Date: Sat, 19 Apr 1997 12:21:34 -0700 (PDT) From: Michael Dillon <michael@memra.com> To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Liability (was: Binaries in Usenet (was: News...)) Message-ID: <Pine.BSI.3.93.970419121338.4316F-100000@sidhe.memra.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.NEB.3.95.970419105654.485A-100000@acp.qiv.com>
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On Sat, 19 Apr 1997, Jay D. Nelson wrote: > Along with news, what about my encrypted mail. Is an ISP a potential > federal target if a user's encrypted mail is suspected of "terrorist" > communication? Target? The ISP might be served with a court order to give copies of the email to the FBI but they will not attempt to lay any charges against the ISP. > What is an ISP's liability if they filter out encrypted > mail? Major liability. The Electronic Communications and Privacy Act require the ISP to deliver the email to the recipient and to *NOT* look at the email's contents unless it is absolutely necessary in maintaining the email system. So the law says that an ISP has to mind their own business and the same law also requires the FBI to *NOT* interfere with the operations of the mail server or prevent the delivery of mail to other recipients. This has been clearly settled by case law in the Steve Jackson Games case. Now in other countries there are usually no specific laws that apply but ISP's probably would be found legally responsible to behave the same way as the postal system in those countries. This generally means that once mail is on your server you cannot look at the contents and you must do everything possible to deliver the email to the recipient. Because of this, whenever I have had to help a customer get rid of multimegabyte email messages, I always use PINE to delete them so that I cannot see the content of any messages in the mailbox. > BTW, I never felt much need of encryption until the gov't got their > panties in a knot over key escrow. The UK government also has their knickers in a knot over key escrow. BTW, I am not a lawyer. Michael Dillon - Internet & ISP Consulting Memra Software Inc. - Fax: +1-250-546-3049 http://www.memra.com - E-mail: michael@memra.com
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