Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 15:50:52 -0600 From: Blaine Minazzi <bminazzi@w3page.com> To: isp@freeBSD.org Message-ID: <199704222150.PAA08141@orion.denverweb.net>
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> > Blaine > What country is this you live in? In the United States, we have civil > liberty laws prohibiting such behaviour by law enforcement officials, > of course I am not aware of the situation where you live, but I don't > see why Usenet should be governed based on the activities of a police > state where a distributor is treated as a publisher of information. You are young man, are you not? Nice to see that idealism. ( me: a grandfather, understanding realities of life, instead of the ideals ) I live in the country that used to be known as the United States of America. And, we do have the constitution and some other laws, that IN THEORY protect us. REALITY, on the other hand is a different matter. If a law enforcement agency feels that you may be violating certian laws, ( rico ) they can, and DO, seize your property BEFORE you are ever convicted of a crime. Hell, they may not even CHARGE you with a crime, and you STILL have to prove that your property was not abtained through the benefit of criminal activity to get the articles back. This is clearly a violation of the 4th amendment to the constitution. Don't believe me? Check it out... > I find it intriguing that there seems to be an assumption as well by > many in this mailing list that annything sexual is illegal or even > legally suspect. Again in the US, obscene material which is not > pornographic is perfectly legal to distribute whether it is known about > or not. I would think that the question is "is there a preponderance > of actually illegal vs nude or other legitimate material". Yes, you are correct. In theory. _I_ know whats illegal, _YOU_ know whats illegal, but if some overzealous gestapo type wants to screw you over for ONE image, you have a BIG problem, even if you are aquited. Did you know that your police record will show that you were CHARGED with ditributing pornography? And it takes divine intervention to get the information removed from police files. > As for the "drug dealer" junk, I don't understand. To try to fit > reality into the analogy you make, If your whole business is sending > packages, which you do not have the time to open or examine in detail, > do you become liable if someone slips such a package in among the > others? Should there be a special case if most of the other packages > are Grateful Dead T-shirts and memoribilia? Properly licensed, of > course! :-) Again, correct in legal theory. The bottom line is this. Do you have the resourses to get in a pissing contest with the local gestapo? If they seize your assets, servers, and other property either as evidence, or using the RICO act, as a business, you are screwed. Your customers are going to be gone by the time you get the equipment back. Personally, I have had freinds screwed by the IRS, the BATF, and Local city government, ( boulder, denver, san antonio. ) Some have been imprisoned for "contemp of court" when they refused to "turn over their OTHER set of books" which NEVER EXSISTED. Others have been charged with felonies for the mere possssion of what COULD HAVE been used to ASSIST in the manufacture of illegal weapons. The culprit tools? A drill press and lathe. NO evidence of ANY illegal weapon ever being contructed, or any attempt to do so. THey beat the charges, but went bankrupt in the process. THey lost everything they had worked all their life for. Another freind charged by the City of boulder for towing a banner over the city. Now, the FAA has complete control over the airspace, and of aircraft operating within that airspace. Yet the city of boulder had don ARRESTED, even AFTER the FAA clained that they had no rights to attempt to regulate air traffic over thier town. He eventually won, but at a cost of personal freedom, and almost a hundred thousand of dollars in legal fees. Another person ( fathers freind) had the IRS pay him a freindly visit at 3:00 AM, Arresting him and his wife in a no knock raid, over a 500 disputed tax deduciton. They were cuffed and arrested, the children were taken into "protective custody" and the older ones grilled about their parents. This is not the USA that our fathers and grandfathers fought for in the great wars only a few years ago. This is 1939 Germany, all over agian. do the words, Ruby Ridge and WACO have ANY meaning to you? There are perfect examples of our civil liberty laws in action. Ralph Weaver finally won his case. He's rich. How exactly does that benefit his dead wife and son again?
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