence for a nonviolent crime, but the sentiment is understandable by anyone who has ever received one of the ``phishing'' type e-mails that Goodin sent to strangers, purporting to be from AOL's billing department. Goodin's fake e-mails tricked people into giving out personal financial information, which he then used to go on shopping sprees.

But Goodin deserves some hard time. Of course, fraud of this sort isn't as injurious to its victims as murder or assault. This type of crime is like pollution in that the cumulative effect is to do real harm to the community. And e-mail spam is like graffiti or broken windows of the virtual world.

We can only hope that the 2003 CAN-SPAM law will catch other such ``phishers'' -- people who are clogging the nation's in-boxes and causing untold frustration and annoyance around the globe.