Software Vault: The Diamond Collection/The Diamond Collection (Software Vault)(Digital Impact).ISO/cdr14/fbibb95b.zip/FBIRAID.TXT

Text File | 1995-03-14 | 178KB | 3,633 lines

Here is my growing file of info. on FBI and other govt. agencies messing
with BBSes.  If you got any more info. please upload it!
  - Big Boy's BBS, Denver, 303-458-3832


Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 07:18:16 -0500
From: ACLU Information <[e-mail]>

**ACLU CYBER-LIBERTIES ALERT**

FIGHT ONLINE CENSORSHIP!

AXE THE EXON BILL!

The American Civil Liberties Union urges you to contact the members of the
U.S. Senate Commerce Committee and your own Senators to ask them to oppose
the efforts to turn online communications into the most heavily censored
form of American media.

In a clumsy effort to purge sexual expression from the Internet and other
online networks, the self-described "Communications Decency Act of 1995"
(S.314, introduced by Senator Exon on 2/2/95) would make ALL
telecommunications service providers liable for every message, file, or
other content carried on their networks.  Senator Exon is planning to
attach the bill to Senator Pressler's new telecommunications legislation,
which is targeted for action in early March.

The Exon proposal would severely restrict the flow of online information by
requiring service providers to act as private censors of e-mail messages,
public forums, mailing lists, and archives to avoid criminal liability.
The ACLU believes that online users should be the only censors of the
content of the information they receive.

**The Exon proposal broadens existing law by subjecting service providers,
as well as the individuals who actually send messages, to criminal
liability for any "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent" message
transmitted over their networks.**

If enacted into law, this vague and overly broad legislation could have the
following draconian effects:

   *  The Exon proposal would prohibit communications with sexual content
through private e-mail between consenting adults, and would inhibit people
from making comments that might or might not be prohibited.

   *  Under the Exon proposal, service providers would pay up to $100,000
or spend up to 2 years in jail for prohibited content produced by
subscribers on other networks, over which they had no control.

   *  The Exon proposal would expand current restrictions on telephone
access by minors to dial-a-porn services to include online access to
indecent material, requiring service providers to purge "indecent"
material from public bulletin boards and discussion groups to avoid
accidental viewing by a minor.

In effect, online providers would be forced to offer to adults only that
content that is "suitable for minors."


S. 314 is nearly identical to an amendment Senator Exon successfully
attached to last year's Senate version of the telecommunications law
overhaul.  Last year's bill died for unrelated reasons, but the Senate
Commerce Committee is determined to pass new telecommunications legislation
this year that could easily include the Exon proposal.

The ACLU opposes the restrictions on speech imposed by this legislation
because they violate the First Amendment's guarantee of free expression.
Forcing carriers to pre-screen content violates the Constitution and
threatens the free and robust expression that is the promise of the Net.
The Constitution requires that any abridgement of speech use the least
restrictive means available -- the language of the Exon proposal is
clearly the most restrictive because it sweeps broadly against a wide
array of protected material involving sexual expression.

Stop the information superhighway from becoming the most censored segment
of communications media!

ACT NOW:

Urge members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and
Transportation:

     *  To oppose the Exon proposal, or any Senate or House variation.

     *  To drop the Exon proposal BEFORE it goes to the Senate floor.

     *  To hold full hearings on the Exon proposal and to review it
        thoroughly before it goes to the Senate floor.

     *  To reject any effort to attach the Exon proposal to the Senate
        telecommunications legislation.

THE EXON PROPOSAL COULD BE LAW WITHIN WEEKS IF WE DON'T ACT TODAY.

Send your letter by e-mail, fax, or snail mail to:

Senator Larry Pressler, S.D.
Chairman, Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
SR-254 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC  20510-6125
[phone] (phone)
[phone] (fax)
e-mail: [e-mail]

To maximize the impact of your letter, you should also write to the members
of the Senate Commerce Committee and to your own Senators.

A sample letter is attached.

Majority Members of the Senate Commerce Committee
Senator Bob Packwood, Ore.
SR-259 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC  20510-3702
[phone] (phone)
[phone] (fax)

Senator Ted Stevens, Alaska
SH-522 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC  20510-0201
[phone] (phone)
[phone] (fax)

Senator John McCain, Ariz.
SR-111 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC  20510-0303
[phone] (phone)
[phone] (fax)

Senator Conrad Burns, Mont.
SD-183 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC  20510-2603
[phone] (phone)
[phone] (fax)

Senator Slade Gorton, Wash.
SH-730 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC  20510-4701
[phone] (phone)
[phone] (fax)
e-mail:  [e-mail]

Senator Trent Lott, Miss.
SR-487 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC  20510-2403
[phone] (phone)
[phone] (fax)

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Tex.
SH-703 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC  20510-4303
[phone] (phone)
[phone] (fax)
e-mail:  [e-mail]

Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Maine
SR-174 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC  20510-1903
[phone] (phone)
[phone] (fax)

Senator John Ashcroft, Mo.
SH-705 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC  20510-2504
[phone] (phone)
[phone] (fax)

Minority Members of the Senate Commerce Committee

Senator Ernest F. Hollings, S.C.
SR-125 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC  20510-4002
[phone] (phone)
[phone] (fax)

Senator Daniel K. Inouye, Hawaii
SH-772 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC  20510-1102
[phone] (phone)
[phone] (fax)

Senator Wendell H. Ford, Ky.
SR-173A Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC  20510-1701
[phone] (phone)
[phone] (fax)
e-mail:  [e-mail]

Senator J. James Exon, Neb.
SH-528 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC  20510-2702
[phone] (phone)
[phone] (fax)

Senator John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV, W. Va.
SH-109 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC  20510-4802
[phone] (phone)
[phone] (fax)

Senator John F. Kerry, Mass.
SR-421 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC  20510-2102
[phone] (phone)
[phone] (fax)

Senator John B. Breaux, La
SH-516 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC  20510-1803
[phone] (phone)
[phone] (fax)

Senator Richard H. Bryan, Nev.
SR-364 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC  20510-2804
[phone] (phone)
[phone] (fax)

Senator Byron L. Dorgan, N.D.
SH-713 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC  20510-3405
[phone] (phone)
[phone] (fax)

You can also write or fax your own Senator at:
The Honorable ______________________
U.S. Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510

Senate directories including fax numbers may be found at:

gopher://ftp.senate.gov:70
gopher://una.hh.lib.umich.edu:70/0/socsci/polscilaw/uslegi


Additional information about the ACLU's position on this issue and others
affecting civil liberties online and elsewhere may be found at:

gopher:\\aclu.org:6601
OR request our FAQ at [e-mail]

-----------------------------------------------cut
here----------------------------------------------------------

SAMPLE LETTER

Dear Senator _______:

I am writing to urge you to oppose the restrictions on speech that would
be imposed by the legislation introduced by Senator Exon, known as the
Communications Decency Act of 1995,  S.314, introduced on 2/2/95.  The
Exon proposal would severely restrict the flow of online information by
requiring service providers to act as private censors of e-mail messages,
public forums, mailing lists, and archives to avoid criminal liability. I
believe that online users should be the only censors of the content of the
messages they receive.

I urge you to:

   *  Oppose the Exon proposal, or any Senate or House variation.

   *  Drop the Exon proposal BEFORE it goes to the Senate floor.

   *  Hold full hearings on the Exon proposal and review it thoroughly
before it goes to the Senate floor.

   *  Reject any effort to attach the Exon proposal to the Senate
telecommunications legislation.

Sincerely,
[name]
--
ACLU Free Reading Room  |  American Civil Liberties Union
gopher://aclu.org:6601  | 132 W. 43rd Street, NY, NY 10036
mailto:[e-mail]|    "Eternal vigilance is the
ftp://ftp.pipeline.com  |         price of liberty"

=-----------------------------------------------------------------------=

THE JAKE BAKER CASE!  Going to jail for email!  Another power grab by the
feds! The feds are SICK! He wasn't transmitting real threats via interstate
commerce, he was publishing his thoughts that he might be capable of doing
something to somebody, thoughts are not deeds!  Let him go!

Date: Tue, 14 Feb 1995 23:59:18 -0600 (CST)
From: David Smith <[e-mail]>
Subject: File 1--Affidavit of FBI agent against Baker

            ==============================================

              United States Attorney
              Easten District of Michigan


              211 W. Fort Street
              Suite 2300
              Detroit, MI 48221-3211


              February 9, l995

  CONTACT:  [phone]

       United states Attorney Saul A. Green announced that Jake A.
  Baker, Alan known as Abraham Jacob Alkhabaz, an undergraduate
  student at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, was charged
  today in a federal criminal complaint With transmitting a threat
  to injure "Jane Doe,  a student at the University of Michigan.
  Baker was arrested on the complaint in Ann Arbor at approximately
  1:00 p.m. and subsequently transported to the federal courthouse
  in Detroit for an initial appearance.

       Mr. Green stated that the criminal charge is based upon a
  series of transmissions Mr. Baker made on the Internet computer
  network.  on approximately January 19, 1995, the University of
  Michigan Department of Public Sarety became aware that Baker had
  transmitted communications on the Internet describing violent sex
  acts against women, and that at least one transmission identified
  Jane Doe as the specific victim of sexual torture and murder.  A
  series of subsequent transmissions between Baker and others on
  the Internet system discussed plans for the abduction, torture,
  and murder of women.

       Mr. Green explained that Mr. Baker's transmissions on the
  Internet gave rise to a charge under 18 U.S.C. s 875(c), which
  criminalizes the transmission in interstate or foreign commerce
  of a communication "containing any threat to kidnap any person or
  any threat to injure the person of another."  Mr. Green further
  emphasized that the criminal complaint against Baker is merely a
  charging document, and that Baker is presumed innocent of the
  charge.  The investigation, which is being handled by the Federal
  Bureau of Investigation, is still in progress,


                          AFFIDAVIT


  Greg Stejskal, being first duly sworn, states:


       1.    I am  a Special  Agent  with the  Federal  Bureau  of
  Investigation, and have been so employed for the past 19 years.
  be following is known to me to be true through personal interviews
  and investigation.


       2 .  Abraham Jacob Alkhabaz, also known as Jake Baker , is an
  undergraduate student at the University of Michigan (UM) in Ann
  Arbor,  Michigan. Baker has access to computers and has been
  assigned a unique name (password/identifier) by the university.
  Baker has, via his computer, access to a computer network commonly
  referred to as "Internet." Internet is a world-wide information
  network used in interstate and foreign commerce.   Accordingly,
  Material transmitted into Internet is communicated and distributed
  in interstate and foreign commerce.


       3.   On or about  January 19,  1995, University of Michigan
  Department  of Public  Safety  (UMDPS)  becamee aware  of  certain
  activities of Jake Baker, i.e., the transmission into Internet of
  "stories"  graphically  depicting  violent  acts  against  women.
  Further, UMDPS learned that at least one of these transmissions
  named a female student at US as the specific target/victim.  The
  name of the female student is known to me, but will be identified
  in this affidavit only as "Jane Doe."


       4.  On January 20, 1995, Baker was contacted by UMDPS officers
  regarding the Internet transmissions.  After being advised of and
  waiving his Miranda rights, Baker admitted writing and "posting"
  (transmitting) several depictions  into  the Internet  computer
  network.  these transmissions were placed in a "compartment" of the
  system labelled "alt. sex stories (a.s.s.)"


       5.  The transmissions distributed by Baker through Internet
  described Baker's desire to commit acts of abduction, bondage,
  torture, mutilation, sodomy, rape and murder of young women.  The
  depictions  of  these  criminal  acts  are  extremely graphic  and
  detailed.


       6.   In a preface to one of the transmissions,  with an
  unidentified victim, Baker writes, "Torture is foreplay, rape is
  romance, snuff is climax."


      7.  one of the depictions transmitted by Baker into Internet
  Involved UM Co-eds Jane Doe, who Baker identified by her true name,
  Using her last name as the title of the "story."  In a portion of
  Baker's expressed desire to injure Jane Doe, Baker states:


  Then, Jerry and I tie her by her long brown
  hair  to  the  ceiling  fan,  so  that  she's
  dangling in mid-air.  Her feet don't touch the
  ground,  She kicks trying to hit me, Jerry or
  the gorund (sic).  The sight of her wiggling
  an mid-air,  hands rudely taped behind her
  back, turns me on.   Jerry takes a big spiky
  hair-brush and start beating her small breasts
  with it, coloring them with nice red marks.
  She  screams  and  struggles  harder.    I've
  separated her legs with a spreader-bar; now I
  stretch out her pussy lips and super-glue them
  wide open.   Then I take a heavy clamp, and
  tighten it coer her alit.   once it's tight
  enough, I let go.

  Thus transmission and other similar transmissions may have been
  posted previously, but were posted or reposted on or about January
  1, 1995.


       8.  Baker knew Jane Doe as a class-mate from a Japanese class
  at UM  in the Fall  of  1994.   Jane  Doe  is aware of Baker's
  transmission concerning her and ir frightened and intimidated by
  it.

       9.  In late January l995, Baker signed various consent forms
  giving permission to the UMDPS to search and/or access his room,
  personal papers and computer files.   This included the use of
  Baker's  unique  password,  which  provided  access  to  Baker's
  electronic mail  (e-mail).   The hearth of the assail produced
  numerous messages between Baker and an individual identifying
  himself as Arthur Gronda supposedly residineding in Ontario, Canada.
  In these messages sent and received via Internet, Baker and Gronda
  discuss means of torture and acts of actual serial killers that had
  been reported in the media.   Further, Baker and Gronda discuss
  actually getting together to commit the acts Baker had previously
  depicted and transmitted.   The following is an excerpt from a
  message sent by Baker to Gonda on or about December 9, l994:

  I just picked up Bllod (sic) Lust and have
  started to read it.   I'll look for "Final
  Truth" tomorrow (payday).  One of the things
  I've  started doing is going back and re-
  reading earlier messages of yours.  Each time
  I do, they turn me on more and more.  I can't
  wait to see you in person.  I've  been trying
  to  think  of  secluded  spots,  but my  area
  knowledge of Ann Arbor is mostly limited to
  the campus.  I don't want any blood in my
  room, though I have come upon an excellent
  method to abduct a bitch ---

  As I said before, my toom is right across from
  the girl's bathroom.  Wiat (sic) until late at
  night, grab her when she goes to unlock the
  door.  Knock her unconscious and put her into
  one of those portable lockers (forgot the word
  for it), or even a duffle bag.  Then hurry her
  out to the car and take her away . . . what do
  you think?

  On or about December 10, 1994, the following response was sent via
  lnternet to Baker by Gonda:

  Hi Jake.   I have been out tonight and I can
  tell you that I am thinking more and more
  about "doing" a girl. I can picture it so
  well . . . and I can think of no better use
  for their flesh.   I HAVE to make a bitch
  suffer!


  10.   Based on the aforementioned facts, there is probable
   cause to believe that Abraham Jacob Alkhabaz, also known as Jake
   Baker,  knowingly transmitted a threat to injure the person of
   another in interstate and foreign commerce in violation of Title
   18, United States Code, Section 875(c).



                                     __________________________
                                     Greg Stetskal, Special Agent
                                     Federal Bureau of Investigation


  Subscribed and sworn to before
  me this 9th day of February, l995.

  _____________________________________
  Hon. Thomas A. Carlson
  United States Magistrate Judge


                         - - -
                ANDREW S. BRENNER, Esq

               [e-mail]
                 [e-mail]
      http://www.interaccess.com/users/abrenner
  finger [e-mail] for PGP public key

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 21:44:04 -0600 (CST)
From: David Smith <[e-mail]>
Subject: File 2--soc.culture.usa, et al.-Re: Censorship at U of Michigan (fwd)

                    ----- Forwarded message ------
From: [e-mail] (Peter Swanson)
Subject-- Re: Censorship at U of Michigan
Date: 16 Feb 1995 05:29:11 GMT

               MORE INFORMATION ON THE JAKE BAKER CASE

I have several days worth of newspapers here; I will try to briefly
summarize the new information contained in the accounts

[DPS == Department of Public Safety (University Police)]
[SSRR == Statement of Student Rights and Responsibilities]

Sequence of Events (Jonathan Berndt/Michigan Daily)
December and January: Baker transmits e-mail messages to a man
  in Ontario describing the kidnapping, rape, and murder of a woman.
1/9/95 The story in question posted to alt.sex.stories
1/19/95 A 16 year old girl in Moscow reads the story, then tells
  her father, who tells a Michigan alumnus, who notifies the University.
1/20/95 DPS officers contact Baker.  Baker waives his Miranda rights
  and admits to writing and posting the stories.  DPS officers search
  Baker's room and account with permission, finding an unpublished story
  and the e-mail conversations.
2/2/95 University President Duderstadt suspends Baker.
2/9/95 FBI arrests Baker on basis of stories and e-mail.  Bail is denied.
2/10/95 After a detention hearing, Baker is again denied bail.  A defense
  appeal for bail bond is denied.  Pre-trial motions scheduled for 2/17/95.

The Media free-for-all (Patience Atkin/Michigan Daily)
Detroit Free Press: "Debate between free speech and whether it's a
  threat for the woman's safety." --Maryanne George
WDIV-4 TV Detroit: "It also goes to the issue of what constitutes
  free speech and what constitutes unreasonable threats." --Paul Manzella
  "People who make threats in society are always a concern to people
  who don't make threats." --Manzella
Spin: "fantasy" --Detroit Free Press
      "sexually violent fiction" --New York Times
      "cyber-threats" --USA Today

Baker judged 'too dangerous' to be released (Josh White/Michigan Daily)
  ...Baker's attorney, Douglas Mullkoff, said the detention of his
client is unwarranted.
  "The court is presuming that he is guilty," Mullkoff said.  "I
respectfully disagree with every word the judge said.  Mr. Baker
was writing fiction in a fiction area of the Internet."
  During Baker's appeal hearing Friday afternoon, Mullkoff drew a
similar picture.  "We have a fantasy writer's workshop going on
here," he said.  "That is the Internet."
  ...U.S. Attorney Ken Chadwell entered six documents into evidence
as part of the case against Baker.  Three of the documents were
stories that Baker had posted on the Internet, two were batches
of e-mail messages to and from Gonda, and one, a previously
unreleased document, was an incomplete story that DPS officers
discovered in Baker's East Quad dorm room.
  FBI Special Agent Greg Stejskal, the only witness to testify
at the Friday hearings, said the incomplete story named the same
female University student and posed a further threat to her safety.
  "The story involves Mr. Baker abducting the female student and
taking her to a secluded place off of Route 23 in Ann Arbor.,"
Stejskal said.  "He tells her to disrobe, to take a toolbox
from his car and then uses the tools to torture her."
  Baker, in his unfinished story, describes the abduction in detail.
  "I plan it well," Baker wrote.  "It will be my first kidnapping;
my first real rape of a pretty young girl.  My first experimentation
with all the devices of pain I had thought up before.  I obsessed
about my target more than any other girl on campus."
  Baker's mother, Vilma Baker, said she was shocked after watching
her son handcuffed and taken out of the courtroom by U.S. Marshals.
  "The judge must have woken up this morning and thought he
was a psychiatrist," said Mrs. Baker, a creative writing teacher
in Ohio.  "While his writing is alarming and I don't particularly
like my son's genre; then again I don't like Stephen King or
sitcoms.  It was just fantasy."
  But Chadwell said Baker's stories went beyond being creative.
   ..."There is a natural progression in these cases," Chadwell
said.  "He was actually talking about taking action in things he
could do to women.  He writes in a message to Gonda that 'just
thinking about it anymore doesn't do the trick.  I need to DO IT.'"
  ...The letters themselves sent mixed messages.  "Sometimes, I'll
see a pretty one out in the quad and think 'Go on Jake, it'd be
easy.' But the fear of getting caught always stays my hand,"
Baker wrote to Gonda on Dec. 9.
  "Sorry, can't come up with an ending to that Asian story yet.
I will soon though, hang in there."

Prosecutors push Baker indictment (Josh White/Michigan Daily) (summary)
  U.S. Attorney Ken Chadwell is pushing for an early indictment
of Baker.  A probable cause hearing is scheduled for Friday.
  Defense attorney Douglas Mullkoff is appealing the no-bond
ruling in the 6th U.S. circuit court in Cincinatti.  He expects
the appeal (for bail) to be approved, but the next step may be
the U.S. Supreme Court.
  The Ontario Provincial Police deny having been notified of the
case and are not, in fact, looking for Arthur Gonda.

'U' had Baker e-mail before suspension, officials confirm
(Cathy Boguslaski, Ronnie Glassberg/Michigan Daily)(summary)
  The President suspended Baker with the knowledge of Baker's
e-mail.  Before suspending him, Assistant General Counsel
Daniel Sharphorn and Director of Housing Public Affairs
Alan Levy asked Baker to withdraw from the University.
Vince Keenan, chair of the Michigan Student Assembly
Students' Rights Commission, said that Baker would be
difficult to charge under the SSRR, and that he suspected
that the President summarily suspended him because he
knew that the SSRR charges wouldn't stick.

Woman named in stories declines to make comment (Josh White/Michigan Daily)
After repeated press contacts, Jane Doe has requested that the
press stop pestering her.

ACLU: Baker's free speech rights violated (Josh White/Michigan Daily)
  ..."This case definitely has First Amendment ramifications," said
Howard Simon, executive director of the Michigan ACLU.  "His
stories may have been disgusting and vile, but I have seen nothing
that would appear to be a threat to any person.
  "If Mr. Baker had sent a letter to the woman he named in his
story, or had he slipped something under her door or e-mailed
her a threatening message, the there may have been something, but
it would be a civil suit brought by the woman.
  "The germane issue is: Is the FBI going to dictate what
the First Amendment is going to look like in cyberspace?  Will
people be prosecuted for putting pornography and disgusting
stories on the Internet in places set aside for them?  It is
not the FBI's place to be writing the First Amendment over again."...


An editorial letter in the Daily reports that Baker put a disclaimer
and warning about the content of his story at the top of his post.

Several news sources, including the Daily, Free Press, and local
TV stations, have done background checks on Baker, but nothing
ominous has surfaced and the accounts seem to be hearsay anyway.
High school friends, etc., told a great deal of personal information
about Mr. Baker, but nothing I would consider worth the trouble
of retyping.



I will be disconnected from the net for about a week, so I will be
unable to report the status of the Friday probable cause hearing,
the bail appeal to the circuit court, or the results of the grand
jury investigation.  Again, others are welcome to follow up on these
stories.

If someone has the story in question, I am interested in obtaining
it and making it available on a WWW site.  I would prefer that all
references to the woman's name be changed to Jane Doe, so that no one
comes asking me for her name.  I would certainly do it myself before
making it publicly available.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 00:08:08 -0600 (CST)
From: David Smith <[e-mail]>
Subject: File 3--Baker chronology

This is a document from Mike Dyer's Netzine web page --
http://www.ionet.net/~mdyer/netwatch.html.  There are several other
interesting, indepth articles on the legal and ethical aspects of
cyberspace.  Recommended hotlist addition.

This is the best summary I've seen to date.  The web page also lists
several other supporting documents.

thanks,               | "The most exciting breakthroughs of the 21st century
                      | will not occur because of technology  but because
David Smith           | of an expanding concept of what it means to be human."
[e-mail]        |               -- John Naisbitt / Patricia Aburdene

               ---------- Forwarded message ----------

  LAST UPDATED 2/14/95

     _________________________________________________________________

Only Make Believe



   Jake Baker (pictured) has the attention of a great many people. The 20
   year old University of Michigan student has caused an firestorm of
   controversy over a fictional story he published in a Usenet newsgroup
   that now has polarized two camps. On the one side are the advocates of
   virtually unlimited 1st Amendment Free Speech rights, and on the
   other, a host of womens groups and others concerned that the founding
   fathers never intended their handiwork to go this far. Piecing
   together bits and pieces from various news and information, here is
   the latest I have been able to unravel:


     _________________________________________________________________

  BACKGROUND



   Baker, 20, a Linguistics Major of Boardman, Ohio, who last year
   changed his name from Abraham Jacob Alkhabaz, posted three "stories"
   in the Newsgroup Alt.Sex.Stories. In one of the fictional stories,
   Baker, who used his real name and that of a girl who had been a
   classmate in a Japanese language class last fall, described a scenario
   where he and another man broke into the girl's apartment, beat,
   tortured and sodomized the girl, and then lit a match as he said
   goodbye to the girl, presumably to burn the apartment where the girl
   was bound and gagged.

   Although such stories are not uncommon in the newsgroup, apparently
   the use of real names of both the author and others involved is rare.
   Baker claims that the motivation for the story was underlying stress
   having to do with a student loan. He says he chose that particular
   girl because "she was an attractive young woman, and I needed a name
   for the story I was writing". He stated that he knew the girl, but he
   never spoke to her.

   It is not known if Baker used his University password to get the
   access to post the story. The school requires students to sign a
   statement, before using campus computers, which says, among other
   things, "E-mail should not interfere unreasonably with one's
   education, or work at the University, nor should they harass or
   threaten an individual or group."


     _________________________________________________________________

      January 9

   --A University of Michigan alumnus, living in Moscow, saw the post and
   alerted University officials.

      February 2

   --Baker was escorted from the campus on February 2, and suspended.

      February 3

   --Baker and his attorney meet with school officials to ask that Baker
   be allowed to resume classes and his duties as a projectionist on the
   north campus.

      February 9

   --A hearing is held on the UM campus. At approximately 1:00 p.m.,
   prior to the scheduled hearing, Baker is arrested by federal
   authorities at the office of his attorney. Baker is taken before a
   magistrate, charged with Interstate Transmission of a Threat, in
   violation of 18 U.S.C. sec. 875, which carries a maximum prison term
   of five years. He is also accused of sending and receiving e-mail
   correspondence with an unnamed Canadian man, in which both describe
   their desire to kidnap and torture women. Baker is jailed overnight
   without bail, even though the prosecutor recommends bond be set.

      February 9

   --Baker's mother and an Ann Arbor psychiatrist appear at the hearing
   on the UM campus. The psychiatrist and Baker's mother both testify
   that Jake is not a threat to anyone on campus. The psychiatrist
   characterizes the writings as "thoughts", with no plan of action. The
   psychiatrist also states that Baker is not delusional. Baker's
   attorney states that Baker has no criminal record.

      February 10

   --U.S. Magistrate Thomas Carolson orders Baker held without bail, in
   spite of the prosecutor's request that bond be set at $100,000.
   Magistrate Judge Carolson stated that the posts were "more than just a
   story" and quoted the messages to the unnamed Ontario man as stating
   "Just thinking about it any more doesn't do the trick. I need to do
   it." The magistrate further noted that the correspondence involved
   where and how to carry out such an assault. A court affidavit of an
   FBI agent states that the messages between Baker and the Canadian man
   "described Baker's desire to commit acts of abduction, bondage,
   torture, mutilation, sodomy rape and murder of young women. Baker's
   mother, a high school English teacher, said after the UM campus
   hearing that her son chose the name from 200 names in a class, and
   picked the one he did simply because the woman's last name "is a
   sexual pun." Baker's defense attorney announces that he will appeal
   the denial of bail.

      February 10

   --A U.S. District Judge, having read the e-mail correspondence between
   Baker and the Canadian man, upheld the ruling of the Magistrate Judge
   to hold Baker for trial without bail. Saying "I wouldn't want my
   daughter to be on the streets of Ann Arbor or Ohio with him in the
   condition I believe he is in at this time", Judge Bernard Friedman
   said that he was convinced that the female subject of Baker's story,
   whose identity Judge Friedman ordered kept secret, could not be
   protected from Baker unless he was jailed. At the hearing, Baker's
   attorney presented findings of a psychiatrist and psychologist, both
   of whom had spoken with Baker, who stated that Baker is not dangerous
   or mentally ill. The attorney also pointed out that Baker had
   cooperated with authorities, giving them his e-mail password as they
   searched for evidence.


     _________________________________________________________________

    *Sidenote:*

   Last April, another UM student used a classmate's logon to post
   statements from an Organization for the Execution of Minorities, which
   threatened blacks, and criticized Latinos, Jews and gays.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 00:09:13 -0600 (CST)
From: David Smith <[e-mail]>
Subject: File 4--Text of 18 USC 41 Sect. 875c (of Baker Indictment)

                  UNITED STATES CODE ANNOTATED
            TITLE 18.  CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE
                         PART I--CRIMES
                CHAPTER 41--EXTORTION AND THREATS

  s 875. Interstate communications

  (a) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any
 communication containing any demand or request for a ransom or
 reward for the release of an kidnapped person, shall be fined
 under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or
 both.

  (b) Whoever, with intent to extort from any person, firm,
 association, or corporation, any money or other thing of value,
 transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication
 containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to
 injure the person of another, shall be fined under this titl or
 imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

  (c) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any
 communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any
 threat to injure the person of another, shall be fined under
 this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

  (d) Whoever, with intent to extort from any person, firm,
 association, or corporation, any money or other thing of value,
 transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication
 containing any threat to injure the proper or reputation of the
 addressee or of another or the reputation of a deceased person
 or any threat to accuse the addressee or any other person of a
 crime, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more
 than two years, or both.

------------------------------


SARASOTA HERALD-TRIBUNE / WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1994


 JACKSONVILLE FLORIDA - Police patrolling the information highway have arrested
a computer bulletin board operator on charges that he provided subscribers
with photos of adults having sex.

  George S. Frena, 44, was charged with selling or transmitting obscene
material from Tech's Warehouse, a computer sales company he manages in
Mandarin, authorities said Monday.

  Frena said about 800 area residents subscribed to the bulletin board, most
from Jacksonville.

  Police joined the service for $60 and obtained material from the bulletin from
June through October, an arrest docket states.

  "The significance is we're showing these people that the police department
can match them in the new computer information highway," said Capt. David
Sembach, who leads the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office organized crime unit.

  It is the first time Jacksonville police have made an arrest in connection
with a computer bulletin board service.

  Frena said subscribers, who signed forms indicating that they are adults,
provided the photos, which were subsequently transmitted to the bulletin board.
He offers about 3000 computer images.

  After his arrest, he removed 100 images that authorities said were
pornographic and has resumed operating the service.

  Police said some of the images they found included hard-core pornography of
adult couples having sex, which a judge ruled were obscene.

  "We didn't know that they were considered against community standards," Frena
said.

  Frena said he provides games and other programs in addition to sexual images.
He posted a $1,000 bond and has been released from jail.

  Vice detectives cought wind of the service from an informant who said a child
accidentally logged on to the bulletin board.

  Authorities are trying to determine if the subscribers, who each paid $60 to

----------------------------------------------------------

Nov 9, 1994: Colo's Amendment 16 Defeated!  Let's party hearty Nyuk!

----------------------------------------------------------

From: MARK PEARSALL
  To: ALL
Subj: 9NEWS SMEARS BBS'S
Date: 10/21/94

         CHANNEL 9 NEWS DOES FLUFF PIECE SMEARING ALL BBS's
                     FEATURE STORY AT 10 PM

Amendment 16 is on the ballot.  If it passes, it will allow cities, counties
and municipalities to establish conflicting definitions of what constitutes
obscenity.  Then mainstream booksellers, libraries, video stores, cable TV
providers and even health education organizations could be criminally charged
with distributing materials that are legal in one district but are considered
illegal pornography in another district. This would be an extremely difficult
situation for the system operators of local computer bulletin boards, who
typically get calls from many different areas.

On the 10 o'clock news on Thursday, October 20, Channel 9 in Denver did a
feature story on "PC Pornography", heavily slanted against all BBS's, just two
weeks prior to the last day of voting.  The story began with reporter Tom
Costello "reporting live" from the street in front of one of the adult
bookstores on East Colfax, "to make a comparison between what is available
there and what is readily available to children who call online BBS's and the
Internet."

An anonymous youth is shown furiously typing away on a keyboard as various
adult GIF listings and local BBS screens are briefly flashed at odd angles,
simulating a drunken frenzy.  Sounds of modem connections and keyboard tapping
are played in the background as the young lad in a baseball cap explains that
he has found porno GIFs on his own school's computer.  He said that if he were
caught entering an adult bookstore, he would be "in deep kimchee", but finding
the same thing online was so easy, because all he needed was the password of an
18 year old user.

Reporter Tom Costello apparently could not find the ON button by himself
because the feature then showed 9News' "computer expert", Bill Boyer, showing
how easy it is to get pornography online.  Then there was a brief clip of
Detective Hunt of the Colorado Springs Police Department (just a coincidence?)
telling us that the FBI and the police are both working to "crack down on this
type of crime".

We flash back to our man on the street, Tom Costello, who in the worst
imitation of Dragnet's Joe Friday ever viewed, says, " and where do kids get
the numbers for these porno BBS's?  From right here in computer papers like
this..." as he dramatically opens up a recent issue of Colorado Computer User
with the name of the paper blocking the view of his face.  Anyone who was not
familiar with the free publication would have thought the entire newspaper was
filled with adult BBS numbers, when in fact it contains a very small listing
amid computer articles and local advertising.

If Costello would have had an Abbot with him it might have been funny. The
obvious intent of this tabloid-style sensationalism is to alarm parents and
boost ratings, all at the expense of the reputation of the online community in
general.  Friday, the next feature in this series on "PC Pornography" will
focus on "Pedophiles who use BBS's to connect with their innocent victims".

Who is paying for this politically motivated smear campaign?  9News was evasive
when asked who their sponsors were, and they refused to answer phones past
10:45pm.  Local commercials seen immediately before and after the 10pm News
were: Pizza Hut: Castle Rock and two Colorado Springs locations (another
coincidence?), John Elway Honda, John Elway Nissan and a Bruce Benson campaign
commercial.

Channel 9 is abusing their rights under the First Amendment protecting free
speech in a subtle attempt to influence your vote on Colorado's Amendment 16
ballot issue which would narrow our current freedom of expression, legitimize
censorship and potentially snowball into further legislation specifically
limiting online resources and activities.

I urge you to call Channel 9 [phone] and register your complaint against
this "PC Pornography" series, and to call their sponsors and ask them if they
support the right to free expression.  Feel free to capture this message and
re-post it on local BBS's.  Finally, please vote NO on Amendment 16.


    *                   *                                 *

STOP AMENDMENT 16!!!!  READ READ READ READ READ!!!!!

    From: Lago
      To: All
 Subject: Obscenity Amendment

Censorship may be on the way... following is the wording of the proposed
constitutional amendment #16 which is an attempt to make it easier to
prosecute adult material in Colorado:

The title to the proposed constitutional amendment is as follows:

  "**THE STATE AND ANY CITY, TOWN, CITY AND COUNTY, OR COUNTY MAY
CONTROL THE PROMOTION OF OBSCENITY TO THE FULL EXTENT PERMITTED BY THE
FIRST AMENDMENT TO THE U.S. CONSTITUTION, AND THEREBY PREVENTING THE
COLORADO COURTS FROM INTERPRETING THE RIGHT OF FREE EXPRESSION MORE
BROADLY UNDER THE COLORADO CONSTITUTION THAN UNDER THE FIRST AMENDMENT
TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION IN THE AREA OF OBSCENITY."

The actual wording as it will appear in the Colorado constitution if
passed will be:

"TO THE FULL EXTENT PERMITTED BY THE FIRST AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION
OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, THE PROMOTION OF OBSCENITY MAY BE
CONTROLLED BY THE STATE AND ANY CITY, TOWN, CITY AND COUNTY, OR COUNTY
WITHIN THE UNINCORPORATED ARE OF THE COUNTY."

In case y'all have not been following this, the blue nosed keepers of
your morals tried to get this passed by the legislature but failed...
now they are going directly to the voters, and it will be on the ballot
in November.

You can bet your next years salary that, if passed, every town, county
and the state will have all kinds of laws and ordinances passed in an
attempt to prohibit almost all types of adult entertainment, including,
in some smaller communities and rural areas, Playboy and similar
publications... and I suspect IT WILL INCLUDE ATTEMPTS TO DECLARE ADULT
BBS AS ILLEGAL, especially if they carry GIF's.

If you enjoy adult entertainment & adult BBSes, I would URGE that you
vote against this amendment and get your friends to do the same.

Call Big Boy's BBS 303-458-3832.



*              *                      *                      *            *

Article in The Air Force Times, October 24, 1994

'Network nation' is a whole new realm of law  -  by T.R. Reid

     Here's a multiple-choice question:  The operator of a computer bulletin
board system (BBS) most resembles which of the following?  (1) a public
library;  (2) a newspaper publisher;  (3) a radio station;  (4) the bartender
of a saloon where people sit and talk;  (5) a telephone company;  or (6) the
postal service.

     And the answer is - well, nobody can really figure it out.  But lot's of
lawyers are trying.

     The "network nation" is growing fast; some estimates of computer bulletin
boards range into the hundreds of thousands.  Bulletin boards are so common
they have become a matter of concern to legislators, regulators and judges.

     These institutions are struggling to come up with a coherent body of "BBS
law."  The results have been fairly incoherent, largely because nobody can
decide which of the traditional information media a BBS most resembles.

     The wonderful thing about the BBS as a form of mass communication is its
low cost.  As Ralph Nader has noted, the computer BBS is "the lowest
entry-barrier mass-media system in history."  And this huge new form of mass
media is almost entirely a private creation.

     Now Congress and the courts are rushing to catch up.  But efforts to forge
rules of civil law for the network nation have been difficult.

     Consider the problem of libel.  Let's say User X logs on to a national BBS
and leaves a public message falsely asserting that Mr. Z killed Nicole Simpson.
Mr. Z, who can prove he as in Albany at the time, wants to sue.

     The obvious defendant is X, but X may be too poor to pay damages.  So the
libel victim is apt to sue the company that operates the BBS system.  Can he
win?  Maybe.

     In a recent law review article, California lawyer Eric Schlacter reviewed
the defamation cases to date and concluded the verdict will depend on what the
court thinks a BBS really is.

     If the BBS is considered a courier of messages - like the postal service -
a court probably will say it is not liable for their content.  But in the case
of a BBS like Prodigy, which polices the messages its users upload, a court may
decide the BBS operator is more like a newspaper or a billboard owner, and
legally responsible for what is posted thereon.

     There are other considerations:  Unlike other media, the BBS makes it very
simple to reply to a libelous statement.  On most systems, Mr. Z's reply to the
charge against him automatically would be linked to the original message. Since
it is so easy in cyberspace to defend yourself, courts may well decide
traditional damages for libel are not necessary.

     Similar questions arise in criminal law.  What about pornography on a
computer network, for example?  Is the BBS operator subject to prosecution,
like a magazine publisher?  Or is the BBS system merely a courier service?

     An important consideration here is that a BBS is harder too access than a
magazine.  It is less likely that anyone will be involuntarily subjected to
offensive material, since the user has to take the active steps of dialing a
number and signing on.  Should pornography laws be revised?

     The questions and many more are under debate now in the legal community.
When you go online, you are operatiing on the frontiers of a whole new realm of
law.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

T.R. Reid served on the nuclear naval staff of Adm. Hyman Rickover; he is Tokyo
bureau chief of The Washington Post.

-------------------------------------



Here's a typical example of hate mongers wanting the govt. to send cops
to the Information Highway (Iway) supposedly to stop other hate mongers
Nyuk!  Fork them all, we don't want no cops on the Iway!!!!

Copyright, 1994, U.S. News & World Report All rights reserved.
U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT, AUGUST 8, 1994

HATEMONGERING ON THE DATA HIGHWAY

BIGOTRY CARVES OUT A NICHE IN CYBERSPACE

Chicago computer buff Bob Arbetman was happily surfing through
cyberspace one night when his attention was drawn to a bulletin
board offering titled HOLOHOAX.TXT.  Tapping in, Arbetman found
himself in touch with a professional Holocaust denier whose message,
he says, was rabidly antisemitic.  ``It was straight neo-Nazi
propaganda,'' recalls the 37-year-old electrical engineer.

Outraged by what he was downloading, Arbetman alerted the Simon
Wiesenthal Center, the Los Angeles-based institute that exposes neo-
Nazis and other bigots.  His tip and calls from others who had
encountered similar online, often violent, antiblack, antigay,
antisemitic hate messages triggered an extensive three-year
investigation by Wiesenthal researcher Rick Eaton.  The result,
U.S. NEWS has learned, is a massive dossier of cyberspace
hatemongering that the Wiesenthal Center has just submitted to FCC
Chairman Reed Hundt.  ``It may be time for the FCC to place a cop on
the superhighway of information,'' says Rabbi Abraham Cooper,
Wiesenthal Center associate dean.

A RIGHT TO HATE.

But any attempt to police cyberspace is fraught with practical and
legal issues.  The FCC, which oversees the nation's airwaves, has no
jurisdiction over the Internet, the sprawling computer network of
more than a million computers in universities, research institutions,
private companies and homes around the world.  Like the international
telephone system, there is no overall governing body that checks on
the system's estimated 25 million users.

Controlling Internet traffic would not necessarily be legal, even if
it were possible.  ``This is strictly a First Amendment issue,'' says
Mike Godwin, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a
Washington-based public interest group devoted to cyberspace freedom.
The question is whether the Internet is more like a public broadcast
system such as television or radio, and so subject to control; or
more like the telephone system or the mail, which have greater
freedoms over the content of the messages.  Unless hate mail directly
interferes with civil liberties, insists Godwin, ``I can't conceive
of any constitutional controls.''  Net users who do not want to view
the material can simply block it, he says.

The very strengths of the Internet--its broad accessibility, open-
minded discussions and anonymity--can be used to advantage by
hatemongers.  Sophisticated bigots often infiltrate otherwise
legitimate discussion groups on the Net that deal with history or
sociology.  Cooper is especially alarmed because cyberspace provides
hatemongers with far easier access to two things they never have had
before: a mass audience and the attention of young, unsuspecting
users.  ``It's the natural venue for peddling their wares to computer
age kids,'' says Cooper.

Some of the offerings are frightening invitations to violence and
hate.  A file called HOMOBASH describes shooting a gay person in the
face with a handgun.  A graphic titled MONKEY pictures blacks
copulating with animals and suggests this was the start of the AIDS
epidemic.  Another shows a bare-chested, hooknosed Jew holding a
bloody knife and standing in a sea of gentile blood.

Some commercial networks, such as Prodigy, say they have taken steps
to ban the use of their systems by propagandists of bias.  Vinton
Cerf, president of the Internet Society, a user organization, says he
and his colleagues are preparing a set of voluntary norms they hope
will put restraints on racists and other objectionable E-mailers.
But guidelines may have little effect in a freewheeling venue such as
the Internet.  The FCC, for its part, turned the Wiesenthal Center
dossier over to the Justice Department last week.

The most effective protection against bigotry on the Net, argue many
enthusiasts, lies in the freedom that has characterized the culture
from the start.  Cyberhate so enraged 53-year-old Vancouver resident
Ken McVay, for instance, that he established his own server list that
already provides thousands of carefully documented responses to the
odious claims of extremists and Holocaust deniers.  ``It's the only
way to answer these liars,'' says McVay.  ``Every time we knock down
one of these guys, it's there forever in the computer.''

BY RICHARD Z. CHESNOFF



From    : PH00BAR                                Number    : 54 of 62
To      : ALL                                    Date      : 08/01/94 5:32pm
Subject : More hatred in Cyberspace              Reference : NONE
Read    : [N/A]                                  Private   : NO
Conf    : 002 - Cyberpunks

Here's a pretty scary message from a Fidonet sysop affiliated with the
Religious Reich.  Folks may want to pass it on to sysops who run boards
with "Pagan" material (or send this nut some email via an anonymous
Internet remailer...:-)
=========================================================================
I just FTPed this from the Fidonet archives over at ftp.fidonet.org.  It
looks as if, if this nut case has his way, we may have a "Waco in
cyberspace".  For those of you who "enjoyed" Ralph Stokes' Ruckmanite spam
entitled "Beware of Roman Catholic Corruption" which brewed in the bowels
of Fidoland for years before spilling over into Internet/Usenet, Steve
Winter has the *POTENTIAL* to do far more damage.  He owns not only a Fido
node, but the entire "PRIME Net" structure, as well.  His Internet address,
BTW, is "[e-mail]".  Yes, the ".n18" means he's
in Fidonet region 18, just like our old "friend" Ralph (the Mouth) Stokes
<[e-mail]>.  If those two were ever to team
up...
If you doubt the truthfulness of this, because of my need to post
anonymously, feel free to FTP the file for yourself and have a look.  The
file can be obtained via anonymous FTP from ftp.fidonet.org as
/pub/fidonet/fidonews/fnewsb29.lzh and you can verify this for yourself.

Anyway, enjoy, beware, learn, or whatever:
**********************************************************************
F I D O  N E W S --                   Vol.11  No.29    (18-Jul-1994)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The FIDO Crucifixion
by Steve Winter (1:18/98)

 Some of you out there have been giving me a lot of bad press
lately. I don't really care because the bible tells me that false
christian scum will try to deter me from my mission to correct the
lies and Satan-influenced false teachings of deviant so-called
pastors. I don't care. They can flay my skin, draw and quarter me
and even take steps to censor me in FIDO, but I will carry on.

 Recently, I became aware of a new threat to the true church of
Jesus, that being these people who call themselves "Pagans". They
should more properly call themselves Heathens or even Satanists.
Yes, I have investigated many of these new age BBSs and I have only
one thing to say. THEY MUST GO!!

 The devil will not be allowed to exert domain where Jesus rules
King. We shall persue these godless satanic groups until the last
one has been exorcised or given over to the Lord for disposal. We
must seek them out and destroy their places of depravity and
destroy their rings of stone and their alters where babies are
sacrificed to appease their lord and master Satan himself. Good
Christians everywhere must join together to eradicate this
unwholesome threat to the very fibre and existance of mankind, and
we must do it NOW!

 I am asking the following of every Christian FIDO reader that
can see this message to disrupt, destroy and do away with every
pagan BBS in their area. Crash their their boards, and upload
                          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
viruses, what ever you need to do. These are scum of the earth
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
and if I had MY way these idiots would be swinging from lamp posts
like Mussolini did after World War II. Let the dogs eat their flesh
and the bones be crushed under the feet of the legions of God's
people.

 If we all can get together on this ONE thing, we can eradicate
this threat to mankind within 6 months. Call your local police and
report these deviants. Report their crimes against children and if
possible, infiltrate them so that we can accumulate a listing of
these disgusting pawns of Satan. We must act now or surrender FIDO
to the Satan controlled minions of the dark side of man. Crush them
like the vermin they are. THIS IS WAR!
FidoNews 11-29                 Page:  7                    18 Jul 1994




─ Area: BBS LEGAL ISSUES <<FishNet>> ─────────────────────────────────────────
  Msg#: 11              Sent                         Date: 20 Jul 94  07:11:10
  From: Greg Murray                                  Read: Yes    Replied: No
    To: All                                          Mark:
  Subj: Big Brother is watching
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
     From the Associated Press:

   "MEMPHIS - Forget those plain brown wrappers of yesteryear.
    Pornography has found a place on the information highway, and a
   federal trial in Memphis may become a part of a national debate over
   the transmission of sexually explicit material via the computer.
    A California couple went on trial Monday in the U.S. District Court
   charged with running a so-called " bulletin board " that supplied
   customers in Tennessee and other states with pornographic images sent
   from computer to computer.
    John Russell, a Justice Department spokesman, said obscenity charges
   were filed in Memphis against Robert and Carleen Thomas, both 38, of
   Milpitas, Calif., because authorities here got a complaint about the
   materials carried on their bulletin board.
    The Memphis case and others like it, Russell said, will likely  end
   up before appeals courts and help decide how federal anti-obscenity
   laws apply to materials transmitted by computer.
    Federal courts have held that obscenity is to be judged by community
   standards, and a trial jury in Memphis may have a different standard
   than would a similar jury in California.
    Since computers can send words and images anywhere telephones reach,
   the use of computers to transmit sexually explicit material raises
   thorny legal questions, said Stephen Bates, a senior fellow at the
   Annenburg Washington Program, a communications think tank in
   Washington, D.C.
    "The courts could impose standards of the most sensitive community,
   or the judges could throw up their hands and say the community
   standards device doesn't work anymore," Bates said in an interview
   with The Commercial Appeal of Memphis, the city's morning newspaper.
    The U.S. attorney's office in Memphis has taken on several
   anti-obscenity cases over the years.
    Richard Williams, the Thomases' lawyer, argued unsuccessfully before
   trial that prosecutors shopped around for a location where a jury
   with  conservative views on pornography might be found.
    "If you are going to use the community standard, it should be the
   computer community," Williams said.
    Users of the Thomases' bulletin board, called Amateur Action
   Bulletin Board System, paid $55 for six months or $99 for a year of
   access to their main computer, an indictment against the couple says.
    Using the telephones for computer to computer connections, customers
   were offered a list of titles to images they could receive. The
   titles, some of which were listed in the indictment, indicated
   materials of an explicit sexual nature.
    The 12-count indictment charges the couple with conspiring to send
   obscene materials by interstate telephone lines and by a private
   shipping company. Thomas also is accused of receiving child
   pornography through the mail from an undercover postal inspector."


-!- timEd-B9
 ! Origin:  Rabid Dogma Jam Co.  (21:74/886.6)


7/94:
MEMPHIS, Tenn -- A federal jury convicted a California
couple Thursday of transmitting obscene pictures over a computer
bulletin board.

The case has raised questions, in this age of international
computer networks, about a 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that
defines obscenity by local community standards.

``This case would never have gone to trial in California,''
defense lawyer Richard Williams said.

Prosecutor Dan Newsom, an assistant U.S. attorney, said the
trial was the first he knows of for computer bulletin board
operators charged under federal law with transmitting pornography
featuring sex by adults.

Robert and Carleen Thomas, both 38, of Milpitas, Calif., were
convicted of transmitting sexually obscene pictures through
interstate phone lines via their members-only Amateur Action
Bulletin Board System.

The Thomases were convicted on 11 criminal counts, each carrying
maximum sentences of five years in prison and $250,000 in fines.

Thomas was acquitted on a charge of accepting child pornography
mailed to him by an undercover postal inspector.

The Thomases refused to comment after the verdict. They remain
free on $20,000 bond to await sentencing, for which no date was
set.

Williams said his clients will appeal, arguing the jury was
wrongly instructed on how to apply the Supreme Court's standard on
obscenity.

The trial raised questions of how to apply First Amendment
free-speech protections to ``cyberspace,'' the emerging community
of millions of Americans who use computers and modems to share
pictures and words on every imaginable topic.

Williams argued unsuccessfully before trial that prosecutors
sought out a city for the trial where a conservative jury might be
found.

During the weeklong trial jurors were shown photographs carried
over the Thomases' bulletin board featuring scenes of bestiality
and other sexual fetishes. Williams argued this was voluntary,
private communication between adults who knew what they were
getting by paying $55 for six months or $99 for a year.

Their conviction also covers videotapes they sent to Memphis via
United Parcel Service. The videotapes were advertised over the
bulletin board.



-=-------------------------------------------------------=-
The following article appeared in the Denver (Colorado) Post,
July 21, 1994:

Headline: U.S. TACKLES COMPUTER PORN IN MEMPHIS TRIAL
Associated Press
By Woody Baird

  MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Federal prosecutors are going to court in the
Bible Belt to get rid of pornographic words and images pulsing through
cyberspace.
  A California couple are charged with transmitting obscenity through
interstate phone line via a computer bulletin board that offered
members a wide range of sexually explicit pictures and text.
Testimony began Tuesday.
  The trial raises questions of how to apply federal
obscenity law and First Amendment free-speech protections to the sea
of words and images flowing through computers across the land.  The
case could wind up at  the U.S Supreme Court.
  In 1973, the high court ruled that obscenity must be judged by local
community standards.  But the whole notion of community has since been
blurred by networks available for a fee to anyone in the world with a
computer.
  "The courts will have to decide if the community standard makes any
sense anymore," said Stephen Bates, a senior fellow at the Annenberg
Washington Program, a communications think tank based in Washington.
  The trial also marks the first time prosecutors in an obsenity case
have gone after a bulletin board operator in the locale where its
material was received, rather than where it originated, said Bates
and Mike Godwin of Electronic Frontier Foundation, a public-interest
group for computer users.
  Prosecutors say Robert and Carleen Thomas, both 38, of Milpitas,
Calif., were charged in Memphis because a Tennessee resident
complained about their members-only bulletin board,
Amateur Action Bulletin Board System.
  The couple are also charged with sending pornographic videos by
United Parcel Service, and Thomas is accused of receiving child porn
by mail from an undercover postal inspector.  Child porn is not
protected by the First Amendment.

-end-


--------------------------------------------------------------------------

FROM: THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS PAPER
       MARCH 15, 1993
        AND ASSOCIATED PRESS

SUBJECT: Modems give kids back door to the erotic

SALT LAKE CITY--- A 12-year-old might not be able to get past
the front door of an adult bookstore. But with a computer, he
dosen't need to.
     Using a modem, junior can dial into an electronic
bulletin board system, lie about his age and access the adult
files section.
     There he can find an erotic library ranging ranging from
lurid text to short x-rated digital movies.
     For computer-literate minor, a back door has been opened
to the forbidden that existing statutes are ill-equipped to
close, said Gale Evans, who oversees the FBI's anti-
pornography effort.
     Interstate transport of obscene material is illegal, but
it's not if that includes digital transmission, he said.
     A New York-based group called Morality in Media has been
pushing for new federal pornography laws that target
computers. Its president, Bob Peters, said he wants Congress
to prohibit use of telephones to transmit obscenity.
     "To me, that would include communication by computers,"
he said. He acknowledges such a proposal would raise free
speech issues, but he believes the need for regulation
outweighs them.
     Some operators of eletronic bulletin board systems have
made efforts to restrict access to adult files. Many require
on-line assurances of age.
     Kay Leavitt, who operates Utah's Graphics Connection,
goes a step further. Before members are given Adult section
password, they must mail in an application stating they are
over 18 and sometimes photo ID, he said.
     The Public Domain, a fixture of Utah's electronic
bulletin board system since 1989, once offered adult
materials, but no longer. System operator Ed Denton said it's
not worth the risk.
     "There's just no way to quarantee that children don't
get hold of them," he said. "I don't think it's smart--or
right."


*****Big Boy's Note: I think the following message might be a college
prank, but somehow, it might also be somebody toying with our minds
by telling us some truth and wanting us to think it's a prank Nyuk!

  *********************************************************************
  *   The folowing is a copy of a message posted to My UnKnown BBS.   *
  *********************************************************************

========================================================================
<PUBLIC><HAS REPLIES><RECEIVED>
Number : 107    of    108       Date: 01-22-92 15:03
Confer : Computer Happenings
From   : Leonard Church
To     : All
Subject: Bbs Freedom ][
------------------------------------------------------------------------
As someone involved in the telephone industry on the level of security
and data integrity... I would like to inform everyone that uses modems
and/or are bbs operators of some information.

The first thing that everyone that uses a modem should know is that
every time you fire up your modem your activating monitoring equipment
somewhere in the U.S.  I have worked for several large telephone
networks that routinely monitor and reroute modem and fax transmissions
through devices that allow them to view what is being transmitted and
even decodes encrypted data and fax packets used by major corporations
and governmental agencies.  This is allowed under the heading of
"Maintenance Monitoring" and may be continued for up to 6 months without
the need of any legal paperwork being generated.  Under an obscure
pre-WWII ruling by the agency that is now the FCC... "No information may
be encoded or transmitted over PUBLIC or PRIVATE forms of telephony or
radio with the exception of those agencies involved in the National
Security" a further designation goes on to say "with the exception of
the MORSE system of 'transmittal', any communication that is not
interpretable by the human ear is forbidden and unlawful."  The
information gathered goes to 3 seperate database facilities...1 is
codenamed Diana and is located in Brussels, the 2nd is named Fredrick
and is located somewhere in Malaysia, the 3rd is named Elizabeth and is
located in Boulder, Colorado.  The information stored in these systems
is accessable by the US Government, Interpol, Scotland Yard and various
other such agencies.  Your credit rating is also affected by your modem
usage... if you ever get a copy of your credit history and find a
listing that has HN06443 <--= this is a negative risk rating. or a code
87AT4 <---= an even more negative risk rating.... these will usually
have no description on them... and if you inquire about them they will
tell you that it just comes from the system that way.
I am currently working for another major carrier as a consultant and
have been able to watch these systems operate...at one unnamed long
distance carrier here in Columbus Ohio in their NCC, Network Control
Center, you can see several rows of computer terminals which have
approximately 30 to 40 separate windows in each... these windows have
data transmissions that are being monitored... banks of 9 track tapes
are going constantly to record everything.  Everyone should realize that
even if a sysop posts a disclaimer at the beginning of his bbs about no
access to governmental agencies or law enforcement...that it isn't worth
the time it takes to type it in... looking forward to hearing reactions
to this.
---
 * SLMR 2.0 * * My Castle BBS 614-236-4015 10pm to 10am M-F 6pm-6pm S-S
========================================================================



From    : TRURL                                  Number    : 125 of 137
To      : PH00BAR                                Date      : 08/16/94 7:44pm
Subject : Re: Is Big Brother Monito              Reference : NONE
Read    : 08/18/94 5:22am                        Private   : NO
Conf    : 001 - PGP Crypto

 * Original msg to: Bilbo Baggins

Dear Bilbo -
    Saw your posting and had a few comments.

  **************************************************************
  *  The folowing is a copy of a message posted on CompuServe  *
  **************************************************************
========================================================================
From   : Leonard Church
To     : All
Subject: Bbs Freedom ][
------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first thing that everyone that uses a modem should know is that
every time you fire up your modem your activating monitoring equipment
                                  ^^^^ (you're)

somewhere in the U.S.  I have worked for several large telephone
networks that routinely monitor and reroute modem and fax transmissions
                                    ^^^^^^^ there is no need to reroute

through devices that allow them to view what is being transmitted and
even decodes encrypted data and fax packets used by major corporations
     ^^^^^^^ Since when is the TelCo competing with NSA?

and governmental agencies.  This is allowed under the heading of
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^ and monitoring the U.S. government?

"Maintenance Monitoring" and may be continued for up to 6 months without
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This type of monitoring is strictly controlled and
    can not be directed at a particular individual - it must be essentially
    random and used for the purpose of traffic and transmission studies.

the need of any legal paperwork being generated.  Under an obscure
pre-WWII ruling by the agency that is now the FCC... "No information may
         ^^^^^^ see below
be encoded or transmitted over PUBLIC or PRIVATE forms of telephony or
radio with the exception of those agencies involved in the National
Security" a further designation goes on to say "with the exception of
the MORSE system of 'transmittal', any communication that is not
interpretable by the human ear is forbidden and unlawful."  The
    Quotation is from the 1934 Federal Communications Act, which
    established the FCC and was superseded by 1986 ECPA.

information gathered goes to 3 seperate database facilities...1 is
codenamed Diana and is located in Brussels, the 2nd is named Fredrick
and is located somewhere in Malaysia, the 3rd is named Elizabeth and is
                            ^^^^^^^^ Give me a break!

located in Boulder, Colorado.  The information stored in these systems
           ^^^^^^^ What are the chances of such a large operation being in
    Boulder, and not one computer phreak being aware of it?

is accessable by the US Government, Interpol, Scotland Yard and various
other such agencies. ...
    So let me get this straight - the TelCo is recording and decrypting
    government transmissions and then making them available to Scotland
    Yard and Interpol?

have been able to watch these systems operate...at one unnamed long
distance carrier here in Columbus Ohio in their NCC, Network Control
Center, you can see several rows of computer terminals which have
approximately 30 to 40 separate windows in each... these windows have
data transmissions that are being monitored... banks of 9 track tapes
are going constantly to record everything.
    The sheer volume of traffic boggles the mind! Even the NSA, with more
    supercomputers than any other government agency, limits itself to
    certain phone numbers in the U.S. and the overseas traffic.

=-> Quoting Ph00bar to Bilbo Baggins <-=
  (Is Big Brother Monitoring  07-23-94  15:17)

 Ph> I saw this on Internet too.  Folks should be aware that there are lots
 Ph> of bored college students who do stuff like this as a prank, just to
 Ph> chortle as they read the horrified reactions.  It's a tradition almost
 Ph> as old as the Internet, some prominent examples being:

 Ph> * The modem tax -- ...
 Ph> * The story about Phil Z. knuckling under to the grand jury ...

 Ph> I'm not saying this is an example of this kind of thing, but, as the
 Ph> PGP docs say, "Beware of snake oil." :-)

=-> Quoting Bilbo Baggins to Ph00bar <-=
  (Is Big Brother Monitoring  07-23-94  21:19)

 BB> Thanks.  I had to ask.  There is so much floating around, that it is
 BB> tough to tell the good stuff from the "snake oil."

    My considered opinion - Snake Oil! From the grammar and errors in the
details, together with the inconsistencies and unbelievable implications,
I say Ph00bar is right - a bored college student wanna-be consultant. But
I could be wrong. ;-) (BTW - I worked for Ma Bell as an engineer for 2
yrs.)
    FYI - the 1986 ECPA does allow BBS SysOps to monitor message traffic
and release traffic and user information, as long as message contents are
not devulged. And if the SysOp happens, by chance, to come across illegal
activities, he MAY inform the authorities (but is not required to).

╬ ╥╖ ╖╖ ╥╖ ║
╨ ╜  ╙╜ ╜  ╜

... A cynic's work is never done.
___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12






The Des Moines Register, February 25, 1994, Pages 1A and 2A:

-----------------

Operator Arrested

-----------------

Minors view pornography via computer

------------------------------------

Electronic bulletin boards are accessible to youths, who were able
to request photos of sex acts.

------------------------------------------------------------------

By Thomas R. O'Donnell
Of The Register's Ames Bureau

-----------------------------

In what's believed to be the first case of its kind in the state and
one of the first in the nation, the operator of a Des Moines computer
bulletin board was charged Thursday with disseminating obscenity to
minors.

Michael Kirkpatrick, 24, of 3201 30th St. was released on his promise
to appear after turning himself in at the Polk County Jail shortly
after noon.

"We're in a brand new area here," said Paul Houston, an investigator
with the Polk County attorney's office.  "As far as I know, this is
the only (such case) in Iowa and one of the few nationally."

Computer Chat

Bulletin boards are programs set up for use by other computer buffs.
Users sign onto the boards via telephone lines and converse with
other computer users, send electronic mail, capture computer software,
read stories and download computer-encoded photos.  Most boards carry
innocuous material suitable for any age, but some boards are wholly or
partially adult-oriented.

Investigators with the Iowa Child Exploitation/Pornography Task Force
said Kirkpatrick operated a bulletin board known as Mr. Wizard's Magic
Shop.  Besides other material, the board contained coded photos depic-
ting sexual intercourse and other sexually related images, said Jim
Saunders, an agent with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.
The task force also includes investigators from the U.S. Postal In-
spection Service.

"We got complaints from several parents that this was coming into
their house and they didn't know it," Houston said.  "The computer
images are easily transferable between the bulletin board system and
(computers) that these kids have."

Saunders said Kirkpatrick's crime was not possessing pornography, but
knowingly giving minors access to it.  "It's no different than some-
body on a street corner giving a bag full of pornographic magazines to
some kid," he added.

The task force copied all the material recorded on the board's hard
disc and seized several other discs, including four CD-ROMs, compact
discs with as many as 5,000 computer-coded pornographic photos on
each.  That material is being analyzed and further charges may be
filed, Houston said.

Task force members wouldn't say how many other boards they are inves-
tigating.  But Saunders added: "We are going to be looking at the
boards and we aren't going to be readily identifiable."

Investigators said they aren't out to get board operators, however, or
to censor adult material -- just to ensure boards have security mea-
sures to keep minors out.

Task force members said their greatest fear is that pedophiles may use
the boards to gain access to minors and exploit them.

"Bulletin boards are going to be a tool these guys use," Saunders
said.

*************************************************************************

1/94

About two years ago I helped a guy from Milpitas (just north of San
Jose) deal with a BBS bust at what he described as a legal porn BBS.
The San Jose police (who had gone out of district) and the DA realized
shortly that they had really goofed by not considering the ECPA and
related laws in their search & seizure.  The result was that they gave
his system back after five weeks, and stated in a written release that
this guy's activities were within the scope of the law.  The BBS is
called Amateur Action, and the sysop's name is Robert Thomas
(408-263-1079).  Robert's lawyer, Richard Williams's phone number is
408-295-6336.

Monday night about 8 pm, Robert called (at that time I had not met him
in person).  A search warrant was being served at that very moment by
the US Postal Inspectors, who (with the help of San Jose cops) were
packing up his equipment and carting it out--again.  Robert managed to
get the postal inspector on the phone with me.  This inspector seemed
to be rather knowledgeable of such things as the ECPA, 2000aa, and the
Steve Jackson case.  He stated he was completely unconcerned about
their lack of warrants for email!  He piously stated that, because it
was their intent to bring the system back within a "few days" and, as
a result of the short interruption of user access, and their good
intent "not to look at private email," they were completely safe from
the provisions of the ECPA.  This postal inspector gave his name as
David Dirmeyer, from Tennessee (does this sound like Bible Belt
prosecution for porn?) and gave me the name of the US Attorney he was
working under, one Dan Newsom with a phone of 901-544-4231 in TN
(though he stated that the phone # would be of no use because Dan was
at a conference for a week).

For what it is worth, the postal inspector said they were using the
San Jose cops on the bust because they did not have the expertise
themselves to move the system and make copies.  According to the
investigator, they did not know that they could get a court order to
have a backup of the system made on the spot.  It may be that Robert
is the target.  (In spite of not meeting him, I suspect Richard may be
the kind of smart alec who attracts the attention of cops.)

Robert said there was a mystery package which came today in the mail
(which his son and wife picked up and she opened).  The package
turned out to be real honest-to-gosh kiddy porn.

Robert claims not to have ordered it, and considering that his wife
picked the (unexpected) package up and opened it, I think this is the
actual case.  Robert was busy with system problems that afternoon and
had not gotten around to doing anything about the stuff, though he did
call his lawyer for advice.  The guy who sent it is known as "Lance
White," who Robert thinks is one of his BBS members. (As is postal
inspector Dirmeyer.)  They had Robert pull all postal correspondence
with this guy (video porn orders) from his files and took it with
them.

Robert thinks the postal folks may be after this guy, and his BBS just
got caught in the middle.  An interesting side point is that while they
asked for the package which came that day when they came in, they did
not have a warrant for it, and said they would have to drive over to
SF to get one unless he volunteered to give it up.  Robert signed off
that they could take it, and they did.  He noted this morning that the
original warrant he has was neither signed nor dated, though a judge's
name was typed in.

I don't know if this is something of marginal concern to those of us
concerned with government abuse of people's computers and
communications or a major concern.  I intend to find out more, but if
the ECPA is applicable, this guy had about 3500 users, over 2k pieces
of protected email on his system, plus (I think) agreements with his
users for him to represent them in an ECPA-related legal action--two
million dollars if I am multiplying right.  (My "Warning to Law
Enforcement Agents" was part of his signup screens.)

Question for Mike Godwin (of EFF).  One aspect of this case gives me
the shakes. *Anyone* with a grudge (and access to this kind of stuff)
can send you a package in the mail and tip off the postal inspectors.
Short of the obvious (don't make enemies!) how can you protect
yourself from this kind of attack?

My non-lawyer thoughts:

              Burn it at once!
              Call my lawyer.
              Call the cops.

For a while this will be a very serious problem, because *any* of us
with readily available morphing tools can make (what looks like) kiddy
porn out of legal porn.

[After finding out where this came from, I think burning it might get
you charged with "Destruction of Government Property"!]

Keith Henson
408-972-1132
[e-mail]


A Very Weird Turn of Events

To recap:  Last Monday (Jan 10) Robert Thomas, Sysop of Amateur
Action, an erotic BBS, got a call to pick up a priority postal
package.  His wife picked it up and opened it.  It turned out to have
*real* child pornography in it, and was sent (unsolicited) by one
Lance White.  This was not the first odd thing sent in by some of the
people on the BBS, but it was certainly of no use to Robert.  He runs
a scrupulous *business*.  He is so careful that he will not permit gif
uploads from the AA members at all.  But Robert was busy with the
computers and perhaps not paranoid enough.  (He takes, scans in, and
edits hundreds of erotic photos a week--there is always new stuff on
AA!)

Early that evening, a person by the name of David H. Dirmeyer and
identifying himself as a postal inspector showed up with an unsigned
and undated warrant, which says on the face of it that it was issued
by Hon. Wayne D. Brazil, U.S. Magistrate-Judge at San Francisco, CA.
(The case number is 3.94.3005 and what might be WDB.)  By itself, a
copy lacking date and signature may be ok, but both the local police
and a newspaper reporter were quite surprised that they were missing.

Attachment A is just a description of the house where the BBS was
located.

I may type in all of Attachment B at some point, but not now.

Point A was for all the hardware, manual, etc.

Point B was for a list of video tapes (which AA sells).

Point C was for gif from these tapes.

Point D was a list of gifs from a description file designed to
generate maximum curiosity--if you want to see people making it with
barnyard animals, or are into "water sports."

Point E asked for records on the origin etc. of the tapes and gifs.

Point F asked for ads or any other kind of pointer to these.

[verbatim from here, modulo typos.]

      G.   "Cardboard boxes, envelopes, and other shipping container
bearing United Parcel Service (UPS) logo and or shipping numbers."

      H.  Any and all records showing business transactions with
Lance White, 1770 North Germantown Pkwy., Suite 166, Cordova,
Tennessee  38018, including, but not limited to: books, records,
receipts, bank statements, canceled checks, wire transfer records,
passbooks, payment journals, and other documentation, whether stored
in any of the storage devices listed in Paragraph A above.

      I.  Any and all records showing or bearing indicia of the
use, ownership, possession, or control of the abovesaid
residential/business premises, of the obscene material, of the
databases described above, or of such records, whether stored on
paper, in files, invoices, bills, leases, deeds, permits, licenses,
telephone bills, tax receipts, or other documentation, or on
magnetic media such as tape, cassette, disk, diskettes, or on memory
storage devices such as optical disks, or other storage media.

[As you might note in passing, no mention about email in the warrant,
and none that AA may be protected as a *publisher* under 2000aa.]

Sounds like they are *really after this Lance White dude--right?

Perhaps postal inspectors opened this package of kiddy porn on the way
and got a search warrant to go after him?  They ask something to the
effect has AA received any packages today?.  The package is lying
where it was left when opened, they must know about it, so Robert
shows it to them.  The inspector wants it, but Robert will not give it
up without something saying *he* sure as heck did not order it.  After
some argument about taking its taking two hours or more to get an
added warrant from San Francisco, they come to an agreement.  The
inspector pulls out a PERMISSION TO SEARCH form and modifies it.  It
reads:

  "I, *Robert Thomas*, have been informed by *Postal Inspector
  Dirmeyer* and [blank] who made proper identification as (an)
  authorized law enforcement officers(s) of the *United States Postal
  Inspection Service* of my CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT not to have a search
  made of the premises and property owned by me and/or under my care,
  custody and control, without a search warrant.

  "Knowing of my lawful right to refuse to consent to such a search, I
   willing give my permission to the above named officer(s) to conduct
   a compete search of [premises scratched out] property
                                                          *namely
   priority mail package from Lance White addressed to Robert Thomas sent
   without his knowledge.*    ^^^^^^^^^^^

[The rest is boilerplate, time (5:29), and date.  Dirmeyer and one of
the San Jose police sign as witnesses, and (strangely) a home phone
(901-576-2077) for Dirmeyer, not an office phone like the SJPD officer
used.  The material between the *s is block printed by Dirmeyer.]

Robert thought the name was familiar, but he has about 3500 members
signed up.  Robert runs the BBS from home but has an office as well.
To turn over what the search warrant demands, he and the agents go
there (after? before?) the computer setup is seized.  They find some
Lance White orders and such in the files and the officers take them,
but White's original signup form is missing.

Robert called me while the agents were carrying out the seizure, and
(to my surprise, it is not usual practice) David Dirmeyer talked to
me.  He has a slightly nasal Tennessee accent--distinctive.  I ask him
about ECPA, Secret Service, 2000aa, Steve Jackson case, and proper
warrants.  He says none of these laws apply but promises to get the
hardware back ASAP; when pressed he says a week.  I am skeptical.  As
he is leaving, he tells Robert something to the effect that "it will
go worse for you if you mention Lance White on the board when you gets
it back."

Tuesday I wrote the first report on AA for computer network
distribution.  Wednesday and Thursday I put in some time on bringing a
lawyer up to speed on the ECPA, related laws, and such case law as
came out of the Steve Jackson Games suit.

Mid afternoon Friday I am about to go meet Robert (first time ever in
person), and discuss filing a claim with San Jose in preparation for a
2000aa lawsuit.

Robert calls me.  His wife found the original "Lance White" signup.

Bombshell.

The sloppy block printing of "Lance White" on the "Membership and
Registration form" dated 2/93 and the "Lance White" block printed on
the PERMISSION TO SEARCH look *identical*.  It is possible that a
regular handwriting expert might find them different, but all seven
people, including two cops, who have looked at them by now think they
were written by the same person.

The registration form has an address, 1770 Germantown Parkway, #166,
Cordova, TN 38018.  This is really close to the warrant, except someone
is trying to make what I expect is a box look like an apartment.
Perhaps a reader knows someone who lives near there and could check.

There is also a phone number (901-685-2206) on it.  Robert tries it,
and asked me to try.  Again, an expert might disagree, but to my ear,
the answering machine's message which says it is Lance White's phone,
and the person I talked to who said he was Dirmeyer are the same
person.  *If* I can believe my ear and eye, it looks like David H.
Dirmeyer, Postal Inspector and Lance White "Sender of Unsolicited
Child Pornography" are the same person.

*If* this is the case, (not exactly impossible, because the postal
inspectors have been in the news lately *for* sending child porn),
then what the heck is going on here?

When Robert figured out the strange connections, he called the local
(Milpitas) police.  They said he should talk to the San Jose Police,
since they were the ones who came out and took the computer.

Late this evening I talked to the San Jose Police who were on duty
"down at the station."  Just for the record, they are Lera and
Morales.  I mentioned that San Jose may be liable in this odd
business, but they felt it was purely a post office problem.

Not long after Robert called the Milpitas Police (coincidence I hope)
Dirmeyer called and told Robert they were finished with his machines,
that he had to get down to a postal facility in San Jose (1st and
St John) at 8:30 am Saturday and pick them up or he couldn't get his
system back till Tuesday, and that he (Dirmeyer) was leaving Saturday
morning to go back to TN.  Robert told Dirmeyer he wants the system back,
but how about *they* bring it back, since Robert is sick, and not up
to moving the hardware, and may not be able to round up enough friends
to move it. I don't know what is going to happen, but I plan to be
down there in a few hours to see what goes down, and get a look at the
Dirmeyer.  (*I* can't help, I am on crutches at the moment.)

I made a few more calls myself this evening.  Unfortunately the
holiday has the US government shut down until Tuesday.  The few people
I could reach, a Postal Officer in SF named Bishop, and an FBI agent
who only gave his shift and title, were of limited help.  The FBI
agent said that a Federal Agent should give a *local* contact when you
ask who his supervisor is even if he is working out of his district.
(He was kind of boggled by the idea of an out-of-area supervisor who
couldn't be contacted anyway because he was at a conference.  Where's
his *deputy*?)  The Postal Officer was originally quite concerned, but
(in a call back to me after about 10 minutes) said he was unable to
contact any agents at this hour of the night, and that I should take
it up Tuesday.

If Dirmeyer and White are distinct, I am going to be doing some heavy-
duty apologizing.  If they are not, it raises some really odd
questions:

What is an officer of the law doing asking a Federal Judge for a
warrant for the seizure of records when (assuming he was making
copies) he must *have* records of whatever correspondence he had with
AA?  Was "Lance White" included in the affidavit to cover another
reason for the warrant?  For example, could they have been trying to
conduct an illegal sweep of email on the AA board?  Was the Judge
informed of how easy this would be?

Did Inspector Dirmeyer *tell* Judge Brazil that he was also "Lance
White"?  Would a Judge sign a warrant this misleading?

*Did* a Judge sign the warrant?  For that matter, is "Dirmeyer" really
a postal inspector?  He gave me a number for his boss, but said his
boss was out of contact for the week.  I tried tonight, and the number
I gave in a previous note does not answer, no voice mail or anything;
not definite, but most Federal offices have *something*.

I am distributing this at 5 am in kind of a rough form to the CP list
and some other groups.  Please let me update it before it goes too
far.  I will do my best to update by early afternoon.

Keith Henson


Update Saturday noon.  Back from seeing Robert's sons and friend pick
up his computer equipment, and a 10-minute chat with Postal Inspector
Dirmeyer, and a San Jose Police officer by the name of Weidner.  At
least one point is clear, David Dirmeyer and Lance White are the same
person:  I simply asked him, and he admitted it. I also found out why
he was willing to talk to me during the search.  He figured that
anybody who starts quoting chapter and section from the Federal Code
must be his target's lawyer. [Dirmeyer reminds me somewhat of one of
my cousins when he was about 18.  My cousin was tall and gangly, and
given to putting on a hick act.]

Dirmeyer/White seemed completely unconcerned with having generated any
liability for the government under the ECPA or the Newspaper Privacy
Protection Act (2000aa).  He backed this up by being very proud of
getting the system (well, most of it anyway) back to the sysop in
under a week.  [The Electronic Frontier Foundation *has* had a
positive effect:  this is the first time I ever heard of any LEA's
caring how long they take to return a computer.]  He was very
confident that a judge would dismiss any civil lawsuit brought by the
users because of what he perceived as criminal obscenity activities by
the sysop.  How actions, criminal or not, of one person (the sysop)
cancels the rights of others (email customers) to civil recovery from
those who block access to their email is beyond me.  If that did not
get them off the hook, Dirmeyer figured they would get out of civil
liability claims because they interrupted people's email access for
such a short time, as opposed to the lengthy time the Secret Service
kept Steve Jackson's BBS.

I can almost quote from memory the relevant sections of the ECPA, and
*I* don't remember any time limits under which the civil penalties of
law do not apply ("But Judge, I only exceeded the speed limit for a
*few* miles!"). I wonder how the Postal Service would react to someone
locking *their* patrons out of a local office and away from their mail
boxes for a week?

I expressed my hope (as a San Jose resident and taxpayer) to Officer
Weidner that the Post Office had agreed to take responsibility for any
civil liability arising out of the case.  He was close to uncivil in
stating that I had no standing in the case, and it was none of my
concern.  He advised me to butt out of being involved in any way.  He
asked if I had ever *seen* the material on that BBS (my answer was
no), and expressed the opinion that I would be smeared by it and
greatly regret getting involved.

Back to Dirmeyer, I asked him about the warrant.  He said that what he
did is ordinary investigation practice, including sending people
unsolicited material and then picking it up under a warrant.  I asked
him if the Judge knew, and he assured me the Judge was fully aware
that the person getting a warrant for "Lance White's" correspondence
was also Lance White.  He also said the Judge was aware of the 2000aa
and ECPA issues, and that they were under orders not to look at
anything labeled email.  For some reason, this did not reassure me.

I also asked them why they did not just get a court order and back the
material up in the field?  They said it would take far to long.  I
know this to be untrue.  They certainly spent more time at Robert's
house taking the system appart and moving it than a backup to tape
would have taken.

Robert's sons and a friend got the last pieces of the computer down to
the lobby and we parted company with a few comments on my part about
Postal Service agents legally sending kiddy porn through the mail,
like the Nebraska case recently ruled entrapment by the Supreme Court.

Just one minor thing to add.  Because of a persistent back injury, I
am on crutches most of the time.  I was making my way across the lobby
of the old Post office nearing the doors.  Dirmeyer and Weidner passed
me, opened the doors, went through and let them swing shut in my face.
I guess scum like me is below their notice.

Keith Henson

─ Area: AmateurAct ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  Msg#: 748                                          Date: 01-22-94  13:25
  From: Robert Thomas                                Read: Yes    Replied: No
    To: All                                          Mark:
  Subj: The Whole Story
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Please read this and DISTRIBUTE it to other boards A.S.A.P.!

On Monday January 10, 1994 my wife received a rather strange telephone
call. Mail Boxes ETC in Milpitas called and said they were "Cleaning off
their counter" and asked that we pick up our mail (Rather strange to
get this phone call at 5:00 pm). My wife went to pick up the mail
because I was still feeling ill from the flu and was in bed. She
returned with a Priorty Mail package addressed to me and opened it. She
said that I had better look at this in the other room as the kids were
in the living room. The package contained REAL CHILD PORNOGRAPHY (3
magazines). I asked my wife if we should call the Milpitas Police, our
attorney, and also wondered if the police would arrest us even though
the package was not ordered by us. A couple minutes later there was a
knock at the door. It was David Dirmeyer, postal inspector from
Memphis, Tenn with a search warrant. The warrant stated that he had
permission to seize my computer equipment and accessories. He asked
"What about that package you got". I told him that I did not order
anything from anyone and he wanted me to sign a form giving him
permission to seize it. He wrote on the form in his own writing that he
was taking the package addressed to me that was sent by Lance White to
me without my knowledge. He and the San Jose Police Department
proceeded to take my equipment. The computers they seized are protected
under the ECPA laws because I am a Sysop of a large bulletin board
service that has over 3400 members and 2200 pieces of e-mail. He did
not have a warrant for any e-mail nor did the warrant state that a BBS
system was involved. He also wanted any papers I had that contain
dealings with "Lance White". I found a had written signup form from
Lance White the following day and discovered that the writting matched
EXACTLY! My friend Keith Henson showed the papers to some law
enforement agents and others and there was no doubt in their minds that
Postal Inspector Dirmeyer and Lance White were the same person. Keith
went to the Post Office in downtown San Jose on the following Saturday
to pick up all of my equipment and he asked Dirmeyer if he was Lance
White and he said YES. Keith also asked about the ILLEGAL package sent
to me without my knowledge and he said "It was normal procedure". At
this point we feel that all he wanted was to seize the system and access
e-mail from my BBS members and to get a user list. My question is how
can a U.S. Government employee send out illegal material to just anyone
without there knowledge? Also what would have happened if my kids
happened to help my wife open the mail as they have in the past? It
would have been DEVASTATING to my kids if they had seen this type of
material! I understand that a sexually explicit ad or material sent via
U.S. Mail must have a warning on it. This package did not and if it had
my wife would have never accepted it in the first place. At this point
I do not know what they plan to do but this is a very scary situation
and think that the public should be aware as to what these people will
do. My family is devastated and this ordeal will have a long lasting
effect on me and my innocent family.
If you would like to call me a discuss this in further detail please
feel free. Robert Thomas 408-263-1079. Thank you.

Amateur Action BBS modem 408-263-3393 (This is a subscription system)

Area: AmateurAct ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  Msg#: 788                                          Date: 01-20-94  10:55
  From: Robert Thomas                                Read: Yes    Replied: No
    To: All                                          Mark:
  Subj: More Scoop!
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
I want you all to read this and pass the word around. The search warrant
that they served me with did NOT have my name on it, did not have the
BBS name on it, the permission to search date is BLANK, and it was not
signed by a judge! If the warrant is valid the judge was NOT aware that
a BBS system was involved nor could he have known that the system
contains e-mail protected by a kinds of laws. Please read Bulletin #14
and you will smell a stinky rat as I do!


-> Bulletin #14 fro Amateur Action BBS follows:

 E - M A I L  I S  P R O T E C T E D  B Y  T H E  C O N S T I T U T I O N !

Many are not aware that all messages you leave on Amateur Action BBS or on
any other BBS are protected by the United States Constitution! Your e-mail
is your "work product" and law enforcement agents cannot seize a BBS system
without proper warrants! This would deprive you from accessing your e-mail!
Most bulletin boards post a legal note stating that "all e-mail is considered
public" and that is bullshit! These boards are basically writing off their
constitutional rights to privacy! All messages on Amateur Action BBS are only
assessable by the person in which you address your message and by the sysop!
I encourage all members to leave messages either public or private! This helps
protect the board and makes it very hard if not impossible to obtain warrants!

     W A R N I N G  T O  L A W  E N F O R C E M E N T  A G E N T S !

The owners and users of this system are exercising First Amendment Rights. Some
material on this system is in preparation for public dissemination and is the
"work product material" protected under The First Amendment Privacy Protection
Act of 1980 (USC 42, Section 2000aa).  Note that this note that this is a civil
statute.  Violation of this statute by law enforcement agents is very likely to
result in a civil suit as provided under Section 2000aa-6. Each and every
person who has such "work product material" stored on this system is entitled
to recover at least minimum damages of $1000 *plus all legal expenses.* Agents
in some states may not be protected from *personal* civil liability if they
violate this statute. In addition there is email, i.e, "stored electronic
communications" as defined by the Electronic Communication Privacy Act (ECPA)
which has been in storage less than 180 days on this system. Such stored
electronic communications are protected by the ECPA from seizure or "preventing
authorized access" without warrants specific to each person's email. Seizing
the computer where this system resides would prevent such authorized access.
There are civil actions which may be taken against law enforcement agents under
provisions of the Act. You can find them in USC 18, Section 2707. On this
system you can expect over 3,000 people to have stored email. Each of them is
entitled to collect a minimum of $1000 *plus all legal expenses* for violations
of Section 2700 and 2703. While the agency you work for *might* pay your legal
fees and judgements against you why take chances? If you feel the need to go
after email, or take actions which would deny email access to our users (such
as seizing hardware), get appropriate warrants. It is the policy of the sysop
(s) of this system to cooperate with law enforcement agents--though we will not
be involved in entrapments. Please bring it to my attention if you discover
illegal activities on this board. The San Jose Police Department as well as the
Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office and the State of California agree
that Amateur Action BBS is operating in a legal manner. I encourage you to
check with these offices before accusing us of any illegal activities.

                             Robert Thomas

                           Amateur Action BBS


7/93
 OKLAHOMA BBS RAIDED ON PORNOGRAPHY CHARGES
 ------------------------------------------

The legal assault on bulletin boards continues this month with a raid by
Oklahoma City Police Department Vice Division on Tony Davis's

OKLAHOMA INFORMATION EXCHANGE BBS and his associated Mid-America Digital
Publishing Company.

About 4:00 PM on July 20, four officers of the Oklahoma City Police
Department arrived at the offices of Mid-America Digital Publishing with a
search warrant for "pornographic CD-ROMs."   Davis was arrested on suspicion
of the sale and distribution of pornographic CD-ROM disks.  Of the 2000 CD
ROM disks available on site, they confiscated about 50 disks, and an
estimated $75,000 worth of equipment Davis runs his 10-line OKLAHOMA
INFORMATION EXCHANGE BBS on.  The equipment including two computers with
gigabyte hard drives, two Pioneer 6-disk drives, four single CD ROM drives,
10 High Speed Hayes modems, Novell network software and associated hardware,
etc.

Apparently, an undercover agent had contacted Mid-America Digital Publishing
on two occasions and purchased CD-ROM disks containing adult material from
the company.  At the raid, Davis cooperated with the police showing them
whatever they wanted to see, and even removing four disks from CD-ROMS on the
BBS machine and showing them to the police.  Curiously, these were standard
off-the-shelf CD ROM collections NOT published by Davis, including "Busty
Babes", "For Adults Only #2," "For Adults Only #3", and "Storm II".  More
curiously, the police themselves put the disks BACK into the BBS in order to
video tape callers accessing the files on the disks.

Videotape seemed to play a major role in the raid.  Department employees
filmed the entire raid, and released the film to the press which played it on
all three local tv network affiliate stations.

Despite Davis' notification, none of the specific procedures required by
federal law (Privacy Protection Act) when serving search warrants on
publishers was followed, and no acknowledgement or even apparent cognizance
of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act made when notified of the
electronic mail for some 2000 BBS users available on the system.  OKLAHOMA
INFORMATION EXCHANGE carries some 750 FidoNet conferences, an additional 750
Usenet Newsgroups, and offers callers private FidoNet mail and Internet mail
and actually hubs mail for other bulletin board systems as well.

Ironically, Davis DID have a thriving CD-ROM publishing business that
produces the Magnum series of CD-ROM's including "Magnum 1," "Magnum Games
and Windows," and "Magnum Sight and Sound."  But NONE of Davis's own titles
had ANY adult material on them at all - they are entirely "G" rated titles.
The CD-ROMS of interest to the Oklahoma City Police were all titles by other
publishers that Davis resold.

Davis was released on bail of $4500 and faced arraignment on August 3rd.  No
formal charges were brought on that date, and the prosecutor asked for a
delay with no specific new date brought.  One complication that has already
arisen, aside from the blatant infractions of the PPA and ECPA, was that the
warrant was fairly specific about CD-ROM discs.  The seizure of the BBS
equipment appears to be outside the scope of the warrant - a perhaps
unfortunate improvisation by the officers at the scene.

And Davis may have been the wrong person to pick as a test case.  A fairly
mature, strong willed individual with some financial resource, Davis is
represented by Attorney William R. Holmes. While we could not entice him to
speak directly to the case, he did not seem a happy camper, and didn't seem
too cowed by it all at this point.  With the very public televised bust, the
city appears to be in the difficult position of now wishing it would all go
away without a lawsuit, and no real way to get there from here.

All possible charges relate to Oklahoma State statutes against obscenity.
Located in the heart of the Bible Belt, this could be serious. A penalty of
up to $5000 and 5 years in prison per infraction is possible.  If you count
each file on a CD-ROM as an infraction, Mr. Davis could in theory be facing
over a 100,000 years in jail and nearly a $100 million in fines - another
contrast between technological reality and our legal system. From what we
understand, in Oklahoma, it is technically illegal to actually BE naked at
any time when not actually getting wet somehow, and some legal theorists
posit that HBO and Showtime cable television channels are actually
infractions under the state laws as written.

The future of Oklahoma Information Exchange BBS is unknown, and Davis himself
was unable to comment on the arrest. Mid-America Digital Publishing, 1501 SE
66 St., Suite E, Oklahoma City, OK 73149; [phone] voice; [phone]
fax; [phone] BBS.


SYSOP NOTE:  The following is the text of a complaint pending in Federal
District Court against cops in Oklahoma City following the senseless raid of a
prominent BBS in that city.  A related editorial can be found at the main menu,
under "Sysop Editorial."


             IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR
                 THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF OKLAHOMA


ANTHONY A. DAVIS, INDIVIDUALLY AND )
DOING BUSINESS AS THE OKLAHOMA     )
INFORMATION EXCHANGE AND DOING     )
BUSINESS AS MID-AMERICA DIGITAL    )
PUBLISHING COMPANY, GAYLA DAVIS,   )
AND JOHN BURTON, INDIVIDUALS,      )
AND TSI TELECOMMUNICATIONS         )
SPECIALISTS, INC., AN OKLAHOMA     )
CORPORATION                        )
                                   )
          Plaintiffs,              )
vs.                                ) Case No.:
                                   )
THE CITY OF OKLAHOMA CITY, A       )
MUNICIPAL CORPORATION AND THE      )
OKLAHOMA CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT,   )
AND OFFICERS ANTHONY GRACEY, MARK  )
WENTHOLD AND GREGORY TAYLOR IN     )
THEIR OFFICIAL CAPACITIES AS       )
OKLAHOMA CITY POLICE OFFICERS AND  )
AS INDIVIDUALS                     )
                                   )
          Defendants,              )



                             COMPLAINT

     Anthony A. Davis, Individually and doing business as the
Oklahoma Information Exchange and Doing Business as Mid-America
Digital Publishing Company, Gayla Davis, and John Burton,
Individuals, and TSI Telecommunications Specialists, Inc., an
Oklahoma Corporation, the Plaintiffs above named, for their Complaint
against the Defendants, The City of Oklahoma City, a municipal
corporation and the Oklahoma City Police Department, and Officers
Anthony Gracey, Mark Wenthold and Gregory Taylor, in their official
capacities as Oklahoma City Police Officers, and additionally,
against Anthony Gracey, Mark Wenthold and Gregory Taylor, in their
individual capacities, state as follows:

                             JURISDICTION

     1.  Plaintiff Anthony A. Davis is an adult resident of McLoud,
Cleveland County, State of Oklahoma.  The businesses called the
Oklahoma Information Exchange (hereafter "OIE") and Mid-America
Digital Publishing Company (hereafter "Mid-America") were operated
from an office at 1501 S.E.  66th Street, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
County, Oklahoma.  Plaintiff Gayla Davis is an adult resident of
McLoud, Cleveland County, Oklahoma.  Plaintiff John Burton is an
adult resident of Midwest City, Oklahoma County, Oklahoma.  Plaintiff
TSI Telecommunications Specialists, Inc. (hereafter "Teleco") is an
Oklahoma Corporation whose principal place of business at all
relevant times herein was 1501 S.E. 66th, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
County, Oklahoma.

     2.  Defendant the City of Oklahoma City (hereafter "City"), is a
political subdivision of the State of Oklahoma, with its principal
location in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma; the Oklahoma City Police
Department (hereafter "OCPD") is an agency of the City; Defendants
Anthony Gracey, Mark Wenthold and Gregory Taylor were, at all times
relevant herein, police officers employed by OCPD and the City, and
they are sued herein in their official capacities for official acts
More: [Y]/N/C? purportedly taken under color of their agency and under color of the
official duties and exercises of governmental power vested upon them
ex officio by the City and by the laws of the State of Oklahoma.  All
acts herein complained occurred within Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
County, State of Oklahoma.  Defendants Gracey, Wenthold and Taylor
are further sued in their individual capacities for acts taken under
color and authority of their official position as OCPD officers, but
which in truth and fact were undertaken outside the authority and
proper use of their position, and in violation of the Plaintiffs'
rights.

     3.  This action is brought pursuant to Title 18, United States
Code, Sections 2510 et. seq., known as the Electronic Communications
Privacy Act; Title 42, United States Code, Section 2000aa et.seq.,
known as the Privacy Protection Act; and Title 42, United States
Code, Section 1983, directly under the First and Fourth Amendments to
the Constitution of the United States of America.  Accordingly,
jurisdiction of this Honorable Court is invoked under provisions of
Title 28 United States Code, Section 1343 (3) and also under the
First and Fourth Amendment of the Constitution to redress the
deprivation, under color of law of certain acts by the defendant City
of Oklahoma City, by and through its police department and the
individual police officers named herein; said acts caused a violation
of the rights, privileges and immunities secured to the plaintiffs by
the Constitution and Laws of the United States.

             FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS COMMON TO ALL COUNTS

     4.  In 1984, plaintiff Anthony Davis created an electronic
bulletin board system he named the Oklahoma Information Exchange
(OIE).  By 1993, OIE had become the largest bulletin board in
Oklahoma with over Two Thousand (2000) subscribers from throughout
the United States.  Subscribers used their personal computers and a
modem to dial in and access OIE.  Once users "logged on", they chose
from a variety of on-line services.  These services ranged from the
sending or receiving of electronic messages (known as e- mail),
searching databases of information, and "downloading" (copying files
within OIE into the user's computer).

     5.  OIE subscribers often "uploaded" computer programs
(electronically sending information from the subscribers computer to
OIE) into the OIE system.  These type of computer programs are
generally referred to as "shareware" or "public domain" software.
Such programs are customarily exchanged free of charge among computer
users.  After years of accumulating these uploaded files, Davis
decided he would publish a volume of the software on compact disc.
Davis chose a compact disc as his medium since the discs can hold an
enormous number of computer programs.  The publishing of the discs
was done through a company Anthony Davis called Mid- America Digital
Publishing Company ("Mid-America").  By July 20, 1993 Mid-America had
published three (3) compact discs, printing and selling thousands of
copies of each disc.  Purchasers could place the disc in a CD-ROM
drive to convert the programs into a format to be used on the
purchaser's computer.

     6.  On July 20, 1993, the Oklahoma City Police Department
represented by Defendants Wenthold, Gracey, Taylor and several other
police officers, searched the business address of plaintiffs at 1501
S.E. 66th, Oklahoma City, pursuant to a search warrant (see Exhibit
"A").

     7. The search warrant was obtained based on the sworn affidavit
of defendant Anthony Gracey. (see Exhibit "B").  The affidavit refers
to several instances where Officer Gracey, acting as an undercover
officer, went to 1501 S.E. 66th Street and purchased compact discs
containing adult images from Anthony Davis.  The adult discs
purchased by Gracey were published by a third party, not Mid-America.
These discs contained information, which if viewed with the proper
equipment, could display allegedly pornographic images.

     8.  Defendant Gracey made contact with Anthony Davis at 1501
S.E. 66th Street on three occasions prior to July 20, 1993.  Each
time Gracey was posing as an undercover officer and attempted to buy
compact discs containing allegedly pornographic images.  On two
occasions, Davis sold Gracey adult discs published by third parties
(not Mid-America).  On the second visit, Davis told Gracey that he
had a computer network system that would allow Gracey or anyone else
to dial in and access the same information contained on the discs
which Davis sold to Gracey.  In sworn testimony, Gracey admitted that
Davis offered to take him to the back room of the office where the
computers were set up.  Gracey did not accept Davis's offer.  On his
third visit, Gracey did not inquire any further about the computer
system.  No mention of the computer network system was made in
Gracey's affidavit for warrant.

     9.  Prior to the July 20, 1993 search, Gracey told Defendant
Wenthold about the existence of the computer system.  Wenthold
conducted the July 20th search with the assistance of several other
officers.  Wenthold was present when the computer system was located
during the search.  In sworn testimony at the preliminary hearing,
Wenthold stated:  "(We) went in one room and there was a large
computer system set up, which we had discussed that he (Davis) had a
network system that he had talked about with (Gracey) when he was
making the buys.  (Gracey) had never seen the system.  He had talked
about it, so it really did not surprise us when we found it, but of
course, we couldn't describe the system in a warrant when we hadn't
seen it yet".

     10.  At the conclusion of the July 20, 1993 search, defendants
had seized the entire electronic bulletin board system.  This
included all of the hardware and software used to run OIE and all of
OIE's electronic contents (exhibit itemized list).  Within the
equipment seized was One Hundred Fifty Thousand (150,000) pieces of
electronic mail and over Five Hundred (500) megabytes of files that
subscribers had uploaded into OIE.  These uploaded files were the
material which was to be published by Mid-America Digital as their
fourth commercial compact disc.  Like the other three titles
published by Mid-America, the files for the fourth disc stored within
OIE contained no "adult" material.

     11.  The defendants have never claimed that the e-mail, the
uploaded files, or the compact discs published by Mid-America
contained any pornography.  The only items in the bulletin board
system that the defendants allege are pornographic were the four
compact discs from an outside publisher.  These four CD's were among
the sixteen compact discs whose information was accessible to OIE
subscribers.  The four allegedly pornographic discs were in a
removable disc changer connected to OIE.  Even though the defendants
removed the four adult discs and found no other adult material within
OIE, they still seized the entire OIE computer system and it's
contents.

                             COUNT I

            DEFENDANTS ACTIONS VIOLATED THE ELECTRONIC
       COMMUNICATIONS PRIVACY ACTS' PROHIBITION OF ILLEGAL
      AND UNAUTHORIZED SEIZURE OF ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS

     12.  Plaintiffs incorporate numbered paragraphs "1" through "11"
above as though fully set forth herein.

     13.  At all times material herein, plaintiff Anthony Davis,
doing business as the OIE was the provider of electronic
communications services within the meaning of 18 U.S.C.  2510 (15)
and 2707.

     14.  At all times relevant herein, plaintiffs Gayla Davis and,
John Burton, were subscribers to, or customers of, the electronic
communications services provided by OIE, within the meaning of 18
U.S.C.  2510 (15) and 2707.

     15.  As subscribers, plaintiffs Gayla Davis and John Burton
caused private e-mail (not accessible to the public), to be placed in
electronic storage within the OIE system.

     16.  While conducting the July 20, 1993 search, Defendant
Wenthold called Defendant Gregory Taylor to the search scene.
Defendant Gregory Taylor was considered a computer expert at the
OCPD.  Taylor admitted under sworn testimony that the information he
viewed while accessing OIE computers indicated the existence of
messages contained within the OIE system.

     17.  Several days after the seizure of OIE, defendant OCPD
received a letter from plaintiff Anthony Davis stating that the
computer equipment they seized contained private communications and
publishing materials.  The letter stated that the equipment had been
seized in violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and
the Privacy Protection Act.  The letter requested the immediate
return of the wrongfully seized items.  The defendants never
responded to the letter.

     18.  Defendants seizure of the bulletin board system disrupted
the normal operations of the communications service operated by OIE.
After this disruption in communications, defendants did not
compensate any of the plaintiffs, as required in 18 U.S.C. Section
2706 (a).

     19.  The actions of Defendants Gracey, Wenthold and Taylor, as
described herein were knowing and intentional, made under color of
law and as agents of the OCPD.

     20.  The above described actions of the defendants led to the
illegal and unauthorized seizure of stored electronic communications
of the plaintiffs, in violation of the Electronic Communications
Privacy Act.

     21. By reason of the illegal and unauthorized seizure, plaintiff
Anthony A. Davis, individually, and doing business as OIE and
Mid-America, has suffered damages including, but not limited to, lost
income, loss of business and professional reputation, and
humiliation.  Plaintiff Anthony Davis should receive judgment in his
favor and against all defendants, and should be awarded money damages
in accordance with 18 U.S.C. 2707 (c), in an amount not less than
One Thousand Dollars ($1000.00).  Plaintiff Anthony Davis also seeks
recovery of all costs, including reasonable attorneys fees, in
accordance with 18 U.S.C. 2707 (b)(3), and any other relief the
Court deems necessary and proper.

     22.  By reason of the above described illegal and unauthorized
interception, plaintiffs Gayla Davis and John Burton should receive
judgment in their favor and against all defendants, and should be
awarded money damages in accordance with 18 U.S.C. 2707 (c) in an
amount not less than One Thousand Dollars ($1000.00).  These
plaintiffs also seek recovery of all costs, including reasonable
attorneys fees, and any other relief the court deems necessary and
proper.

                             COUNT II

            DEFENDANTS ACTIONS VIOLATED THE ELECTRONIC
       COMMUNICATION PRIVACY ACTS' PROHIBITION AGAINST THE
        ILLEGAL INTERCEPTION OF ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS

     23.  Plaintiffs incorporate numbered paragraphs "1" through "22"
above as though fully set forth herein.

     24.  The e-mail going to and from OIE subscribers was stored
electronically within the computer equipment seized by defendants.
The removal and retention of the contents of the computer equipment
constituted an interception of electronic messages in violation of
the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, as enumerated in 18 U.S.C.
 2510 et. seq.

     25. By reason of these illegal and unauthorized interceptions,
plaintiff Anthony A. Davis, individually and doing business as OIE
and Mid-America, has suffered damages including, but not limited to,
lost income, loss of business and professional reputation, and
humiliation.  Plaintiff Anthony Davis should receive judgment in his
favor and against all defendants, and should be awarded money damages
in an amount not less than One Thousand Dollars ($1000.00).
Plaintiffs also seek recovery of all costs, including reasonable
attorneys fees, in accordance with 18 U.S.C.  2520, and any other
relief the Court deems necessary and proper.

     26.  By reason of the above described illegal and unauthorized
interception, plaintiffs Gayla Davis and John Burton should receive
judgment in their favor and against all defendants, and should be
awarded money damages in accordance with 18 U.S.C. 2520 in an amount
not less than One Thousand Dollars ($1000.00).  These plaintiffs also
seek recovery of all costs, including reasonable attorneys fees, and
any other relief the court deems necessary and proper.

                            COUNT III

             DEFENDANTS ACTIONS VIOLATED THE PRIVACY
             PROTECTION ACT, 42 U.S.C. 2000aa ET SEQ.

     27.  Plaintiffs incorporate numbered paragraphs "1" through "26"
above as though fully set forth herein,

     28.  At all times relevant herein, defendant Anthony Davis,
doing business as OIE and as Mid-America, was engaged in activity
"reasonably believed to have a purpose to disseminate to the public a
newspaper, book, broadcast, or other similar form of communication,
in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce" within the meaning of
42 U.S.C. 2000aa (a) and (b).

     29.  OIE's publishing activities included, but were not limited
to:  making available to users electronically formatted copies of
current periodicals, informational databases for on-line research,
and providing "chat lines" allowing users to type in their views,
allowing other users to respond or simply read the ongoing
discussion.

     30.  Mid-America's publishing activities included, but were not
limited to, compiling computer software and printing the software on
compact discs.  These compact discs were then marketed and sold to
the public.

     31.   The publishing activities of OIE and Mid-America were
never targets of the defendants search for allegedly pornographic
discs.  At the conclusion of the July 20, 1993 search the defendants
had seized 57 compact discs published by third parties, which
defendants alleged were pornographic.  The defendants left
approximately Two Thousand (2000) compact discs at the scene.  These
discs were multiple copies of the three disc titles published by
Mid-America.  The discs left behind had the company name "Mid-
America Digital Publishing" and the address "1501 S.E. 66th, Oklahoma
City, OK" stamped in bold letters on each disc.  All the discs were
in clear plastic cases.

     32.  Defendants removed all of OIE's computer equipment,
including the 1.2 gigabyte hard drive in the OIE system.  Within this
large hard drive was approximately 500 megabytes of software
scheduled to be published on Mid-America's next disc.  Defendants
removal of the computer equipment and subsequent failure to return
it, permanently halted OIE's  and Mid-America's publishing
activities.

     33.  The actions of Defendants Gracey, Wenthold, and Taylor as
described herein were knowing and intentional, done under color of
law while acting as agents of the OCPD.

     34.  By reason of the unauthorized seizure of the above
described publishing materials, plaintiff Anthony Davis, individually
and doing business as OIE and Mid-America, has suffered damages,
including but not limited to, lost income, and loss of business and
professional reputation.  Plaintiff Anthony Davis should receive
judgment in his favor and against all defendants, and should be
awarded money damages in an amount not less than One Thousand Dollars
($1000.00).  Plaintiff also seeks recovery of all costs, including
reasonable attorneys fees, and any other relief the Court deems
necessary and proper.

                             COUNT IV

              DEFENDANTS SEARCH AND SEIZURE VIOLATED
           PLAINTIFFS RIGHTS UNDER THE FOURTH AMENDMENT

     35.  Plaintiffs incorporate numbered paragraphs "1" through "34"
above as though fully set forth herein.

     36.  Plaintiff Anthony Davis doing business as OIE and Mid-
America had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the business
premises and the work product within the office, including the data
electronically stored within the computers.

     37.  Plaintiffs Gayla Davis and John Burton, had a reasonable
expectation of privacy in the electronic communications they had
caused to be stored within the OIE.

     38.  The search and seizure described herein was not authorized
by a warrant particularly describing the place to be searched and the
things to be seized.  The search and seizure of the computer
equipment of the OIE cannot be justified by a recognizable exception
to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement.

     39.  The search warrant itself was obtained by Defendant Gracey
based on the willful omission by Gracey of any mention of a computer
network system, or any mention of computers, within the affidavit.
Said omissions allowed the magistrate to issue the warrant without
requiring the proper information the Electronic Communications
Privacy Act or the Privacy Protection Act mandate.

     40.  The defendants knew, or reasonably should have known that
their conduct violated the clearly established constitutional right
to be free of unreasonable searches or seizures.  The defendants
Gracey, Wenthold, and Taylor acted as agents of the OCPD and under
color of law, at all times relevant herein.

     41.  By reason of the unconstitutional search and seizure,
plaintiff Anthony Davis and plaintiff Teleco have suffered damages
including, but not limited to, lost income, loss of business and
professional reputation, and humiliation.  These plaintiffs should be
awarded money damages in an amount not less than One Thousand Dollars
($1000.00).  Plaintiffs also seek recovery of all costs, including
reasonable attorneys fees, and any other relief the Court deems
necessary and proper.

     42.  The conduct of defendants Gracey, Wenthold and Taylor
evidenced an intent to willfully and intentionally violate
plaintiffs' clearly established constitutional right to be free of
unreasonable searches and seizures, or, at the least, showed a
reckless indifference to that right.  By reason of the above
described actions of defendants Gracey, Wenthold and Taylor,
Plaintiff Anthony Davis should be awarded punitive damages in the
amount of Two Hundred Thousand Dollars ($200,000.00) against each
individual defendant, for a total of Six Hundred Thousand Dollars
($600,000.00).

                             COUNT V

             DEFENDANTS ACTIONS VIOLATED PLAINTIFFS
                RIGHTS UNDER THE FIRST AMENDMENT

     43. Plaintiffs incorporate numbered paragraphs "1" through "42"
above as though fully set forth herein.

     44. At all times relevant herein, the plaintiff Anthony Davis
operated OIE as a forum for speech and association protected by the
First Amendment.  The publishing of information for the on-line use
of OIE subscribers and the publishing of uploaded software within OIE
on compact discs, were free press activities protected by the First
Amendment.

     45. Inside the OIE computer system was approximately Five
Hundred (500) megabytes of electronic information to be used to
publish Mid-America's next disc.  The seizure and retention of this
information caused a prior restraint on Mid-America's next
publication, in violation of the plaintiff Anthony Davis' First
Amendment rights of freedom of the press and speech.

     46.  The seizure and retention of private electronic mail both
to and from plaintiffs John Burton and Gayla Davis constituted a
violation of these plaintiffs rights of free speech and association
under the First Amendment.

     47. Defendants Gracey, Wenthold and Taylor knew, or reasonably
should have known, that their conduct violated clearly established
First Amendment rights of freedom of speech, freedom of the press,
and freedom of association.  These individual defendants acted as
agents of the OCPD and acted under color of law.

     48. By reason of the seizure in violation of his First Amendment
rights, plaintiff Anthony A. Davis, individually and doing business
as OIE and Mid-America, has suffered damages including, but not
limited to, lost income, loss of business and professional
reputation, and humiliation.  Plaintiff Anthony Davis should receive
judgment in his favor and against all defendants, and should be
awarded money damages in excess of One Thousand Dollars ($1000.00).
Plaintiff also seeks recovery of all costs, including reasonable
attorneys fees, and any other relief the Court deems necessary and
proper.

     49.  By reason of the above described seizure in violation of
their First Amendment rights, plaintiffs Gayla Davis and John Burton
should receive judgment in their favor and against all defendants,
and should receive money damages in an amount not less than One
Thousand Dollars ($1000.00).  Plaintiffs seek recovery of all costs,
including reasonable attorneys fees, and any other relief the court
deems necessary and proper

     50.  The conduct of defendants Gracey, Wenthold and Taylor
evidenced an intent to violate plaintiffs clearly established
constitutional rights of freedom of speech, freedom of the press and
freedom of association, or at least demonstrated a reckless
indifference to these rights.  By reason of the above described
actions of defendants Gracey, Wenthold and Taylor, Plaintiff Anthony
Davis is entitled to punitive damages in the amount of Two Hundred
Thousand Dollars ($200,000.00) against each defendant, for a total of
Six Hundred Thousand Dollars ($600,000.00).

     WHEREFORE, premises considered, Plaintiffs pray for judgment in
their favor and against the Defendants as stated in each Count for
their costs incurred and for such other relief to which Plaintiffs
may, in the premises, be justly entitled.

                                Respectfully submitted,



                                _________________________________
                                WILLIAM R. HOLMES, ATTORNEY, P.C.
                                OBA #11867
                                118 East Main Street
                                Norman, OK  73069
                                [phone]
                                Attorney for Plaintiffs


                        JURY TRIAL DEMANDED




2/93
             Revised Computer Crime Sentencing Guidelines

>From Jack King ([e-mail])

The U.S. Dept. of Justice has asked the U.S. Sentencing Commission to
promulgate a new federal sentencing guideline, Sec. 2F2.1, specifically
addressing the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1988 (18 USC 1030), with a base
offense level of 6 and enhancements of 4 to 6 levels for violations of specific
provisions of the statute.

The new guideline practically guarantees some period of confinement, even for
first offenders who plead guilty.

For example, the guideline would provide that if the defendant obtained
``protected'' information (defined as ``private information, non-public
government information, or proprietary commercial information), the offense
level would be increased by two; if the defendant disclosed protected
information to any person, the offense level would be increased by four levels,
and if the defendant distributed the information by means of ``a general
distribution system,'' the offense level would go up six levels.

The proposed commentary explains that a ``general distribution system''
includes ``electronic bulletin board and voice mail systems, newsletters and
other publications, and any other form of group dissemination, by any means.''

So, in effect, a person who obtains information from the computer of another,
and gives that information to another gets a base offense level of 10; if he
used a 'zine or BBS to disseminate it, he would get a base offense level of 12.
The federal guidelines prescribe 6-12 months in jail for a first offender with
an offense level of 10, and 10-16 months for same with an offense level of 12.
Pleading guilty can get the base offense level down by two levels; probation
would then be an option for the first offender with an offense level of 10
(reduced to 8).  But remember:  there is no more federal parole.  The time a
defendant gets is the time s/he serves (minus a couple days a month "good
time").

If, however, the offense caused an economic loss, the offense level would be
increased according to the general fraud table (Sec. 2F1.1). The proposed
commentary explains that computer offenses often cause intangible harms, such
as individual privacy rights or by impairing computer operations, property
values not readily translatable to the general fraud table. The proposed
commentary also suggests that if the defendant has a prior conviction for
``similar misconduct that is not adequately reflected in the criminal history
score, an upward departure may be warranted.'' An upward departure may also be
warranted, DOJ suggests, if ``the defendant's conduct has affected or was
likely to affect public service or confidence'' in ``public interests'' such as
common carriers, utilities, and institutions. Based on the way U.S. Attorneys
and their computer experts have guesstimated economic "losses" in a few prior
cases, a convicted tamperer can get whacked with a couple of years in the
slammer, a whopping fine, full "restitution" and one to two years of supervised
release (which is like going to a parole officer). (Actually, it *is*
going to a parole officer, because although there is no more federal parole,
they didn't get rid of all those parole officers. They have them supervise
convicts' return to society.)

This, and other proposed sentencing guidelines, can be found at 57 Fed Reg
62832-62857 (Dec. 31, 1992).

The U.S. Sentencing Commission wants to hear from YOU.  Write:  U.S. Sentencing
Commission, One Columbus Circle, N.E., Suite 2-500, Washington DC 20002-8002,
Attention: Public Information.  Comments must be received by March 15, 1993.

                                  * * *


             Colonel guilty of sending porn over computer

Associated Press

SAN ANGELO -- The former commander of Goodfellow Air Force Base was
convicted in a court martial Monday of sending obscene material via
his home computer.

A jury of four men and one woman, all Air Force colonels, deliberated
about two hours before returning guilty verdicts on all counts again
Col. James Maxwell.

He was convicted of transmitting obscene material via home computer,
of transmitting child pornography through his computer and using
indecent language with a junior Air Force officer.

Maxwell, a 26-year Air Force veteran, now faces a possible 16-year
prison sentence and loss of his military retirement benefits.

Charges were filed against Maxwell after the FBI found his name among
users of an on-line computer network who accessed computer-generated
pornographic images of children.

Maxwell also was said to have used the computer network to inquire
about the location of homosexual meeting places.

Maxwell's attorney had sought to have the charges dropped on grounds
his transmissions on the computer from the privacy of his home were
protected under the constitution.

But the trial judge, Col. Donald Weir of Randolph Air Force Base,
allowed the charges to stand last week, ruling that freedom of speech
can be limited when it involves conduct unbecoming an officer.

"That the writings were private between consenting adults, that they
may have been welcome doesn't place them under the judicial umbrella
of a constitutional protected condition," Weir had ruled.

Weir dismissed a count alleging Maxwell had disgraced the Air Force by
allegedly using electronic mail to ask about homosexual bars and child
pornography.

Maxwell, 48, was removed from command at the Goodfellow Air Force Base
training center last summer after the charges were filed.

+++++++++++++++++++++

COMMENT: Looks to me like this thing is full of red flags. Isn't it
coincidental that the story breaks just as there's a flap over gays in
the military?!

And where it says "the FBI found his name among users of an on-line
computer network who accessed computer-generated pornographic images
of children", one might ask what network? what was the FBI doing
there? how did the images get there? how did the FBI think to track
them? who else is getting snared? civilians? were the images really
"computer-generated" or just scanned?

It's enough to restore one's healthy paranoia...
******************************************************************************

Offworld BBS Busted
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Tuesday, January 19, 1993
Pages 1A, 10A

                  COMPUTER OPERATOR DENIES PORN MENU
                        By Christine Bertelson
                      Of the Post-Dispatch Staff

 The owner of a St. Louis computer bulletin board that was shut down
by the FBI last week denied Monday that he is responsible for the
pornographic images seen by some users.

 On Friday night, the FBI confiscated more than $40,000 worth of
computer equipment at Offworld, a computer company owned and operated
by Joey Jay.  Jay, 28, ran the business from his residence in the
basement of his father's house on Tecumseh Drive in Chesterfield.

 Jay was not arrested, and no charges have been filed against him.
Jay said his father threw him out of the house after the raid.

 "Everyone assumes we are some kiddie porn ring," Jay said.  "We are
not.  We are a nonprofit community service."

 A spokesman for the FBI said that someone had reported that Offworld
had images available showing bestiality, as well as child pornography.
It is a federal offense to have child pornography, and any property
used to promote it is subject to being seized and forfeited to law
enforcement authorities, an FBI spokesman said.

 "We get all kinds of files across the system, and one or two at most
showed up in terms of a private conversation," Jay said.  "When I
found them, I deleted them immediately."

 Offworld began operating in St. Louis last June, and is free to its
4,300 users.  Jay said it cost him $1,800 a month to operate the
system, using money from family inheritance.

 About 100 people showed up Monday morning in Chesterfield at a rally
in support of Offworld, Jay said.  He said he was soliciting
contributions of computer hardware, or cash, to get his system up and
running again.

 Computer bulletin board systems, or BBSs, as they are known, allow
users to chat electronically, and share information on a variety of
subjects.  Offworld has bulletin boards that feature job listings,
book and movie reviews, restaurants and clubs, and discussion groups
for people with "diverse lifestyles."

 Jay said that any time illegal material appears on a bulletin board
--whether it is child pornography, offers of sex for sale, or drugs
--it is purged and the people who posted such messages are kicked off
the system.

 "Unfortunately, that doesn't prevent them from coming back and using
another fictitious name," Jay said.

 FBI seizures of electronic bulletin board systems are "quite common,"
said Mike Godwin, a lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.  The
foundation is a civil liberties group based in Washington for those in
computer communications.

 Godwin said that pornography is widely available on the thousands of
electronic bulletin boards in use across the country.  New computer
users often use their scanners to recreate sexy pictures, much the
same as children who delight in using a newly acquired dirty word.

 "Usually the novelty wears off," Godwin said.

 Child pornography is relatively rare, Godwin said.  When it shows up,
the operator of the system is faced with a choice: delete it
immediately, or keep it on the system and report it to the police.

 The FBI finds raids effective because they are punitive in and of
themselves, whether or not a computer systems operator is ever charged
with a crime.

 But even the most conscientious systems operator cannot keep all
pornography off a bulletin board, Godwin agreed.

 Jay had previous conversations with the St. Louis County Police about
his system, he said.

 "I told them I would simply try to use responsibility and common
sense and ... keep the system legal," Jay said.  "I extend the First
Amendment right to all aspects of the system, unless it violates the
law."

 Jay said he was seeking legal advice to help him get his computer
equipment back.

+++++++++++++++

St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Tuesday, January 19, 1993
Page 10A

                  GIF GETS BULLETIN BOARD IN A JIFF
  'We Celebrate Human As Art Forum,' One Manager Says of Nude Issue
          By Daniel R. Browning (Of the Post-Dispatch Staff)

 Dirty pictures transmitted over the telephone to your home computer?
It had to happen.

 Computer bulletin board systems, called BBSs, proliferate not only
locally, but nationally and internationally.  The biggest ones call
themselves "information services," and the granddaddy is CompuServe.
It has nearly 1.2 million members from China to Chile.

 St. Louis Computing, a free monthly computing newspaper, publishes a
list of local bulletin boards and their phone numbers.

 Within these bulletin boards people interested in particular topics
go to chat, share information, and yes, show their favorite slides.
The pictures are transmitted in a special computer code called GIF
(pronounced jif), which is short for Graphics Interchange Format.  To
see them, you need the special "viewers" included in some
communications software.

 To capture an image, you have your computer's modem dial the bulletin
board, then search for whatever you find interesting.

 In the giant databases, that means logging on to a special-interest
section within the information service or bulletin board.  CompuServe
calls these "forums."

 A forum exists for just about any professional interest or hobby.
Journalists, lawyers, doctors, aerospace workers, artists,
photographers, beer and wine enthusiasts, automobile buffs -- you'll
find them all in the forums.

 Within these, you can find thousands of pictures ranging from NASA
space shots, to great works of art, to travel photos, to The Girl (or
Boy) Next Door in a birthday suit.

 A wary technician overseeing the forum warns members that they had to
be older than 18 to get nude images.

 But practically speaking, there's no way to prevent a minor from
capturing a nude photo on CompuServe, said Dave Kishler, a company
spokesman.  The Federal Communications Commission does not regulate
BBSs, he said.  So the BBSs have worked up their own sets of rules and
regulations.

 Dave Shaver, operations manager of CompuServe's Fine Arts Forum, said
all the images are screened for content before they are made available
to the members.  That's why you'll find hundreds of nudes under a
category called "Plain Brown Wrapper," but no XXX-rated pictures, he
said.  "We celebrate the human as an art form."

 Some bulletin boards are free.  The big ones charge a flat monthly
fee of $5 to $8.  Certain activities within the databases may also
include hourly surcharges, which vary in price to about $15 an hour.
Joining a special interest forum and capturing pictures would fit in
that category on most information services.

 That cost -- and the requirement that members have a credit card or a
checking account -- helps limit memberships to adults, Shaver said.

****************************************************************************

Akron BBS trial update: Dangerous precedents in sysop prosecution

You may already know about the BBS 'sting' six months ago in Munroe
Falls, OH for "disseminating matter harmful to juveniles." Those
charges were dropped for lack of evidence. Now a trial date of
1/4/93 has been set after new felony charges were filed, although
the pretrial hearing revealed no proof that *any* illegal content
ever went out over the BBS, nor was *any* found on it.

For those unfamiliar with the case, here's a brief summary to date.
In May 1992 someone told Munroe Falls police they *thought* minors
could have been getting access to adult materials over the AKRON
ANOMALY BBS. Police began a 2-month investigation. They found a
small number of adult files in the non-adult area.

The sysop says he made a clerical error, causing those files to be
overlooked. Normally adult files were moved to a limited-access
area with proof of age required (i.e. photostat of a drivers
license).

Police had no proof that any minor had actually accessed those
files so police logged onto the BBS using a fictitious account,
started a download, and borrowed a 15-year old boy just long enough
to press the return key. The boy had no knowledge of what was going
on.

Police then obtained a search warrant and seized Lehrer's BBS
system. Eleven days later police arrested and charged sysop Mark
Lehrer with "disseminating matter harmful to juveniles," a
misdemeanor usually used on bookstore owners who sell the wrong
book to a minor. However, since the case involved a computer,
police added a *felony* charge of "possession of criminal tools"
(i.e. "one computer system").

Note that "criminal tool" statutes were originally intended for
specialized tools such as burglar's tools or hacking paraphenalia
used by criminal 'specialists'. The word "tool" implies deliberate
use to commit a crime, whereas the evidence shows (at most) an
oversight. This raises the Constitutional issue of equal protection
under the law (14'th Amendment). Why should a computer hobbyist be
charged  with a felony when anyone else would be charged with a
misdemeanor?

At the pretrial hearing, the judge warned the prosecutor that
they'd need "a lot more evidence than this" to convict. However the
judge allowed the case to be referred to a Summit County grand
jury, though there was no proof the sysop had actually
"disseminated", or even intended to disseminate any adult material
"recklessly, with knowledge of its character or content", as the
statute requires. Indeed, the sysop had a long history of
*removing* such content from the non-adult area whenever he became
aware of it. This came out at the hearing.

The prosecution then went on a fishing expedition. According to the
Cleveland Plain Dealer (7/21/92)

    "[Police chief] Stahl said computer experts with the Ohio
Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation are reviewing
the hundreds of computer files seized from Lehrer's home. Stahl
said it's possible that some of the games and movies are being
accessed in violation of copyright laws."

Obviously the police believe they have carte blanche to search
unrelated personal files, simply by lumping all the floppies and
files in with the computer as a "criminal tool." That raises
Constitutional issues of whether the search and seizure was legal.
That's a precedent which, if not challenged, has far-reaching
implications for *every* computer owner.

Also, BBS access was *not* sold for money, as the Cleveland Plain
Dealer reports. The BBS wasn't a business, but rather a free
community service, running on Lehrer's own computer, although extra
time on the system could be had for a donation to help offset some
of the operating costs. 98% of data on the BBS consists of
shareware programs, utilities, E-mail, etc.

The police chief also stated:

    "I'm not saying it's obscene because I'm not getting into that
battle, but it's certainly not appropriate for kids, especially
without parental permission," Stahl said.

Note the police chief's admission that obscenity wasn't an issue at
the time the warrant was issued.


Here the case *radically* changes direction. The charges above were
dropped. However, while searching the 600 floppy disks seized along
with the BBS, police found five picture files they think *could* be
depictions of borderline underage women; although poor picture
quality makes it difficult to tell.

The sysop had *removed* these unsolicited files from the BBS hard
drive after a user uploaded them. However the sysop didn't think to
destroy the floppy disk backup, which was tossed into a cardboard
box with hundreds of others. This backup was made before he erased
the files off the hard drive.

The prosecution, lacking any other charges that would stick, is
using these several floppy disks to charge the sysop with two new
second-degree felonies, "Pandering Obscenity Involving A Minor",
and "Pandering Sexually Oriented Matter Involving A Minor" (i.e.
kiddie porn, prison sentence of up to 25 years).

The prosecution produced no evidence the files were ever
"pandered". There's no solid expert testimony that the pictures
depict minors. All they've got is the opinion of a local
pediatrician.
All five pictures have such poor resolution that there's no way to
tell for sure to what extent makeup or retouching was used. A
digitized image doesn't have the fine shadings or dot density of a
photograph, which means there's very little detail on which to base
an expert opinion. The digitization process also modifies and
distorts the image during compression.

The prosecutor has offered to plea-bargain these charges down to
"possession" of child porn, a 4'th degree felony sex crime
punishable by one year in prison. The sysop refuses to plead guilty
to a sex crime. Mark Lehrer had discarded the images for which the
City of Munroe Falls adamantly demands a felony conviction. This
means the first "pandering" case involving a BBS is going to trial
in *one* month, Jan 4th.

The child porn statutes named in the charges contain a special
exemption for libraries, as does the original "dissemination to
juveniles" statute (ORC # 2907.321 & 2). The exemption presumably
includes public and privately owned libraries available to the
public, and their disk collections. This protects library owners
when an adult item is misplaced or loaned to a minor. (i.e. 8 year
olds can rent R-rated movies from a public library).

Yet although this sysop was running a file library larger than a
small public library, he did not receive equal protection under the
law, as guaranteed by the 14'th Amendment. Neither will any other
BBS, if this becomes precedent. The 'library  defense' was allowed
for large systems in Cubby versus CompuServe, based on a previous
obscenity case (Smith vs. California), in which the Supreme Court
ruled it generally unconstitutional to hold bookstore owners liable
for content, because that would place an undue burden on bookstores
to review every book they carry, thereby 'chilling' the
distribution of books and infringing the First Amendment.

If the sysop beats the bogus "pandering" charge, there's still
"possession", even though he was *totally unaware* of what was on
an old backup floppy, unsolicited in the first place, found unused
in a cardboard box. "Possession" does not require knowledge that
the person depicted is underage. The law presumes anyone in
possession of such files must be a pedophile. The framers of the
law never anticipated sysops,or that a sysop would routinely be
receiving over 10,000 files from over 1,000 users.

The case could set a far ranging statewide and nationwide precedent
whether or not the sysop is innocent or guilty, since he and his
family might lack the funds to fight this--after battling to get
this far.

These kinds of issues are normally resolved in the higher courts--
and *need* to be resolved, lest this becomes commonplace anytime
the police or a prosecutor want to intimidate a BBS, snoop through
users' electronic mail, or "just appropriate someone's computer for
their own use."

You, the reader, probably know a sysop like Mark Lehrer. You and
your family have probably enjoyed the benefits of BBS'ing. You may
even have put one over on a busy sysop now and then.

In this case; the sysop is a sober and responsible college student,
studying computer science and working to put himself through
school. He kept his board a lot cleaner than could be reasonably
expected, so much so that the prosecution can find very little to
fault him for.


*Important*  Please consider a small contribution to ensure a fair
trial and precedent, with standards of evidence upheld, so that
mere possession of a computer is not grounds for a witch hunt.

These issues must not be decided by the tactics of a 'war of
attrition'; *however far* in the court system this needs to go. For
this reason, an independent, legal defense trust fund has been set
up by concerned area computer users, CPA's, attorneys,etc.

     Mark Lehrer First Amendment Legal Defense Fund
                         (or just:  MLFALDF)
     Lockbox No. 901287
     Cleveland, OH  44190-1287

*All* unused defense funds go to the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, a nonprofit, 501c3 organization, to defend BBS's and
First Amendment rights.

Help get the word out. If you're not sure about all this, ask your
local sysops what this precedent could mean, who the EFF is--and
ask them to keep you informed of further developments in this case.
Please copy this file and send it to whoever may be interested.
This case *needs* to be watchdogged.

Please send any questions, ideas or comments directly to the sysop:

Mark Lehrer
CompuServe: 71756,2116   InterNet: [e-mail]
Modem: [phone]    USPO: P.O. Box 275
                               Munroe Falls, OH  44262

----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Sysops' Sig received this letter from the Lehrer defense people,
with a request that their side of the story be made available to
Free-net users. DISCLAIMER: The Sysops' Sig takes no position on this
case, since each Free-net sysop speaks for himself/herself.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

FOOTNOTE: The above says the framers of the Constitution weren't aware of BBSs
          when drafting the Constitution....to this I say-THEN WHAT IS FREEDOM?
          The Constitution's 1st Amendment and the 9th Amendment clearly
          addresses this issue. This case is another case of the actual "police
          power" against Americans.
          There is NO crime here! There is NO property damaged and there is NO
          human victim here. Then there should be NO crime but our present
          system has the power to invent a crime which is exactly what is going
          on here.
          PLEASE contribute monetarily or at least in writing to Mark Lehrer at
          the above address. Send proof of such contribution and a 3 months
          FREE access will be granted by "HOME" BBS at [phone].



*****************************************************************************



FBI raids major Ohio computer bulletin board; action follows joint
investigation with SPA

The Federation Bureau of Investigation on Saturday, Jan. 30, 1993,
raided "Rusty & Edie's," a computer bulletin board located in Boardman,
Ohio, which has allegedly been illegally distributing copyrighted
software programs. Seized in the raid on the Rusty & Edie's bulletin
board were computers, hard disk drives and telecommunications equipment,
as well as financial and subscriber records. For the past several
months, the Software Publishers Association ("SPA") has been working
with the FBI in investigating the Rusty & Edie's bulletin board, and as
part of that investigation has downloaded numerous copyrighted business
and entertainment programs from the board.

The SPA investigation was initiated following the receipt of complaints
from a number of SPA members that their software was being illegally
distributed on the Rusty & Edie's BBS. The Rusty & Edie's bulletin board
was one of the largest private bulletin boards in the country.  It had
124 nodes available to callers and over 14,000 subscribers throughout
the United States and several foreign countries.  To date, the board has
logged in excess of 3.4 million phone calls, with new calls coming in at
the rate of over 4,000 per day.  It was established in 1987 and had
expanded to include over 19 gigabytes of storage housing over 100,000
files available to subscribers for downloading.  It had paid subscribers
throughout the United States and several foreign countries, including
Canada, Luxembourg, France, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, Spain,
Sweden and the United Kingdom.

A computer bulletin board allows personal computer users to access a
host computer by a modem-equipped telephone to exchange information,
including messages, files, and computer programs.  The systems operator
(Sysop) is generally responsible for the operation of the bulletin board
and determines who is allowed to access the bulletin board and under
what conditions. For a fee of $89.00 per year, subscribers to the Rusty
& Edie's bulletin board were given access to the board's contents
including many popular copyrighted business and entertainment packages.
Subscribers could "download" or receive these files for use on their own
computers without having to pay the copyrighted owner anything for them.

"The SPA applauds the FBI's action today," said Ilene Rosenthal, general
counsel for the SPA.  "This shows that the FBI recognizes the harm that
theft of intellectual property causes to one of the U.S.'s most vibrant
industries.  It clearly demonstrates a trend that the government
understands the seriousness of software piracy."  The SPA is actively
working with the FBI in the investigation of computer bulletin boards,
and similar raids on other boards are expected shortly. Whether it's
copied from a program purchased at a neighborhood computer store or
downloaded from a bulletin board thousands of miles away, pirated
software adds to the cost of computing.  According to the SPA, in 1991,
the software industry lost $1.2 billion in the U.S. alone.  Losses
internationally are several billion dollars more.

"Many people may not realize that software pirates cause prices to be
higher, in part, to make up for publisher losses from piracy,"  says Ken
Wasch, executive director of the SPA.  In addition, they ruin the
reputation of the hundreds of legitimate bulletin boards that serve an
important function for computer users." The Software Publishers
Association is the principal trade association of the personal computer
software industry.  It's over 1,000 members represent the leading
publishers in the business, consumer and education software markets.
The SPA has offices in Washington DC, and Paris, France.


   CONTACT: Software Publishers Association, Washington
             Ilene Rosenthal, 202/452-1600 Ext. 318
             Terri Childs, 202/452-1600 Ext. 320



************************************************************************

 From:  WALLY SCHWARZ of Wally World 415/349-6969 (1:204/6969)
   To:  ALL                       Date: 11-25-90 02:00
   Re:  FBI & YOUR BBS

The FBI Comes Rapping, Rapping At Your BBS
Brock N. Meeks

The dog-eared manila envelope spilled a coffee stained report onto
my cluttered desk. The title, "The FBI and Your BBS" sounded a
little too nefarious, even for this curmudgeon of the information
age. But I figured the report was worth at least a quick read.
After all, somebody had gone to the effort to track down my address
and forward a copy of the report to me. That someone turns out to
be the report's author, Glen L. Roberts, director of The FBI
Project an organization which publishes a newsletter, Full
Disclosure, under the self defined category "privacy/surveillance."

The report is chilling, almost paranoid. And if more people had
known about its existence, a lot of grief might have been saved. As
I read I remembered an old, coffee-ringed file folder I'd
squirreled away. I remembered something about it's containing
information on what I'd off-handedly labeled "FBI Computer Hit
Squad." When I found the file, Roberts' report didn't seem so
paranoid and knew I was in for a long night of research and bunch
of early morning wake up interviews.

If you dig, you hit dirt

     In 1984 a short series of discreet advertisements, placed by
the FBI, appeared in a few computer trade publications and in The
Wall Street Journal~ The message was simple, and went something
like: "We're looking for computer literate persons to join the
Bureau."  There was no mention of any special task force; however,
it was clear that the Bureau wanted to upgrade their high-tech
prowess.

     Although the FBI won't confirm the existence of a computerized
"hit squad," an FBI public relations officer did confirm that they
"have made an extraordinary effort to recruit more technically
oriented personnel" since 1984.

     If you dig hard enough, you'll find substantial evidence that
the FBI is most definitely working overtime in its efforts to
monitor the electronic community. "They are desperately wary of the
way information flows so freely in this medium," says Roberts.
Indeed, one has only to recall this past May when some 150 Secret
Service agents, assisted by local police (backed up with electronic
"intelligence" gathered and provided by the FBI) served some 27
search warrants in a dozen cities across the U.S.

     The bust, code-named Operation Sun Devil, was patterned after
the tactics used to take down suspected drug rings: simultaneous
busts, synchronized arrests. All in an effort to preclude any
"early warnings" reaching the West via grapevine information moving
from the East.

     I was curious about all these high tech hit tactics and armed
with my file folder and Roberts' report I called a number scrawled
on the inside flap of my file folder. It was annotated "Former
agent; possible source." I called the number, and got a story.

     "I was recruited in 1983 by the FBI for my computer skills,"
the former agent told me. Because he still does some consulting for
the Bureau, he asked not to be identified, but he laid out a very
specific plan by the FBI to increase their knowledge of the
electronic communications world. He confided, "During my time the
Bureau's monitoring of BBSs was extremely limited; we just didn't
know how." In those days, he said, the FBI drew on the expertise of
a small band of high-tech freelance snoops to augment their staff,
"while we all honed our own skills."

Tradition

     Certainly the FBI has a tradition of "investigating" groups of
people it deems "unsavory" or threatening.

     In Roberts' The FBI and Your BBS, there's a brief history of
the FBl's willingness to gather all known information on a target
group. Pulling from the Final Report of the Select (Senate)
Committee to Study Governmental Operations with respect to
Intelligence Activities, Book IV, Supplementary Reports on
Intelligence Activities, Roberts includes this excerpt:

     "Detectives were sent to local radical publishing houses to
take their books. In addition, they were to find every private
collection or library in the possession of any radical, and to make
the arrangements for obtaining them in their entirety. Thus, when
the GID (General Intelligence Division) discovered an obscure
Italian born philosopher who had a unique collection of books on
the theory of anarchism, his lodgings were raided by the Bureau and
his valuable collection become one more involuntary contribution to
the huge and ever-growing library of the GID. [pages 87-88]."

     Change "any radical" to "any BBS" and "book" to "disk" and
quite suddenly the electronic landscape turns into a winter still-
life.

Data collection

     Roberts, quoting from his report, says, "Unlike other
communications media, information on a BBS does not get read by
anyone before its instantancous publication. Therefore, the FBI has
much less of a possibility of intimidating the owner of a BBS into
not publishing certain inlormation. The FBI also acts as if BBSs
have a monopoly on the distribution of so-called 'illegal
information.' The FBI often uses this 'danger' as justification to
monitor the activities on these systems. In reality, however, BBSs
transfer much less 'illegal information' than the [voice] phone system."

     Roberts statements are worth noting in light of the
goverment's increased interest in the marriage of criminal
activity and electronic communications.

     A 455-page report issued by the President's Commission on
Organized Crime, dealing with drug abuse and trafficking cites that
fact that crime has moved into the high-tech arena. The report
states "To the extent that law eniorcement agencies' capabilities
and equipment are inferior to those of drug traffickers, immediate
steps should be taken to rectify the situation." The report then
recommends that data-gathering efforts of several agencies (in-
cluding the FBI) should be tied together in one "all-source
intelligence and operations center."

Any problem here?

     There are no laws prohibiting the FBI (or other agencies) from
monitoring the public message traffic on a BBS; the Electronic Com-
munications Privacy Act of 1986 protects private messages and
privately stored files only. But what about an FBI agent monitoring
a BBS solely for the purpose of gathering intormation on the
board's users? Any problem here?

     The former FBI agent I spoke with raised the concern that such
casual monitoring might be a violation of the 1968 Wiretap Act. "In
order for a wire tap, you have to get a court order. Now if an FBI
agent is monitoring a BBS to gather information, that becomes an
interesting question, because there are very specific federal rules
about a wire tap. My question to you about a BBS [being monitored]
is: "At what point does monitoring turn into a wiretap-like act?"

     Good point. The reality is, however, that there are no rules.
Unless that agent is asking for private message traffic, he can,
without impunity, monitor, store, and otherwise manipulate your
public messages as he sees fit.

     Roberts points out that a BBS with public access is fair game
for any kind of governmental snooping. But there is a way to make
such casual snooping by a federal agent a crime.

"If you want your BBS readily accessible to the public but want to
protect against unwarranted monitoring, you have to provide a
warning to prospective users," says Roberts. "It should read: 'This
BBS is a private system. Only private citizens who are not involved
in government or law enforcement activities are authorized to use
it. The users are not authorized to divulge any information gained
from this system to any government or law enforcement agency or
employee."'

     This does two things. It makes the entire board "private."
Second, it makes any kind of monitoring by the FBl (or other
agencies, such as the Secret Service) a criminal offense (because
they are would be guilty of unauthorized access; it also forces
them to use the established guidelines of gaining information via
a court ordered search warrant. The warning also protects you in
another way: it stops "freelancers" from doing the Bureau's work.

Get real

     How real is the possibility of the FBI monitoring your BBS?
Much more than I'd like to believe. Although details of Operation
Sun Devil are still sketchy, it's clear that the FBI, working in
tandem with the Secret Service, is monitoring several hundred
"suspected" boards across the electronic landscape. What kind of
board is a potential monitoring target? "Any board that advocates
hacking," said a Secret Service spokesman. Yet when I asked for a
definition of hacking, all I was told was "illegal activity."

     The information provided here bears out, if nothing else, an
increased interest by the FBI in the hard ball practice of going
after electronic criminals. But are the "good guys" getting caught
up with the bad?

     How extensive is the FBl's actual fact gathering by monitoring
BBSs? No one knows really knows. However, given the history of
Bureau, and the hard facts that crime in the information age makes
full use of all the technology it can get its hands on, it's a
small leap to believe that at least specific monitoring, of certain
target groups, is taking place.

     Where does that leave you and me in all this? Back to square
one, watching carefully what we say online. If you're a member of
a "controversial" BBS, you might pass the concerns of Roberts on to
your sysop. If you are a sysop, you might want to consider adding
a bit of protection to the board . . . for the rest of us.


Brock Meeks is a Washington, D.C.-based columnist whose
articles have appeared in several publications including Byte
Magazine.  His favorite radical BBS is ... well...private.

---

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