The Hacker's Encyclopedia 1998/hackers_encyclopedia.iso/hacking/internet/intcens5.txt

Text File | 2003-06-11 | 10.3 KB | 228 lines

 Subj : Getting Around Usenet Censors (part V)
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* Forwarded (from: libernet) by Ken Wiebe using timEd 1.01.
From: Vernon Imrich <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]


[FAQ continues]

Chapter 4: Legalities of Banned Newsgroups

    Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer.

4.1 Legal responsibilities of news administrators

    There are basically two ways of looking at usenet.  The first way is like a
bookstore; there is no way the bookstore can be expected to scan through all the
books it has to see which ones may contain material that is illegal or immoral.
The second way is like an official newsletter, in which the editor is
responsible for all the material contained within it.
    Realistically, there is no way that a news administrator can be expected to
read through all of usenet news; there are hundreds of megabytes of it every
week.  However, news administrators that limit access to newsgroups based upon
content are assuming responsibility for what is in the remaining newsgroups;
they are basically accepting the newsletter view of usenet.
    If a news administrator limits access to news groups based upon content of
those groups, they are basically asking for legal troubles for them and for all
news administrators.  Imagine if the phone company was responsible for every
drug deal that occured over the phone lines; they would be gone in a week.
    Which way does the law view usenet?  This question was partially answered in
a recent court case, Cubby Inc. v. CompuServe.  In this case, Cubby sued
CompuServe for information that was made available through them.
    The court ruled in favor of CompuServe.  They recognized and legitimized the
analogy of usenet to a bookstore.
    But what about obscene images?  First of all, it's important to note what
the law considers legal.  From "SEX AND THE SINGLE SYSADMIN: The risks of
carrying graphic sexual materials" by Mike Godwin
([e-mail]):

[BEGIN INCLUDED FILE: 10]
In layman's terms, a jury (or a judge in a nonjury case) would ask itself
something like these four questions:
1) Is it designed to be sexually arousing?
2) Is it arousing in a way that one's local community would consider unhealthy
or immoral?
3) Does it depict acts whose depictions are specifically prohibited by state
law?
4) Does the work, when taken as a whole, lack significant literary, artistic,
scientific, or social value?

If the answer to all four questions is "yes," the material will be judged
obscene, and it will be Constitutional to prosecute someone for distributing it.
(It should be noted in passing that pictures of the "hardness" of Playboy and
Penthouse photography have never been found to be obscene--their appearance in
digital form on Usenet sites may create copyright problems, but they won't
create obscenity problems.) [END INCLUDED FILE]

    It's important to note that many of the pictures similar to those that
appear in "Playboy" on usenet are not considered obscene by the law.
    But what about the material that would be considered obscene?  From the same
file:

[BEGIN INCLUDED FILE: 10]
And, in the 1959 case Smith v. California, the Court held that criminal
obscenity statutes, like the great majority of all criminal laws, must require
the government to prove "scienter" (essentially, "guilty knowledge" on the
defendant's part) before that defendant can be found guilty. So, if the
government can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a system operator knew or
should have known about the obscene material on the system, the operator cannot
be held liable for an obscenity crime.

In short, you can't constitutionally be convicted merely for possessing obscene
material, or for distributing obscene material you didn't know about.
[END INCLUDED FILE]

4.2 Is it legal to describe how to receive banned newsgroups?

    Yes.  Generally, it's not illegal to distribute information about how to do
things; people have been distributing information on how to make bombs, how to
steal things, and how to modify electronic equipment for a long time, and it's
totally legal to describe how to do so.
    Moreover, it's not (to my knowledge) illegal to read any banned newsgroups.
Even if your news administrator has decided that he does not want you to read
that group, you have no legal responsibility to follow his wishes.  In fact, it
may be illegal for him to try and force you to follow his wishes.

"Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press
..."
                    - First Amendment to the Constitution
                      of the United States of America

4.3 Legal references pertaining to banned newsgroups

    Carl M. Kadie is in charge of a wonderful reference of legal and ethical
documents pertaining to freedom of information, especially electronic
information.
    From the latest information I have:

[BEGIN INCLUDED FILE: 11]
* Computers and Academic Freedom (CAF) Archive

The CAF Archive is an electronic library of information about computers and
academic freedom.

If you have gopher, the archive is browsable with the command:
  gopher -p academic gopher.eff.org

If you have Mosiac or some other WWW client, go to
   http://www.eff.org/CAF/cafhome.html

It is available via anonymous ftp to ftp.eff.org (192.77.172.4) in directory
"pub/CAF". It is also available via email. For information on email access send
email to [e-mail]. In the body of your note include the lines:
  connect ftp.eff.org
  cd  /pub/CAF
  get caf
  cd  /pub/CAF/faq
  get archive
[END INLCUDED FILE]

        Note: I think that "gopher -p CAF gopher.eff.org" works, instead of the
"... -p academic" mentioned above.

    A very good, in-depth discussion of legal issues affecting computers is
"E-Law2.0: Computer Information Systems Law and System Operator Liability
Revisited" by David J. Loundy, available through EFF's gopher.

    EFF is a wonderful net resource.  They have a lot of online information
pertaining to electronic freedom and privacy, including actual legal documents
and interpretations.  gopher to eff.org (via one of the ways mentioned above) to
check it out.  For more information on gopher, see section 5.2.
    Also, take a look at the Electronic Frontier Canada (EFC) gopher; David
Jones ([e-mail]) sent me this info on them:
----
Those at Canadian institutions who know of recent instances of "electronic
censorship", including bans on Usenet newsgroups, are encouraged to report it to
Electronic Frontier Canada
by sending email to "[e-mail]"
for inclusion in the EFC archive:

        gopher -p "1/community/efc" ee.mcgill.ca
----

    "The Legal List, Law-Related Resources on the Internet and Elsewhere" by
Erik J. Heels is a list of legal resources that may contain info relating to
freedom of information or other net topics.

[BEGIN EXCERPTS FROM INCLUDED FILE: 12]
2.2.1.  MAILING LIST.  If you wish to be added to "The Legal List" Mailing List,
send a message in the following form:

     To:  [e-mail]
     Subject:  subscribe John Smith

     Hi,
     I saw a reference to "The Legal List" on CompuServe.
     Thanks,
     - John

The SUBJECT of the message should contain your real name.  I always like to hear
where you learned about "The Legal List," so if you include this information in
the BODY of the message, I would greatly appreciate it!  Version 4.0 of "The
Legal List" (as well as other announcements) will be mailed to those on this
Mailing List.  To cancel your subscription to this Mailing List, send a message
in the following form:

     To:  [e-mail]
     Subject:  unsubscribe

Please allow up to ONE WEEK for a reply to messages sent to
[e-mail].  (If you send multiple subscription
requests, you will get multiple responses.  However, duplicate addresses are
removed before any messages are sent to those on "The Legal List" Mailing List,
so you should not receive multiple copies of any messages.)

2.3.  ANONYMOUS FTP.  "The Legal List" is available via anonymous FTP from
ftp.midnight.com (Midnight Networks Inc.) as
pub/LegalList/legallist.txt.  You may connect to ftp.midnight.com by anonymous
FTP ONLY.  (Please do NOT TELNET to ftp.midnight.com.)  If you have e-mail
access but you do not have FTP access, you may want to try DEC's FTP-via-e-mail
service, FTPMAIL (see Section 4.1).  To get "The Legal List" via e-mail from
DEC's FTPMAIL service, send the following message to [e-mail]:

     connect ftp.midnight.com
     ascii
     get /pub/LegalList/README
     get /pub/LegalList/legallist.txt
     quit

The files will be e-mailed to you in a day or so.  If you have problems with
FTPing to ftp.midnight.com, send a message to [e-mail] or
[e-mail].

2.4.  GOPHER.   "The Legal List" is available via Gopher from the University of
Southern Maine Gopher site (University of Maine School of Law, site
gopher.usmacs.maine.edu).

2.4.2.  OTHER KNOWN GOPHER SITES.  "The Legal List" has been posted to the
following Gopher sites:

     liberty.uc.wlu.edu
          Law Related Sources/Legal List...
     malahat.library.uvic.ca
     miles.library.arizona.edu
     morris.lib.udel.edu
     sluava.slu.edu

Do a VERONICA search of "Legal List" to find other sites.  (This is why it's
important to include the words "The Legal List v3.0" when you add "The Legal
List" to your Gopher site.)

<+> 2.5.  USENET.  "The Legal List" is posted on initial release to
misc.legal.moderated and periodically to other newsgroups (e.g. misc.legal,
misc.legal.computing, misc.answers, and news.answers).  It is also available via
anonymous FTP from rtfm.mit.edu
as /pub/usenet/news.answers/law/net-resources/ files part1-part3.  To obtain a
copy via e-mail from this site, send a message to [e-mail] with
the following lines in it:

     send usenet/news.answers/law/net-resources/part1
     send usenet/news.answers/law/net-resources/part2
     send usenet/news.answers/law/net-resources/part3
     quit
[END EXCERPTS FROM INCLUDED FILE]

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