Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 14:26:24 -0400 From: Sysadmin <danlaw@rust.net> To: Blaine Minazzi <bminazzi@denverweb.net> Cc: isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: How many customers read news (was Re: News...) Message-ID: <335D02D0.1607@rust.net> References: <Pine.BSI.3.95.970420195124.25289I-100000@buffnet11.buffnet.net> <3.0.1.32.19970420213538.009d6310@sentex.net> <3.0.1.32.19970421062113.0250c100@sentex.net> <335B830D.3D947A59@denverweb.net>
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Blaine Minazzi wrote: > > I don't know about canadian law. Here, if a newsgroup carries a number > of illegal images, it really wouldn't matter _what_ the title of the > group was, you might find yourself facing charges. I don't think that a > jury would be as likely to aquit for > illegal images in alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.* as they would on > alt.tv.foo-bar > Whether you are convicted or not, the cost of defending yourself could > be rather high. > If a law enforcement agency wants to put you out of business, they may > seize your equipment as evidence. You get it back AFTER the trial. > Another twist, is they may seize ALL your assets they feel were gained > through illegal activities. ( like they do in drug cases. ) So, you > could find your house, car, bank accounts and equipment all seized. > (owch! Now how are you going to hire an attorney? )The Fourth amendment > has become as effective as toilet paper with that practice. > While someone here is hashing it out in court, their customers go down > the street to the next ISP, and the telco and maybe your upstream still > expect to get paid. Same with office space, etc. You could be bankrupt > and done for before it even makes it to court for trial. > > So, for here, removing ALL binaries ( in the sexually oriented groups at > least.) could show that you were trying to do your part. Since they are > such bandwidth pigs, simply getting rig of all binaries in newsgroups > would be the best solution, IMHO. > > As ISP's, I feel we have a responsibility to try to prohibit criminals > from using our service to conduct thier illegal activities, while > providing our legitimate customers with as much service as possible. > Actually, I am surprised that many ISP's care more about the money than > the fact that we are being _used_ by criminals to help them break the > law. > Hell, why not just let a drug dealer put a little package in your car > for your routine trip across the country to aunt emma's. They put it > there, someone on the other end picks it up, but as long as YOU don't > know whats in it, your not liable? That will get you a room with > striped sunlite in this country. > > 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. 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". 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! :-)
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