Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 11:43:28 -0500 (CDT) From: Wm Brian McCane <root@bmccane.uit.net> To: Michael Dillon <michael@memra.com> Cc: isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: How many customers read news (was Re: News...) Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.91.970429113031.9306C-100000@bmccane.uit.net> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSI.3.93.970422135307.20794I-100000@sidhe.memra.com>
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On Tue, 22 Apr 1997, Michael Dillon wrote:
> On Tue, 22 Apr 1997, Sysadmin wrote:
>
> > 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.
>
> In the United States it is illegal to distribute child pornography or
> illegal copies of software. There are numerous cases where store owners or
> BBS operators in the USA have been jailed for doing this. Now, is an ISP a
> distributor and thus liable under the law? Or are they merely the operator
> of a communications channel and therefore exempt from the law like telcos
> and trucking companies. So far this has not been fully decided, but one
> thing is for sure. USENET looks a lot more like distributing than beiong a
> comm channel and that's where the danger lies. Noone can be sure how the
> courts and the lawmakers will decide this one. But we can assess the risks
> and since the penalties are pretty severe, I think it makes sense to be
> conservative in assessing these risks. I don't want to see the entire
> independent ISP industry wiped out because of a police sweep for child
> pornography. And the danger of that is very real. There are rumblings and
> rumors, some of which are coming from people who have contacts inside
> various police forces.
>
> I can't be sure if the rumors are true and I am not a lawyer. But I think
> it would be wise for every ISP to consult their own lawyers on this and to
> make whatever moves they think are necessary to stay out of jail. I know a
> lot of ISP's think it is a catch-22 situation because they wrongly believe
> that removing any single USENET posting opens them up to charges, but
> leaving it alone makes them somehow invincible. I don't believe either is
> true. And since USENET is not intended to be a file transfer mechanism and
> since the volume of files travelling through USENET is now creating
> *OPERATIONAL* *DIFFICULTIES* for ISPs, I think it is a wise move to simply
> get rid of all binary files period regardless of what newsgroup tag is on
> them and regardless of what their actual or claimed content is.
>
> > I would think that the question is "is there a preponderance
> > of actually illegal vs nude or other legitimate material".
>
> One single illegal image is enough to send you to jail. And I haven't even
> said anything yet about the pirated software which may not send you to
> jail but will cause a severe hit in the pocketbook. Do you really want the
> SPA to become the country's largest ISP by virtue of forfeit?
>
> > 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?
>
> You are quite right. But USENET is not about delivering packages. With
> USENET the packets stop at your news server. And the buck stops there as
> well. If people can browse your news server looking for illegal porn
> images to download then you have problems because now you are the content
> provider every bit as much as the magazine store on the corner. How many
> magazine stores carry child porn? Why don't they carry it?
The sad fact of this matter, is that ALL adult bookstores have carried
child porn. Until they found out. Consider just the two cases that I
can think of off the top of my head. A????? Quinn and Tracy Lords.
Both were underage, and making porn movies, as well as appearing in books
and magazines. When the truth came out all of the adult book stores were
required to remove all material from their premises with these
"actresses" in them. I think most complied (probably creating a HUGE
black market, but I digress). On the other hand, the government accepted
them destroying the garbage when the facts came out, they did not bust
the producers, take their sales records, bust the book stores, take their
sales records and go to peoples homes to sieze the purchased materials.
The book stores made a genuine effort to fix a bad situation when they
were informed.
Although this is only an assumption, would it be sufficient for ISP's to
setup a channel to let each other know when and from whom they are
receiving the illegal materials? This way the header information could
be kept to assist law-enforcement officers if you are questioned, and the
illegal material can be removed. There are 2 basic flaws with this however:
1) law varies from state to state, county to county and sometimes city to
city. In some areas even a suggestion of bondage could be illegal
(such as around here) but in others perfectly okay.
2) it relies on some random customer calling you and saying, "Hey get
that picture of those children out of there!". Most of your customer
would be too embarrassed to let you know unless it was in
comp.lang.pascal.
brian
BTW> I know about these cases because I had a friend in college whose
grand-father owns a chain of adult bookstores in my area. I
remember him complaining about spending the entire weekend going
through all the porn at the shop, to make sure there were no
pictures of A?? Quinn. He said that he never wanted to see another
naked woman as long as he lives ;).
+-------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+
He rides a cycle of mighty days, and \ Wm Brian and Lori McCane
he represents the last great schizm \ McCane Consulting
among the gods. Evil though he obviously \ root@bmccane.uit.net
is, he is a mighty figure, this father of \ http://bmccane.uit.net/
my spirit, and I respect him as the sons \ http://bmccane.uit.net/~pictures/
of old did the fathers of their bodies. \ http://bmccane.uit.net/~bmccane/
Roger Zelazny - "Lord of Light" \ http://bmccane.uit.net/~bbs/
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