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- Weltanschauung Magazine (The WorldView)
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- % Editor: The Desert Fox D E R %
- % Co-Editor: Rev. Scott Free %
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- % W E L T A N S C H A U U N G %
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- April 4, 1991 Vol. 1, Issue 1.
- (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)
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- Material Written By Computer And Telecommunications Hobbyists World Wide
- Promoting the publication of Features, Editorials, and Anything Else....
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- *IN THE NEXT ISSUE *** Unix features, More On Robert Morris, Info*
- *On The New Rivendell BBS Including The New Phone Number, An *
- *Editorial By The Reverand Scott Free, Plus Much More... *
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- Table Of Contents:
-
- I. The Shockwave Rider: A mini-biography on Robert T. Morris,
- the creator of the Internet Worm.
- II. Wordless: An editorial by Homer Mandril
- III. The State Of National Security: An editorial by The
- Desert Fox and Lord Macduff
- IV. The complete explination of BEER*NET
- V. Torts: Some handy information on laws governing the world of
- communications, by James J. Spinelli
- VI. HR 4070 [The story behind Homer Mandrill's Editorial]
- VII. Editor's Comments
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- Title: The Shockwave Rider. (background on Robert T. Morris Jr., author
- of the Internet 'worm')
- Author: Unknown
-
- Summary: A profile of Robert T. Morris Jr, author of the 'worm' program
- which caused major system crashes on the Internet network in Nov 1988, is
- presented. Morris is the son of Robert Tappan Morris Sr, the chief computer
- scientist of the National Security Agency's Computer Security center and a
- master cryptographer. Morris junior ('RTM') identified with the protagonist
- of John Brunner's science fiction novel 'The Shockwave Rider,' a social rebel
- who outsmarts computer security measures and is forced to make a
- controversial decision. Some hackers view RTM as a 'freedom fighter,' but
- some say he is placing freedom of information at risk. The younger Morris was
- known for computer pranks while an undergraduate at Harvard and worked on
- graphics problems as a Cornell University graduate student. He was allegedly
- bored and created the Internet worm as an experiment; it was designed to
- replicate itself throughout the umbrella Internet network and exploited
- well-known bugs in the Unix operating system. It struck academic, military
- and commercial scientific research sites, consuming memory and causing
- machines to grind to a halt. Many computer security experts argue that RTM
- should not be punished, but many worry about the social implications of
- computer security: more and more systems will require cumbersome 'locks'
- which will make it difficult for legitimate users to access information.
-
- The Shockwave Rider "ONCE YOU RELEASED this worm, did you have any ability to
- control it?" the defense attorney asked the defendant.
-
- "No. Once I released it, I had essentially no contact with it at all. I
- couldn't control it," said the young man, facing the jury in the Syracuse,
- New York, courtroom. "After it started, it was pretty much doing its own
- thing."
-
- Robert Tappan Morris, the creator of the Internet computer worm, patiently
- told the courtroom packed with TV and newspaper reporters how his secret
- experiment had gone terribly awry.
-
- In the front row of the courtroom sat a slender man holding a copy of Livy's
- History of Rome. The man's suit was worn, his shoes untied, his gray beard
- unkempt. But he just happened to be an internationally known computer
- security expert, master cryptographer, and the National Security Agency's top
- computer scientist. His name: Robert Morris, Sr.
-
- "It was a mistake, and I am sorry for it," said the younger Morris, his
- large, watery eyes focused on the jury. Minutes later, at the lunch break,
- the prosecutor walked past the defendant, and the young hacker couldn't
- suppress a smile. His soft, pale checks seemed to rise into a smirk. Was he
- giggling?
-
- "The work of a bored graduate student," was Morris senior's explanation to
- The New York Times after his son released the most virulent worm the world
- had ever seen. Indeed, the younger Morris did seem bored at Cornell, where
- he was only a few weeks into his graduate studies. Two weeks before the
- worm's release, Peter McIlroy, a childhood friend, had visited Morris. "He
- liked some classes and not others," McIlroy remembers. "Some he seemed to be
- blowing off."
-
- But Morris seemed to be getting along in Ithaca. He had taken to
- rock-climbing and was playing intramural hockey. "There was no inkling he
- was about to write a computer worm," recalls his friend. Except, perhaps,
- for one clue. McIlroy, also a techie, had casually mentioned to his friend
- that he believed the Unix operating system was pretty secure.
-
- "No! It's unbelievably insecure!" Morris snapped. "It's unbelievable how
- many holes there are!"
-
- McIlroy was caught off-guard by Morris's fervor. "It bothered and surprised
- him that the holes would never get fixed."
-
- Was it as simple as that? Bored by his courses, had the son of the nation's
- leading computer security expert taken things into his own hands? Had the
- "attack" merely been a well-intended but bungled attempt to shore up computer
- security and teach the world a valuable, relatively safe lesson?
-
- Theories on the worm and its author's motivations consume several chapters of
- popular books and countless articles. Some have hypothesized that the worm
- was a high-tech, father-son spat played out on a global scale, while one book
- blithely concluded that father and son had jointly launched the attack under
- the auspices of the National Security Agency.
-
- Hackers saw a broader political motivation. The trial of Robert Morris
- became the trial of an entire generation and philosophy of computers and
- information. To many hackers, Morris became a freedom fighter, a symbol of
- electronic free speech, a voice against the power that centralized computers
- wield over individuals.
-
- But more than a few hackers wondered if the coup was misguided, if Morris was
- not placing at risk the very freedom of information that his supporters
- angrily demanded.
-
- At the center of the debate stood two elite hackers, the very sort of wizards
- we have come to expect to guard us against computer saboteurs. But that was
- before Morris stepped over the line and plunged into a digital no-man's land.
-
- Under provisions of the untested 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Robert
- Tappan Morris, Jr., was indicted for trespass. His offense? Unauthorized
- computer access.
-
- THE STORY OF ROBERT TAPPAN MORRIS begins with his father and the hauntingly
- powerful electronic world he helped to create. In the early 1970s, when Bell
- Laboratories began designing the universal operating system called Unix, it
- was Morris senior who imbued the virgin software with security.
-
- "The scheme for encrypting passwords was very heavily influenced by him, the
- interest in low-grade cryptography--the things we think of as absolutely
- routine," says Douglas McIlroy, Peter's father and one of the designers of
- Unix at Bell Labs' Murray Hill, New Jersey, facility. The elder Morris
- helped bar snoopers by making it difficult for anyone to become a "super
- user"--a person with the power to use or abuse a system.
-
- "There was this constant game of trying to figure out how to circumvent the
- best security measures we had," McIlroy recalls. "You had to be able to
- out-think the most devious minds."
-
- That was the dilemma Morris senior faced: to protect, he had to know how to
- destroy.
-
- Morris senior often seemed locked in an elusive battle with the equally
- brilliant and eccentric Ken Thompson, a legend in the computer industry and
- widely respected as one of the inventors of Unix. "Each would try to outdo
- the other in a friendly, but mean-spirited, way," McIlroy says.
-
- Morris thrived in the daily skirmishes. One of the cryptic scientist's most
- revealing feats occurred during tests on the first working copy of the Multix
- operating system. He walked into the laboratory and typed two
- characters--two specific characters he had a hunch the system could not
- compute. The machine crashed. "It was dramatic," says McIlroy. "He always
- liked to put on an air of mystery."
-
- First Bell and then other companies invited Morris to break into their
- computer centers to test their defenses. Hired by one defense contractor to
- discover its computer system's Achilles' heel, Morris dressed himself as a
- security guard, walked in, and watched someone type a password. While this
- tactic was an exception (Morris usually broke systems with his encyclopedic
- knowledge of encryption, cryptography, and computer security), it
- demonstrated his dramatic side. "Bob had a certain amount of flair," recalls
- McIlroy. "He definitely enjoyed his prowess."
-
- By the 1980s, the chain-smoking, shabbily dressed scientist had developed
- into a master cryptographer and a world expert in protecting electronic
- information. He designed a Navy computer that tracked enemy submarines by
- spotting anomalies in the masses of data gleaned by ocean sensors. At the
- time it was the world's largest computer.
-
- Morris senior's stage broadened in 1986, when he became the chief scientist
- at the National Computer Security Center of the National Security Agency and
- assumed responsibility for protecting sensitive computer-based data
- worldwide. Friends reported that he dove into the mysterious intelligence
- underworld with a passion. His office was outfitted with a "Tempest"
- computer, encased in lead to prevent the interception of radio emissions, and
- visitors say his blackboard was covered with Russian words.
-
- Years later, in the tumultuous days following the Internet attack, Morris
- senior's sense of mystery and drama had not waned. Newspaper and TV
- reporters camped in front of his new home in Arnold, Maryland. Inside, his
- son was quiet, talking little even to his Harvard buddies who had driven
- through the night to support their friend.
-
- It was his father who spoke to the press, telling The New York Times, "I know
- a few dozen people in the country who could have [created the worm]. I could
- have done it, but I'm a darned good programmer." Perhaps it was not
- surprising that after the press left, Morris senior placed the puzzling deed
- in historical focus. "Let's find out where this all started," he said to his
- son's friends, pulling down a book by John Brunner titled The Shockwave
- Rider.
-
- In a scholarly tone, Morris senior explained that the 1976 science fiction
- classic, one of his son's favorites, popularized the idea of computer worms.
- What he didn't explain was that the book's protagonis was remarkably similar
- to himself. And to his son. Like both Morrises, the Shockwave Rider
- outsmarted computer security measures with the cunning of a secret agent and,
- like Robert Morris, Jr., the Shockwave Rider was forced by his genius to make
- a difficult, controversial decision. Having spent his youth expanding his
- computer powers, the Shockwave Rider pondered the true test of wisdom:
-
- "What a wise man can do, that can't be done by someone who's merely clever,
- is make a right judgment in an unprecedented situation."
-
- YOUNG MORRIS MAY HAVE BEEN CHARGED with the crime of the future, but he grew
- up in a world closer to the last century than the next. The Morris family
- lived in a 250-year-old farmhouse on nine rambling acres of spruce, pine, and
- swamp alongside the Passaic River near the quaint town of Millington, New
- Jersey. The children cared for the farm animals and Robert tended the
- family's sheep.
-
- "They wanted to keep the old ways," recalls the current owner of the house.
- "They lived very simply. They didn't have material things." The family grew
- vegetables in a 50-by-100-foot garden, and if they needed something more than
- the earth and animals could supply, Morris senior would bring home a cast-off
- to salvage, like the giant-size freezer he repaired to store their freshly
- slaughtered meat. The family cut firewood for themselves and in winter
- dragged it by sleds over the ice-bound river.
-
- There was something untamed about the Morris clan. "I don't think the
- Morrises even knew how many cats they had," recalls a friend, who says 20 or
- more cats roamed the property while three or four big furry black dogs ruled
- the hearth.
-
- Inside the old farmhouse, unnecessary elements were eliminated. A mantle
- considered "too ornamental" was hacked out, a closet was torn out to squeeze
- in yet another bookcase, and a bathroom was ripped out to create another
- bedroom. The ceiling sagged and the plaster was cracked, but the
- "unbelievable mess," as a friend calls it, held an unusual collection of
- quirky wartime coding devices, including the mysterious Nazi Enigma machine.
-
- Named from the Greek word for puzzle, the Enigma was a mesh of gears and
- rotors that controlled an electronic drum rimmed by the letters of the
- alphabet and fed by a typewriter. Considered a foolproof scrambler, the
- battery-powered Enigma served as the Third Reich's top coder in World War II.
- But in 1939, an elite British team of cryptanalysts and mathematicians
- cracked the coder and gained a tremendous edge over Hitler's forces
- throughout the war. With the Enigma's secrets unlocked, the Allied
- commanders could read the Fuhrer's orders often before his own generals
- received them.
-
- Almost everything at the Morris house had a story behind it, no matter how
- obscure it might appear. The house was overflowing with puzzle sculpture
- pieces, magazines, and more books than you'd find in most small libraries.
- And not just any books. Morris senior had been a brilliant mathematician at
- Harvard, but he also loved the classics and learned to read Greek and Latin.
- His wife, Anne Morris, counted the vast family collection one day and, after
- tossing out duplicates, logged 7,000 volumes.
-
- Morris junior began reading at the age of four. The curious toddler created
- working scale models out of paper, file folders, and paper clips--cars with
- wheels that turned when you moved the steering wheel and revolvers with
- bullets and chambers that turned. At nine he read stacks of Scientific
- American. His father had a ham radio license, and before long the boy began
- assembling and disassembling radios and a variety of other electronic
- equipment. By the time he reached his early teens, his reading list had
- expanded to include the classics, history, economics, political science, and
- science fiction.
-
- But downstairs, in the old kitchen, in front of an unused Dutch oven, was a
- machine like no other. From a distance, it looked like a huge mechanical
- typewriter stretched over a desk, but what were those protruding rods and
- cables? The strange-looking device, which had been in the house since the
- mid-1960s, when Morris junior was born, was a computer terminal.
-
- As a top scientist at Bell Labs, Morris senior was one of a few employees
- with a home computer terminal during an era when electric typewriters were
- still rare. "Everybody lined up behind one another to get their computer
- time," recalls Anne Morris of the Digital Equipment terminal. But her
- children were not all alike. Soon her daughter lost interest, and the
- younger boy rebelled. (He now works as a tree surgeon.)
-
- Only Robert, the older boy, remained captivated by the clanking, screenless
- terminal. Each time he struck a key on the machine, mechanical rods shifted
- like the trackers of a pipe organ, forming the eight bits that made their way
- over the terminal's modem to Bell's central computer. Frequent lubrication
- was needed to keep the machine's rods from sticking, and after a long
- session, Robert would often emerge with oily knees.
-
- When Peter McIlroy visited the Morris farmhouse, he noticed his friend wasn't
- merely playing the computer's math and guessing games. "By the sixth grade,
- he was finding holes [in the operating system]," recalls McIlroy. "But he
- wasn't a snoop. It was much more of an intellectual game."
-
- Not yet in his teens, Morris junior already knew his way around the huge,
- complex Unix operating system. He created multiuser games to chat with his
- friends simultaneously and a surprisingly sophisticated Unix interface shell.
- The Unix code was online, and nearly every day after school Robert studied it
- the way other boys studied girls. His girlfriend, the daughter of another
- Bell employee, was online, and the budding hacker zapped love notes to her.
-
- By his mid-teens, the young Morris showed Peter McIlroy how, by logging on to
- one terminal, he could masquerade as a legitimate user on any computer in
- Bell's network. "He found it, played with it, and fixed it," says McIlroy.
- "I think they [Bell officials] were impressed." Bell officials say that
- while Morris did modify some files, no serious damage was done. "He was told
- to stop and that was that," says Bell's Fred Grampp.
-
- But Morris was allowed to visit his father's office and continue his poking,
- and in December 1982, Grampp invited him to give a talk about tightening
- security on a Unix communications program. Soon Morris was working part-time
- at the lab after school and full-time for the next two summers, writing his
- first scientific paper, "A Security Flaw in Berkeley . . . Unix," in January
- 1983.
-
- His initiation into the rites of super-hacking couldn't have been more pure.
- In the elite, challenging research environment of Bell Labs, the teenager
- learned "to spot and repair security holes" at the feet of the very people
- who had created Unix.
-
- But Morris was far from a one-dimensional, stereotypical hacker. At nearby
- Delbarton, a preparatory school run by Benedictine monks, he excelled in a
- broad range of courses, swam the breaststroke on the school swim team, sang
- with the abbey's chorus, and was, according to the Delbarton credo,
- "encouraged to become an independent seeker of information and take
- responsibility for gaining both knowledge and judgment."
-
- Yet years later, his parents proudly announced that it was he who was
- featured in a 1982 Smithsonian magazine article as a "quiet, polite young
- man" who "has broken into password files" and read "supposedly private"
- computer mail. "I never told myself that there was nothing wrong with what I
- was doing," the boy was quoted as saying, adding that he was driven by the
- challenge of testing computer security. It was a family preoccupation that
- Morris shared with his fictional double, the shockwave Rider:
-
- "I guess my daddy was a 'phone phreak' and I inherited the gene."
-
- The following year, Morris senior wrote in his 25th anniversary Harvard
- report: "I promised myself that I would learn to read Greek, learn in some
- detail how the planets move in their orbits, and learn how to decipher secret
- codes. I have gone a long way toward keeping all three promises." But it
- was secret codes--not Greek or the heavens--that captivated his teenage son,
- and he was soon fast at work on his first paid computer security project at
- Bell.
-
- The security crusade didn't end at the laboratory. At the farmhouse, father
- and son often discussed Unix and computer security. "I'm very sure he got
- hints from his father," says Douglas McUlroy, "but I doubt he got much
- detailed help. I think his father wanted to generate self-reliance." The
- young Morris told a friend that his father created games to develop his
- programming skills, once even making him program without GOTO
- commands--something like playing basketball with only your left hand. "His
- father was always challenging him," recalls Roy Horton, Morris junior's music
- teacher and a close family friend. "They were of similar minds."
-
- The next year Morris senior and Grampp wrote and, with some trepidation,
- published the definitive paper on Unix security. In the footnotes was a
- reference to Morris junior's paper, and in the introduction, a warning:
- "There is a fine line between helping administrators protect their systems
- and providing a cookbook for bad guys."
-
- Morris junior seemed to understand the dangers. In his second published
- scientific paper, he sounded every bit the seasoned computer security expert.
- "The old uucp [Unix to Unix copy procedure] was designed on small machines
- with light traffic and little concern for security," wrote the confident
- 18-year-old. "Times have changed. With many hundreds of machines running
- uucp, one cannot assume that no uucp requests will be malicious."
-
- "AREN'T YOU THIS FAMOUS, GREAT HACKER?" asked an impressionable fellow
- Harvard student. "No," said Morris, his boyish face betraying embarrassment
- and a slight smile. "That's my roommate."
-
- Morris continued the playful deception for several minutes. The Shockwave
- Rider, too, had many identities, many lives woven through the electronic net:
-
- "An individual could rewrite him or herself via any terminal connected to the
- federal data banks . . . this was the most precious of all freedoms . . .
- freedom to become the person you chose to be instead of the person remembered
- by the computers . . . it was the enchanted sword, the invulnerable shield,
- the winged boots, the cloak of invisibility. It was the ultimate defense."
-
- Morris had several identities at Harvard. The story goes that as a freshman
- he walked in, brought down the system, and hacked his first identity, an
- unauthorized Harvard account. Whether that initial act of mastery be myth or
- fact, in a matter of months Morris had hacked and cultivated a fistful of
- computer credit accounts. His log-on name became his identity, both online
- and among his friends: RTM.
-
- As a freshman, RTM began hanging around Harvard's graduate computer science
- department, Aiken Lab, an ugly slab of concrete built in the 1940s and named
- after one of the inventors of the modern computer. It was here, behind a
- glass wall, opposite the antiquated vacuum-tube computer, that RTM spent most
- of his waking hours.
-
- "He'd fix things for free," recalls Paul Graham, a computer science graduate
- student and close friend. "There was no question that he was the most
- technical person."
-
- RTM's breadth of knowledge was exceptional: Unix, networking, hardware,
- graphics, and several other languages. Andrew Sudduth, Aiken's system
- manager, hired RTM, and like many who employed him on campus, Sudduth found
- that RTM was too busy chasing the latest computer problem to punch a time
- clock or do his class work. "A professor would say, 'Wouldn't it be nice if
- we had this?'" he recalls. "And Robert would go and do it."
-
- He began by pacing the halls. There was no evidence he was working on the
- problem. After sufficient gestation, he settled in at a terminal, preferably
- "a lousy one," with a black and white display, a throwback, says Graham, to
- his days on his father's mechanical, screenless terminal. There were no
- distractions, no interruptions, and once he began, the pace was fierce, for
- TRM could program as fast as he could type.
-
- Rail-thin, RTM ate little, and when classmates invited him to lunch, two
- hours later he would still be hunched over his keyboard, typing furiously.
- Friends would stand over him, calling out his name, but the transfixed
- programmer seemed to hear nothing. When a few nights of intense programming
- finally gelled, RTM would snap out of his spell. "He would jump up and rub
- his hands when he figured something out," says Sudduth.
-
- Not all of his achievements were altruistic. RTM could do "anything he
- wanted" when friends were logged on to a Sun workstation, according to Graham
- and others. One of his most playful pranks was creating a subliminal message
- that would flash for less than half a second on the screen of an unsuspecting
- user. Graham said he saw the fleeting message, "Help, I'm being held
- prisoner within a VAX 750!" and then wondered if he'd imagined it all.
-
- Occasionally RTM took the game further, demanding a response to his whimsical
- intrusions. Classmates sometimes found their work interrupted by a sage
- called The ORacle. "Ask me a question and I will answer you," asked RTM, The
- Oracle. "But first you must answer me."
-
- Some of his pranks tested a user's technical knowledge. On a lark, RM
- reverse-engineered the Harvard network into an older, defunct interface.
- Everything worked, but the commands were different, and "true" hackers seemed
- to enjoy the challenge. Roommate Greg Kuperberg, a nationally ranked college
- mathemaician (also prone to feverish pacing) who befriended RTM and
- collaborated with him on an elaborate graphics program, says his friend's
- forays into Harvard's computers were exagerrated and misunderstood. RTM was
- simply inquisitive, says Kuperberg, and his experiments were not much
- different from those of a young chemist who occasionally mixed the wrong
- chemicals.
-
- But RTM's experiments were not without side effects, and there were some who
- didn't consider it good, clean fun. One night, Robert Ziff, a Harvard
- engineering student, watched the program he was working on slow to a snail's
- pace. He complained to the deparmtent's system manager, who checked to see
- who was tying up the computer's resources and exclaimed, "Oh God! It's
- Robert Morris."
-
- RTM had programs simultaneously running off his accounts on the engineering
- and robotics computers--in addition to Aiken's. It wasn't the first time he
- had "hogged" computer time. Ziff was instructed to warn RTM that "if it
- happens again, they'll take you off the account."
-
- Ziff was by no means the only one at Harvard who was unhappy with RTM and his
- experiments. A few were "mistrustful of Robert because he was smarter and
- better," says a friend. To those individuals, RTM sometimes sent commands
- that mysteriously crept onto their computer screens. There was never any
- doubt who had sent the ominous commands. Only RTM knew the secret security
- holes. And there was never any doubt that he would keep his dark knowledge
- secret. "He wouldn't tell them how he did it," says the friend. "He didn't
- trust them." Instead, RTM left his enemies hanging, wondering whether he
- might just decide to execute the REMOVE FILE commands he dangled on their
- screens. "I did in fact break into other people's computers [at Harvard],"
- Morris later admitted in court, "but I ... knew that they wouldn't mind."
-
- In one sense, RTM was no different from other hackers. The first commandment
- of hacking is to not waste computer time, to push and pull every electron's
- worth of processing might. It is a boy's pursuit, a masculine display of
- virtuosity. Test pilots call it "pushing the envelope." No longer protected
- by his father or the understanding researchers at Bell Labs, RTM began
- testing his wings, and, like the Shockwave Rider, he thrived in his new
- environment:
-
- "Meantime, taking advantage of the corporation's status, he could gain access
- to data nets that were ordinarily secure. That was the whole point of coming
- to KC. He wanted--more, he needed--data..."
-
- RTM never did carry out the ominous threats, and at the same time he was
- building professional credentials as a dedicated computer security expert.
-
- "The Unix software is very flexible and convenient, but it places too much
- trust in a protocol that provides very little security," he warned in a 1985
- Bell Labs paper that described how to attack "trusting" host on the vast
- national computer network known as Internet.
-
- Two years later, while still at Harvard, RTM delivered several long talks on
- his extensive knowledge of computer security at the National Computer Science
- Security Center and the Naval Research Lab. During his summers he hacked for
- computer companies on both coasts.
-
- As he became more technically accomplished, his two personas--the mischievous
- RTM and the dedicated computer security expert, Robert Morris, Jr.--struck an
- uneasy balance. The same friends who detail how RTM inspired fear in his
- enemies remember him as a person who believed in the importance of
- "character" and who hacked out favors at a moment's notice.
-
- But in his professional role, Morris increasingly found that the real world
- was not nearly as responsive to security concerns as the Bell Laboratories of
- his childhood. he discovered that if he reported a security bug, companies
- often did nothing, or they waited for months before issuing patches. He
- worried that unscrupulous hackers would take advantage of his discoveries.
- He began to keep the secret openings to himself.
-
- When RTM was taking graduate mathematics and computer science courses in
- 1985, the combination of his freelance projects, his generosity, and the
- "difficulty and the boredom" of graduate work became too much for him. RTM
- did not excel in every course, as his father had. So he dropped out and went
- to work at the Convex Computer Corporation, in Richardson, Texas.
-
- The young hacker's education began to have more in common with that of the
- Shockwave Rider:
-
- "Shortly thereafter, he began to concentrate on data processing techniques at
- the expense of his other study subjects."
-
- The following year, Morris junior returned to his Harvard studies eager to
- learn. Friends remember his pacing about their homes or apartments, picking
- up things to see how they worked. Often his excitement bubbled over. "He
- was always breaking things," says Graham. "And he was insatiably curious."
-
- The love of the classics his father had inspired had not diminished. "He
- might be interested in medieval art, English history (a poster of English
- kings adorned his dorm room), Homer, the Renaissance, or Greek art," recalls
- a Harvard classics professor RTM helped with some computing problems. "His
- knowledge was pretty encyclopedic." But the serious topics didn't keep the
- Harvard student from classic adventure stories like the Norse sagas and one
- of his favorites, The Three Musketeers.
-
- Something of an adventurer himself, RTM and a classmate spent a week buying
- copies of The Racing Form at six in the morning and entering "tons of data
- about correlations of past performances." Then the budding computer bookies
- took in their first horse race at nearby Suffolk Downs. "It was so
- depressing," says RTM's friend about the crowd of retired, alcoholic
- pensioners. Deciding it "criminal" to beat such sorry bettors, the two
- abandoned their get-rich-quick scheme.
-
- Computer graphics became a new infatuation. With Kuperberg, RTM created an
- advanced ray-tracing graphics program. When he found that higher mathematics
- were not enough to create beautiful forms, he turned to the ancients,
- studying the works of Vitruvius, the inventor of proportion standards for
- classical columns. One of RTM's finest creations was of a temple standing in
- the middle of a blue sea.
-
- Excited by their success, the talented duo entertained the idea of launching
- a computer graphics firm. "We had this picture of a kid running a lemonade
- stand who one day turned into Donald Trump," says Kuperberg, who, like his
- friend, had a "default plan" of graduate school.
-
- BACK AND FORTH, BACK AND FORTH. It was the way RTM entertained an idea, as
- if by the movement of his light steps he might nudge the completed thought
- from his brain. But this time he seemed more driven than usual.
-
- He had come the nearly 300 miles from his graduate computer science studies
- at Cornell to pore over the Unix source code at Harvard's Aiken Lab and visit
- his friend, Paul Graham. "He had discovered a big hole and he had to tell
- someone," recalls Graham. Excitedly, RTM paced the small office, telling
- Graham how he had isolated holes in Unix that could enable him to be a super
- user--not at Cornell or Harvard, but across the country and around the world.
- Both of the bugs were communications holes, but RTM explained how the FTP
- (File Transfer Protocol) bug could conceivably grant an invader root
- privileges--the ability to read or delete anything on a compromised machine.
-
- "It was an experiment," Morris later testified. "I had never heard of
- anything like it before ... to see if I could write a program that would
- spread as widely as possible in Internet." His friend was similarly
- entranced. "I thought it was the greatest idea," says Graham, "All over the
- world. A big living organism. No one had ever done it before." Of course,
- it had been done before by the Shockwave Rider:
-
- "This is indeed the father and mother of a tapeworm. You'll have noticed how
- much use it makes of terminology derived from the study of living animals.
- And with reason. Not for nothing is a tapeworm called a tapeworm. It can be
- made to breed ... my newest--my masterpiece--breeds by itself."
-
- To Graham, the worm was not only an incredible creation, it was a bold strike
- for freedom, and later in court he would compare RTM to Mathias Rust, the
- West German pilot who landed in Moscow's Red Square in May 1987. Encouraged
- by his starry-eyed friend, RTM paced, describing how he wanted every computer
- on the Internet to receive one innocuous probe, one worm that would wriggle
- its way into each computer's memory.
-
- Finally, the excitement grew too great for Morris.
-
- "RTM, you're on his desk," said Graham, as he watched RTM's feet pad by on
- top of their colleague's desk.
-
- "Oh," said RTM, for the first time aware of his rise in elevation. This
- behavior was typical of Morris when he was absorbed in thought.
-
- Later, on that cool October night in 1988, RTM and Graham continued talking
- about the probe as they stood in front of a Boston seafood restaurant waiting
- for Sudduth, a champion rower, whom they would toast as a winner of the
- annual Head of the Charles regatta. As they waited, Graham suggested that
- the worm write something to the computers it wriggled its way into.
-
- "No, no, we can't do writes," his friend said, explaining that any writes, no
- matter how well-intended, might be dangerous.
-
- What the two couldn't figure out was how to protect a single worm on each
- machine. "It would have been very simple for someone to write a program that
- just acted as if it was a worm [an antiworm]," tricking new worms into
- believing a computer had already been penetrated and stopping "my worm from
- growing at all," Morris testified. And so, he decided it might be all right
- to have two, or maybe three, worms per machine.
-
- But neither knew much about population growth, and if RTM had any technical
- shortcoming, it was his ambivalence toward higher mathematics. There on the
- sidewalk, the two decided that the second worm to invade a machine should
- have a one-in-seven rate of survival.
-
- No particular formula was used, Morris later told a jury. "It was based on
- the intuition I had on how rapidly it would spread." He figured a new worm
- might appear once every few hours. As the Shockwave Rider explained,
- everything was under control:
-
- "And, no, it can't be killed. It's indefinitely self-perpetuating so long as
- the net exists ... incidentally, though, it won't expand to indefinite size
- and clog the net for other use. It has built-in limits."
-
- When Sudduth arrived at the restaurant, the two collaborators abruptly
- changed the subject. "When we were on a project," says Graham, "it was
- understood that it was secret." But RTM couldn't keep everything under his
- hat. Without hinting that he planned an attack, he excitedly told Sudduth
- about the bugs he had uncovered.
-
- And at first, in the ensuing days, it seemed that RTM's wild idea might go
- the way of his racetrack betting and computer graphics schemes. For several
- days after RTM had returned to Cornell, Graham heard nothing from his friend.
-
- The two had an old practice of sending elliptical messages over Internet--for
- security's sake. "Any news on the brilliant project?" Graham asked in his
- electronic message.
-
- There was no response.
-
- RTM HAD BEEN BUSY. More than a week before his visit to Harvard, he had
- created a wish list for his worm on his university computer. It was
- strangely appropriate that he began the work at Cornell. Officials would
- later say it was his reputation as a hacker that gained him admittance to the
- university's prestigious graduate school in computer science.
-
- RTM's list was divided into the two main goals he had for his worm: attack
- and defense. The target was Internet, an umbrella of three national
- communication networks, including ARPAnet, run by the Department of Defense
- to link research computers at military sites and universities; MILnet, used
- by military and civilian researchers to send routine, unclassified
- communications; and NSFnet, a National Science Foundation network.
-
- In the beginning, RTM and Graham used the popular term virus to describe the
- worm, but as the creation took shape it came to resemble the prehistoric
- worm. Viruses exist by invading and altering their host cells, and their
- computer counterparts are similar. They cannot "live" or run without
- attaching themselves to other programs. But a computer worm is independent.
- Self-propagating and self-running, worms can exist without directly
- endangering a network or its users. Some early computer worms were actually
- loosed to perform network management tasks. The Shockwave Rider's worm had a
- higher social and moral goal:
-
- "The primary my worm is designed to invade is that privacy under whose cover
- justice is not done and injustice is not seen."
-
- RTM designed his worm to clone itself, spreading throughout the net.
- Searching out new nesting locations, the worm scanned address lists of
- computers, selecting the most directly linked machines, such as gateways, and
- then began cycling through its attacks. If one method failed, the tireless
- invader quickly picked another from its arsenal. The attacks fell into three
- categories: nooking a foothold through a security hole, taking advantage of
- "trusting" computers, and cracking passwords. RTM playfully named his worm's
- attack engine the "cracksome" routine.
-
- Footholds could be gained through either of two techniques. One involved a
- utility designed to elicit such information as a user's full name, office,
- and phone number. It was fittingly named Fingered. The worm overflowed the
- program's small buffer and tricked unsuspecting machines into downloading,
- compiling, and running a tiny source code "grappling hook"--the worm's scout.
-
- Once ensconced within the target computer, the hook called the original worm
- and "pulled" back sections of a new version of the original worm compiled to
- run on either a VAX or a Sun workstation, the two most common computers on
- the network (if the hook guessed wrong, it pulled over the other version).
- Finally, the hook linked the sections together and the new worm began
- running.
-
- By compiling his worm for the two machines in advance, RTM avoided the risk
- of sending an easily decipherable source code copy of the program. Only the
- tiny "grappling hook" was written in source code, to ensure that the first
- cast would draw a bite. The drawback, of course, was that the worm could
- successfully invade only VAX or Sun workstations.
-
- A similar attack was launched on an electronic mail program called Sendmail.
- RTM had discovered that the program's seldom-used debugging utility allowed
- users to send a set of commands instead of a user's address. Through the
- gaping security hole went the worm's grappling hook, and, as in the Fingerd
- attack, in less than a minute a new, fully functioning copy of the worm was
- running on the target machine.
-
- The worm made another attack, not so much on a security hole but on the
- network's community of trust. Once a machine was invaded, the worm attempted
- to connect with remote machines that "trusted" the invaded machine and didn't
- require a password. The techniques were similar to what RTM had described as
- a teenager in a Bell Labs paper he wrote about a "weakness" in security that
- allows "users on untrusted and possibly very distant hosts to masquerade as
- users on trusted hosts."
-
- These were the cracked windows, loose hinges, and open doors upon which the
- worm directed its principal attacks. But the worm also tried to find keys
- lying around, checking to see if an account had no password, and then
- attempting simple heuristics using a combination of words from a user's
- account, including names, nicknames, and names spelled backward.
-
- If these attacks failed, the worm would try its internal dictionary of 432
- passwords. But the task of cracking new passwords was a time-consuming
- process. The only passwords publicly available were encrypted. To figure
- out the true password behind its encrypted double, the worm had to encrypt
- its own internal list of probable passwords against those it attempted to
- crack.
-
- If two encrypted passwords matched, the worm knew that its original password
- (before the worm encrypted it) was identical to the password it was trying to
- crack. Since virtually every target password was encrypted under a different
- key, each target password forced the worm to re-encrypt its list of possible
- passwords. After trying this strategy for a few seconds, the worm tried
- words from Unix's online dictionary, using the same tedious encryption
- method. Cycling through its arsenal of attacks, the worm continually
- camouflaged and transformed itself. Immediately upon arriving in a new
- computer, the worm deleted the disk copy of itself and ran only in memory
- under the alias of an innocuous command interpreter, the kind often used in
- shell scripts or automatic commands.
-
- Every three minutes, the worm forked, splitting into a dead parent and a
- child. The child started off "fresh," using to apparent resources such as
- processing time or memory usage. The short dashes made the worm more
- difficult to seize, even if it happened to be spotted.
-
- THE WORM LEFT FEW CLUES. It read all its support files into memory, deleting
- file system copies that might be noticed. And by turning off the generation
- of core files, if the worm made a mistake and accidentally died, it left no
- corpse behind. Once every 15 infections, the worm attempted to connect to a
- Berkeley computer. RTM had hoped the "red herring," as he called it, might
- by itself shift suspicion onto the computer center, but it never actually
- made the connection.
-
- Finally, if the worm, or parts of it, were somehow captured, the binary (near
- machine-level) program would require many hours of complex decompilation
- before its nuts and bolts could be understood.
-
- For nearly three weeks RTM worked sporadically on the worm, increasing the
- number and complexity of its potential assaults. Its diverse collection of
- attack strategies gave it a character more like that of a bulky battleship
- than a sleek submarine, and one friend and security expert later called it
- "everything but the kitchen sink."
-
- RTM collected password files form computers at Stanford, Harvard, Berkeley,
- and other universities around the country; he found the fast encryption
- routine he needed in a program written at Bell Labs; he incorporated
- password-breaking techniques his father had discussed in his classic paper on
- Unix security. RTM didn't want to omit anything, and he feverishly threw a
- decade of security training into the worm. There was little time to check
- for errors; besides, the Shockwave Rider didn't make mistakes:
-
- "'How the hell were you able to build a tapeworm this complicated"' It's a
- talent, like a musician's or a poet's. I can play a computer read-in
- literally for hours at a time and never hit a wrong note."
-
- Everything seemed to be going exactly as planned. On Wednesday, November 2,
- 1988, RTM logged on to his terminal at Cornell's Upson Hall at a little after
- 10 a.m. and worked until lunch. In the afternoon, the trouble began.
-
- RTM noticed a posting from Keith Bostic, of Berkeley: a patch to the FTP bug
- he had discovered on his fateful visit to Harvard. RTM quickly typed out an
- electronic mail message to Sudduth, asking whether he had been the source of
- the leak.
-
- "I didn't think it was a good idea to spread information about random
- security holes," Morris later testified.
-
- Sudduth sensed panic in his friend. "Maybe he worried that the [other] bugs
- would be patched before he sent his worm."
-
- At 8 p.m. EST, sitting at his Upson Hall terminal, RTM copied the worm to an
- account at MIT known to be frequented by hackers. "I wanted to start it out
- so it wouldn't be obvious that I had started the worm myself," Morris
- testified. (The final version of the worm did not include attacks on the now
- patched FTP bug.) For the next 20 minutes, RTM tried to track the worm's
- path, but as far as he could tell, "it wasn't working right. It seemed to
- have been getting bogged down, not really doing very much."
-
- And so, having begun his experiment, RTM left his terminal and walked home.
-
- ON INTERNET, THE WORM WAS AWAKENING. One hour and 24 minutes after its
- release, the worm squirmed its way across the country and into the computers
- of a Santa Monica defense contractor, the Rand Corporation.
-
- In two hours it hit the major gateway at the University of California,
- Berkeley; the Lawrence Livermore Laboratories, in Berkeley and Livermore; and
- the Los Alamos National Laboratory, in New Mexico. Very quickly it became
- apparent that something had gone terribly wrong. Individual machines became
- infected by not one or two but several worms. Then, the infection erupted.
-
- Since university and military computers are rarely used so late at night,
- they generally register only a 1 or 2 load average of a possible 100. But by
- 9:21 p.m. PST, computers at the University of Utah had already documented a
- load of 5. Twenty minutes later, the load reached 7; in another 20 minutes,
- 16; and incredibly, in just another five minutes, the system topped out at
- 100, choking to a standstill.
-
- Of course, as his lawyer later argued, RTM had been careful to ensure that
- his worm not read, delete, or in any way damage targeted computers. But he
- hadn't counted on a more insidious risk. Simply by reproducing, the worm was
- sucking the oxygen out of Internet the way algae strangle a dying sea.
-
- RTM's birth control wasn't working quite the way he had planned. Only the
- first virus on a machine listened for others. Subsequent worms didn't hear
- each other and didn't submit to the killer dice roll. And those few worms
- that lost the roll were allowed to continue their efforts to propagate new
- copies of themselves on other machines, even after they'd received death
- sentences.
-
- Emergency teams at Berkeley, MIT, and other computer centers worked
- frantically to stop the invader. Though the worm didn't appear to be
- directly damaging files, the rescue workers desperately searched for hidden
- trap doors, Trojan horses, or time bombs. By midnight EST, NASA's Ames
- Research Center, in Silicon Valley, had shut off all communications with
- outside researchers, stranding 52,000 computer users. Minutes earlier, one
- of the Berkeley scientists on the front line had sent out an electronic
- S.O.S. over the net: "We are under attack from an Internet virus..."
-
- "No. We can't stop it! There's never been a worm with that tough a head or
- that long a tail. It's building itself, don't you understand? Already it's
- passed a billion bits and it's still growing ... and now it's so goddamn
- comprehensive that it can't be killed. Not short of demolishing the net!"
-
- While computer experts across the country raced to salvage what they could of
- the worm's wreckage, RTM sat dazed. When he telephoned Sudduth, his voice
- was deathly quiet. Sudduth passed the receiver to Graham, who listened to
- the barely audible voice and wondered whether Morris had broken up with his
- girlfriend.
-
- "I really F_____ed up," said Morris as he quietly described how his worm was
- reproducing like a virulent cancer, jamming Internet with resource-sapping
- copies of itself. Graham was stunned. He had thought the project was far
- off in the future.
-
- "RTM, you idiot!" he yelled, angry at his friend for "blowing" such a great
- idea. Then he asked, "How did this happen?"
-
- "Well, you remember the number I picked?"
-
- The two worked on possible cures. It was nearly midnight, and the worm had
- been racing through Internet for four hours. Graham suggested that they
- create a Pac-Man cannibal worm to gobble up the worms. "I didn't do that,
- because I had messed up with the first one," Morris later testified.
-
- The two couldn't agree on a strategy, and the conversation ended. Graham
- went to Sudduth's office practically bursting with his secret. "Something
- really big is up. I can't tell you."
-
- "F_____k you, Paul!" shot back the Olympic rower.
-
- "Well ... Robert wrote this virus," Graham said, "and it's taking over every
- computer in the country!"
-
- Sudduth punched out an e-mail message. Though surprised that Morris wasn't
- doing more to stop the worm, he guessed his friend was finding it hard to
- admit that "something he created was out of control!" Morris phoned back and
- told Sudduth how to stop the worm from spreading on Harvard's computers.
-
- Later, at about 1:30 a.m., Morris called Sudduth from his home phone. The
- two decided that Sudduth should publish the worm antidotes on
- Internet--anonymously.
-
- "I was scared," Morris later testified. "I knew people would be annoyed
- about this because it was causing problems, and I wasn't particularly eager
- to catch the blame for this at that time."
-
- Why didn't Morris send the warning?
-
- "Well, I was at home," testified the driven programmer, who had been known to
- work till dawn. "I don't have computer access at home. I suppose I could
- have walked back to Cornell at 2 in the morning ... but even then I wasn't
- sure I could get access to the network." Critics later questioned why Morris
- didn't simply telephone computer experts at Berkeley or MIT, but somehow,
- after having grown up online, in the electronic net, that direct,
- non-computer solution seemed to have escaped him.
-
- Friends have a simpler explanation. Morris, quite unlike his hero, the
- Shockwave Rider, was simply "frightened out of his wits."
-
- "'Precipice is going to be attacked with nukes at 0130!' [The Shockwave
- Rider] launched into a burst of furious activity, punching his board with
- fingers that flew faster than a pianist's. '... Run like hell--because this
- may not work'"
-
- SUDDUTH WORKED TO GET THE WORD OUT. By now, the system was clogged. the
- only connection he could find was to a bulletin board at Brown University,
- hardly a center for Unix or Internet. The tired system manager typed out the
- antidote, describing how to close the holes and protect against new attacks,
- ending with the odd phrase, "I hope this helps, but even more, I hope it's a
- hoax."
-
- At about 4 a.m., Sudduth finally dragged himself to bed. Computer centers
- around the nation were in the process of shutting down the relay centers that
- might pass the worm--and its antidote. His friend had already been fast
- asleep for two hours.
-
- The next morning, Morris worked on some school-work he had neglected and
- "just generally tried to relax." In the evening he went to choir practice.
-
- Almost 24 hours had passed since he'd released the worm. When he returned to
- Upson Hall, he logged on to read his mail. The system seemed to be working
- fine. Morris read several Cornell notices about a "loose virus" that seemed
- under control, although users were warned to "be careful"; some notices from
- Keith Bostic about patching security holes that the worm had used; and a
- message from Paul Graham asking him to call. There was something else Morris
- did at Upson Hall on November 3:
-
- "Yes, I believe I cleaned up some of my files."
-
- "By 'cleaned up,' you mean you deleted some of the files?" probed the
- prosecution.
-
- "I deleted some of my files, yes."
-
- "And that copy of the virus you left on your account, that was encrypted,
- that was in an encrypted form, wasn't it?
-
- "It was. Yes."
-
- Once again, Morris left Upson Hall and returned home to make a phone call.
- Graham excitedly informed him that the worm and disclosure of its staggering
- impact "was about to get into newspapers, and that it might be a big sort of
- media event."
-
- Morris "screwed up" his courage and called his father, the computer security
- expert, because he "felt that he ought to know." Morris senior was not
- amused. He told his son to go home and not to talk to anybody. "So then I
- went to bed and I left Cornell the next day," Morris testified.
-
- But the true Shockwave Rider never abandoned the front line. With a nuclear
- bomber zeroing in, he bravely hacked out the commands to avert the attack:
-
- "And you did it in less than ten minutes?"
-
- "Looking back on it, I feel I had all the time in the world."
-
- MEANWHILE, MORRIS WAS RETREATING, though not as smoothly as planned. One of
- his friends had inadvertently let RTM's log-on and nickname slip to John
- Markoff, a reporter from The New York Times who happened to have written
- extensively on computer security and who counted among his friends one of the
- nation's leading computer security experts, Robert Morris, Sr.
-
- The reporter used an Internet account to "Fingerd" RTM, and the program
- faithfully flashed the name Robert T. Morris. When the reporter called
- Morris senior and noted the similarity of their names, the elaborate
- "experiment" unraveled. Morris junior's secret trail of anonymous accounts,
- red herrings, and encrypted files suddenly became the machinations of an
- adolescent playing war games.
-
- Officials at MIT estimated that 6,000 of the nation's 60,000 Internet
- computers had been invaded. The country's top computer experts spent several
- sleepless days and nights battling and cleaning up after the attack, while
- tens of thousands of military and university researchers went without
- computer power. (Blocked at the relay point, Sudduth's antidote had not been
- delivered for two days.) The tab for the wasted time and resources was
- estimated at $15 million.
-
- Three days after the attack, The New York Times began a series of front-page
- stories about the missing Internet attacker, Robert Tappan Morris. While
- Morris maintained a public silence ordered first by his father and then by
- his Washington, D.C., attorney, the FBI began an investigation, and
- government and university officials harshly criticized the hacker.
-
- Old Bell Labs colleagues like Douglas McIlroy were puzzled by their progeny's
- slip. "What I don't understand is the secrecy part of it. All of the
- juvenile tricks, encrypting source files to launch from some other machine,
- encrypting the program," says the scientist. "That's not consonant with a
- fun-loving kid."
-
- Yet many computer security experts--some of them friends and former
- associates of Morris senior--rose to Morris junior's defense. They said his
- experiment was a harmless, overdue warning of gross gaps in computer
- security, and argued that Morris should be cheered, not convicted.
-
- "When all is said and done, this kid is going to come down as a folk hero,"
- Peter Neuman, a computer security expert at SRI international (one of Morris
- junior's former employers) told The New York Times.
-
- Of course, the hacker is the hero--in fiction. The Shockwave Rider liberates
- the masses from a corrupt, computer-controlled government with a
- freedom-fighting worm, risks his life to foil a nuclear attack, wins his
- girl's heart, and is praised by the world. But Morris had no such righteous
- intentions. He had no social or moral agenda, and never intended to expose
- Internet's well-known security limitations. His worm had no other purpose
- than to spread as far and wide as possible, and if it had spread as planned,
- slowly, innocuously, most say the response would have been even greater
- panic.
-
- The world that Morris's worm entered was far removed from his boyhood
- computer security training in the hallowed research halls of Bell Labs. In
- the decade since his code-cracking childhood, computers leapt into the
- mainstream to become the foundation of business and commerce. Assaults on
- computers became assaults on industry, and by the mid-1980s terrorist
- computer attacks and malicious break-ins revealed the dark side of hacking,
- forever ending the playful era of his father, when hacking was a rite of
- passage.
-
- Therein lay the irony and tragedy of the trial of Robert Morris. He was
- being tried for what he was taught by his father, his institutions, and his
- generation: access, unauthorized. The trouble was, as the would-be security
- expert wrote in one of his early papers, "Times have changed."
-
- Some were not prepared for the change. On the day before the verdict, a
- Harvard professor warned that "if Robert had wanted to do damage, there would
- have been nothing left! All the computers would have gone up in smoke!"
- Another Harvard friend suggested that if Morris were "unjustly punished," it
- might inspire a less restrained, less idealistic hacker to "do it right."
- The reasoning was similar to Morris's main line of defense.
-
- "Was it your intention to have the worm program destroy or damage any files?"
- asked the defense attorney.
-
- "No, it was not."
-
- "Was it possible for you to do that?"
-
- "It would have been easy to do that."
-
- The implication was ominous, and at least one close friend of Morris's was
- not convinced that everything was OK just because his bored buddy hadn't
- pulled the trigger. "On some level I know why he did this, and on some level
- I don't," says Kuperberg, glancing away and pacing like the old roommate he
- struggle to defend. "On some level [Morris senior's explanation of boredom]
- is not satisfactory."
-
- No answer seemed likely to come from the one person who might know. After
- the guilty verdict was issued in his trial, Morris and his attorney walked
- past the jostling TV crews and newspaper reporters and into the winter night.
-
- His father held back. The press surrounded him and the TV lights shone
- eerily on his face. "What do you feel, Mr. Morris? What do you feel?"
-
- He chose his words carefully, stiffly stating that the trial had been fair,
- though he was not happy with the verdict. The question came again, and this
- time he spoke with conviction: "It's perfectly obvious that there is not a
- fraudulent or dishonest bone in his body."
-
- IN THE WORM'S WAKE, there has been no great improvement in security, but
- fresh concern that future computer communication tools used by the average
- citizen may have to be weighed down by cumbersome locks and chains. For, as
- Morris senior wrote in his treatise on Unix security, "It is easy to run a
- secure computer system. You merely have to disconnect all dial-up
- connections and permit only direct-wired terminals, put the machine and its
- terminals in a shielded room, and post a guard at the door."
-
- Such is the bleak reality of total computer security, and if history is any
- lesson, computers, too, will move through cycles, bringing periods of cold
- war as well as openness. In the end, security is trust, which must be
- nurtured and cultivated like any other human quality. Morris wanted to be a
- hero, yet he lacked the patience and vision to forge a new direction.
-
- "What would have been great is if he had shut the holes after himself. That
- would have been a coup," says Peter McIlroy. "If he had thought of that, I
- think he would have done it."
-
- But RTM wanted nothing of the sort. In the private war he waged it was his
- duty to hold on to the holes, to wield them in the way he "knew they wouldn't
- mind."
-
- And Robert Tappan Morris? He was just a kid.
-
- "He might have been trained to display such powers of judgment; he might have
- been specially bred to possess them. One thing was sure: he hadn't lived
- long enough to grow into them."
-
- Jonathan Littman is the author of Once Upon a Time in ComputerLand (Simon &
- Schuster, 1990). A journalist who covers Silicon Valley and the
- high-technology industry, he lives in Sonoma, California.
-
-
- *************************************************************************
-
- WORDLESS
- By Homer Mandrill
-
- The new era is rapidly upon us, folks, just like it
- always has been since the beginning of time. With every
- passing moment, with every exhalation, with every beat of our
- hearts the potential for this new era is conceived,
- disregarded, and thrown away.
- The new era of which I write will not be heralded by a
- great battle. Neither will it be heralded by rapture,
- discernment, the rise of the Anti-Christ, bill HR 4079 (which
- EVERYONE needs to learn about REAL quick), or the arrival of
- aliens from Planet X.
- It will be ushered in by some random but seemingly
- 'composed' event. Neither I nor anyone else know what it will
- be, and there in lies its power. It will not have been
- manufactured by any ego, collective or individual. Neither
- will it be 'perceived' as a prophecy, 'as it is written'.
- In this way, it will catch us unawares; we will stand as
- a world, jaws lowered, gasping, trying to conceive of words
- that apply to the situation.
- Each individual on the planet will be caught in that
- breathless Moment of confusion; a tugging on the compassion
- of every human alive, simultaneously. A hole in our
- collective chest cavity where once beat our hearts, we will
- all, simultaneously be forced to come to terms with something
- none of us had counted on. We will all be out of our depth.
-
- This Gasp will be felt by everyone, everywhere. This
- event will transcend religion, politics, race; no one will be
- immune to its effects/affects. It will be universal. And
- words won't do it justice.
-
- A billion trillion dollars/yen/deutchmarks/pounds/gold/
- frankenscence/myrhh, the cold right hand of fundamentalism
- made into a fist, the hopes and prayers of trillions of
- people of all races, the actions of every amassed army,
- ever, the commercial exploitation of every nation ever to
- have existed and which will ever exist, the shaping and
- moulding of justice and liberty, the simultaneous reduction
- and expansion of freedom around the planet; these things are
- not the ends to which civilization aspires, but rather the
- tools of our collective psyche, simultaneously raising our
- standard of living and raining on our parade.
- All these things are representative of our greatest
- accomplishments and our greatest folly, and they are the raw
- materials of the Moment of the Gasp. Just as the artist forms
- the clay into something of sublime beauty, so that Moment
- will form our perceptions of ourselves into something we are
- not ready to understand. We will stand in the gallery and
- look at the work of art that is the culmination of all
- humanity throughout the ages encapsulated in that Moment, and
- we will find ourselves unable to judge that which is before
- us.
- The Moment of the Gasp has no analog, no metaphor, no
- preconception, no 'safe zone'. The white man will not be able
- to blame the black man. The black man will not be able to
- blame the white man. The Christians will not be able to blame
- the Jews, the Atheists will not be able to blame the
- Believers, the Right will not be able to blame the Left, I
- will not be able to blame you and you will not be able to
- blame me. The very concept of blame will become obsolete, our
- internal systems of judgement, already built of flimsy
- material, will be dashed to bits on the hard edge of the
- Moment.
- The cynic will be unable to discount the facts before
- him. The idealist will see the cold face of reality. The
- ascetic will be filled with compassion for those around him.
- Every step we will take to run away from the truth will be
- met with more evidence, every word we say will crawl out of
- our mouth like a salted slug.
-
- "Q: When will this Moment come? Is it upon us?"
- My answer can only be that no one knows. As I mentioned
- earlier, it can not be anticipated. And to do so would ruin
- its effect/affect. Being practical for a moment, it seems to
- be rapidly approaching. But again, we cannot anticipate the
- Moment. It will fall down like a bird dropping from a bright
- blue cloudless birdless sky. Who's to say?
-
- "Q: What will come after the Moment of the Gasp?"
- This is the crucial question, because the answer lies
- within the it. Since we can't determine what the event will
- be, we can't predict what will come afterward.
- "A: It all depends."
- This is the frightening realization that has been at the
- back of our collective minds for thousands of years. We
- really DON'T know what the future holds, and whatever it is,
- we in fact are totally unprepared for it. So we listen to
- Nostradamus, we re-read Revelations, we consult the Tarot and
- I Ching... to what end? We wish to control the future...
- When these temporal Holders-Of-The-Power wax poetic of
- the New World Order, they are not speaking of what is to come
- after the Moment of the Gasp. They are just covering their
- tracks. This war in Iraq made some among us humans gasp, but
- it was not THE Gasp. I certainly felt cheated by the system
- I'd been brought up to 'love and obey, or else'. But once
- more, The Gasp will be total, universal, and undeniable. Even
- George Bush will feel it.
- When that Moment comes and we have floundered and
- wallowed and died to our sanity, hopefully we will pick
- ourselves up and learn the lesson of that Moment. Q:What is the
- lesson? A: What kind of bird dropped that turd on us from the
- cloudless birdless sky?
-
- When we find ourselves in the Moment, and all we can do
- is Gasp, the time for change is at hand. Hope springs
- eternal, but then again, the circumstances of the Moment may
- kill us one and all.
-
- Who's to say?
-
- *************************************************************************
-
-
- THE STATE OF NATIONAL SECURITY -- HOW MUCH WE (DON'T) KNOW
-
- November 11, 1990
- Re-Release April 3, 1991
-
- By The Desert Fox
- Transcribed and Edited by Lord Macduff
-
-
- I have been a member of the modem community for about seven years.
- During that time period, I have watched literally hundreds of bulletin boards
- go up and go down. A great majority of these systems were based on a public
- message and file exchange. But a few of these systems were dedicated to the
- exchange and distribution of information... Information that was not usually
- available on a regular basis. In my day, I have seen files on VAX/VMS, phone
- switching systems, hacking, phreaking, and anything else that one could dream
- of. But one thing that constantly has me pondering at all hours of the night
- is the state of our national defense.
- How close and how often do we come to pressing the button? Defined as
- DEFCON-1, the state of panic which is actually sub-defined as World War III,
- is something that has not been reached... yet.
- There are five levels of International Status. DEFCON-5 is what we'd
- all like to be at... unless you're a real nut case and have absolutely no hope
- for the future of mankind. DEFCON(s) 4-1 are lesser states of "panic". A dumb
- reference, yet a valid one, is the movie "Wargames". Although a liberal dose
- of fiction was mixed in as far as the actual methods of hacking and such, it
- makes one think "Just how often DO hackers break into systems like that and
- cause problems possibly leading to the destruction of the world?" [Editor's
- Note -- Not as often as certain federal agencies would like to think. Go
- catch some REAL criminals instead of picking on us modem users...]
- Another question that comes to mind is "How often do Soviet troop
- movements or something of that nature cause a defcon decrease to bring us to
- the brink of global extermination... and the public never knows about it?"
- During the Kennedy Administration, this country was brought to what is the
- equivalent of DEFCON-2 when the Soviets brought their missiles into Cuba in
- the early 1960's. From what transcripts say about the incident, we were
- seconds away from DEFCON-1... what a pisser, huh? Although that happened seven
- years before I was born, my generation would have taken it with a grain of
- salt and looked at it as a chance to get a tan. (A real good one, I might
- add...) Our country goes seconds from World War III and we never found out
- until years later. How often does this happen? Personally, I'd like to know
- when Vodka is going to replace Coca-Cola as the national beverage. I'd also
- like to know when fish eggs are going to be put on the menu at fast food
- joints.
- At this very moment [4:27 AM on Sunday, November 11, 1990 if anyone
- is curious... -Ed.] United States and Allied troops are in the Middle East
- preparing for war. The media reports that all the troops are over there just
- sitting around bored to death. [Yet another Editor's Note -- Due to a time
- control problem, I will finish this essay instead of Sir Lawrence...
- Apologies for the interruption.] It's very possible we could have another
- Vietnam on our hands. Hell, Saddam Hussain is not going to stop with the
- invasion of Kuwait... There's a very interesting parallel between Hussain and
- a short German guy who started World War II... I'm not so sure why everyone's
- worried about German Reunification -- It's the Iraqis we SHOULD be worrying
- about! Hussain insists that the American citizens that he is holding hostage
- in various hotels in Baghdad are "Guests". We might do well to round up every
- last Iraqi citizen in this country who has a visa or green card and stick 'em
- all in ONE Motel 6 somewhere in the midwest. Let Tom Bodett deal with them for
- a while... Perhaps the CIA could go blow up some of their planes or important
- buildings... Goodness knows they've done the same to us enough times to make
- the average citizen want to puke. If we hurry up and storm the place NOW,
- before Saddam figures out how to put together that mail-order nuclear bomb,
- we could take the whole place over in a matter of days. We could use that oil.
- The weapons manufacturers would make a fortune, perhaps even create new jobs.
- Our economy could USE a boost, with the gas prices what they are. [Sidenote:
- Who's to say that Exxon isn't financing Saddam Hussain?] Sell the entire
- country to Russia for them to use as parking, for that matter.
- The projected costs for Operation Desert Shield are in the billions,
- while it has accomplished virtually nothing. Truly another case of YOUR TAX
- DOLLARS AT WORK.
- But who's to say if this is for real? This may be a conspiracy by the
- oil companies (who secretly own the government) to make more money. The
- government controls the media, which is our only source if information from
- over there. Small wonder they want to supress publications like PHRACK...
- They aren't from the government-controlled media.
-
- SUPRESSION BREEDS REVOLUTION
-
-
- *************************************************************************
-
-
-
- :======================================================:
- | A Brief Explanation of Beer*Net |
- | 10/16/90 |
- | |
- | Written by Toxic Sock @beernet01 |
- | |
- | Further information availible on the |
- | |
- | +-------------------------------------------------------------+
- | following | |
- | Beer*Net | |
- | systems: | Apocalyptic Funhouse (713) 531 -*- 1139 |
- | | Sysop: Nuclear Gerbil/Chris 40 megs/2400/1200 |
- | | |
- | | The Magic Window (713) 356 -*- 7150 |
- | | Sysop: Zen Master/Mark 30 megs/2400/1200 |
- | | |
- | | Malacology Unlimited (713) 356 -*- 6004 |
- :===============| Sysop: Dr. Goodnight/Craig 80 megs/2400/1200 |
- | |
- | Split Infinity (713) FEW -*- BUGS |
- | Sysop: Strider Arcadian/Will 40 megs/2400/1200 |
- | |
- | Rawhide Palace (713) 383 -*- 3961 |
- | Sysop: Gurn Blanston/Ron 80 megs/2400/1200 |
- +-------------------------------------------------------------+
-
-
- Why Beer*Net?
- -------------
- Houston is famed for its intolerance of basic rights and
- the opinions of others on its bulletin board systems. This is not
- surprising in a city where the most common activity is the proverbial
- leechline activity, but is distressing nonetheless to intelligent users
- who want to make their opinions known without living in fear of
- mysterious account modifications, deletions or message removal. At
- times the oppression has been so blatant that users have made the
- transition from user to sysop and have run "free speech" systems that
- broke all of the established (and stupid) rules and allowed the open
- expression of intelligence. They have always met with opposition from
- the petty tyrants who run their own digital kingdoms for the
- gratification of having power, no matter how unconnected to reality it
- is. And, since these types generally invest a good deal of money in
- their systems, they are the ones who have what the common user covets -
- file transfers - and use this as the basis of their power. When
- something threatening such as a board with free speech allowed or a no
- ratio file transfer system appears, they often band together and assault
- the sysop, especially if he is a minor, where they know they can
- sufficiently confuse his parents into forcing them to remove the
- offending bulletin board system. This has happened to more than one
- reputable user-turned-sysop, and with the emergence of Beer*Net, will
- hopefully be eradicated.
-
- Free Speech
- -----------
- Simply put, "free speech" is the right to say whatever the user
- pleases without any immediate repercussions other than the responses of
- fellow users. On a free speech BBS, a user may say whatever he wishes
- without trepidation, because the sysop is honor bound not to take action
- against the user. This is not easy for a sysop, especially when said
- user espouses neanderthal beliefs such as racism or bigotry. However,
- the overall outlook is much better for a BBS that allows intellectual
- development and interesting posts through free speech than for a
- squeaky-clean and silent BBS. This is a basic right we hold to be
- necessary, and we, the Beer*Net sysops, are committed to defend it.
- We agree that by allowing free speech we are exempting the users
- from action taken by the sysop against them for what they say publicly
- or privately on a BBS, with the exception of illegal activity such as
- passing long distance codes or passwords. We also agree that we will
- not read private mail, nor will we ever use a user's account for our own
- purposes. Any change in access level, change in user information or
- deletion of a part or the whole of the user's account in response to
- user posting is considering a violation, as are passing on to any other
- sysop, user or official all or part of a user's information and
- confronting anyone but the user himself with details of a supposed
- infraction.
- In addition, we are committed to helping others interested in
- maintaining free speech on bulletin board systems. If we hear of a case
- where unwarranted harrassment is being delivered by other sysops, we are
- pledged to combat it by whatever means necessary. Rights must be
- preserved above all.
-
- The Systems
- -----------
- The systems listed on the file header are all committed to the
- Beer*Net ideals and have implemented them. They do not support
- blacklisting, and do not pass on user information between systems or to
- other users. Moreover, the sysops will NOT call up parents or deal with
- anyone besides the user himself regarding the user's conduct. The
- sysops do reserve the right to preserve in copy buffer form all or part
- of any chats, posts, or e-mail directed to the sysop or in a public
- area. These policies are implemented at the verification of this file
- by all of the sysops involved.
-
- History
- -------
- Beer*Net was an idea developed in part by the sysops of TURD
- (the "original" true free speech system), namely Royal Flush, Vile Scent
- (Toxic Waste, Yeast Infection) and Captain Crapp (Vehicular Slaughter,
- Nuclear Gerbil) and in part by Zen Master, an original user on TURD and
- now sysop of the Magic Window.
- TURD had its origins in the Apple II community, where the sysops
- observed that more than the normal amount of petty didactic types
- reigned, and committed themselves to do something about it. Today, the
- remnants of TURD are to be found in Apocalyptic Funhouse (713-531-1139),
- as are parts of the Metal Hell and Dead Animal Pickup.
- Malacology Unlimited and Magic Window are later additions to the
- free speaking world, but are viable systems worthy of investigation by
- any user. They are running Hermes on the Macintosh and TAG on a clone,
- respectively. All are open systems.
-
- Attribution
- -----------
- The credit for the impetus and ideas behind Beer*Net go to the
- following people:
-
- Yeast Infection: part of original brainstorm project
- Myself: Captain Crapp had to be involved...
- Zen Master: stimulated us to further develop the idea
- Dr. Goodnight: for helping to break the power of didactic
- sysops in Houston
- Jesse Helms: For proving that pro-rights people are
- smarter...
-
- *************************************************************************
-
- THE LAW OF TORTS
-
- James J. Spinelli
- The Activity Bulletin Board Service - ABBS - (914) 779-4273
-
- =====================================================================
-
- This paper is NOT intended as a substitute for a lawyer NOR as a
- do-it-yourself kit. It provides basic information to help you under-
- stand certain legal principles. In any serious situation or when you
- are in doubt, there is no substitute for competent professional legal
- advice. Trying to act as your own lawyer can be costly and, in some in-
- stances, dangerous. The author assumes no responsibility, accountabil-
- ity or liability whatsoever in the use or misuse of any information
- presented herein. The information herein is of a general nature.
-
- =====================================================================
-
- Most of us are generally aware of what crimes are (murder, arson,
- theft, for example) but are vague about what the law refers to as
- torts. There's a good reason: leading legal writers agree that no one
- has satisfactorily defined a tort. This is partly because torts are so
- common, so widespread and so varied. You are far more likely to be the
- victim of a tort than a crime, and you are also far more likely to com-
- mit a tort than a crime.
-
- The purposes of this paper are sevenfold:
-
- 1. To explain torts;
- 2. To show how they differ from crimes;
- 3. To stress the importance, in the law of torts, of
- negligence, intent and liability;
- 4. To indicate what relief is available to you when a
- tort has been committed against you or your property;
- 5. To show you how to seek that relief by starting a
- lawsuit;
- 6. To explain how such a suit is tried;
- 7. To relate all of the above purposes to a specific
- classification of circumstances, i.e., how they relate
- to the role and responsibilities of a systems operator
- (Sysop) of an electronic bulletin board service (BBS).
-
- TORTS VERSUS CRIMES - A tort is a civil wrong against an individual. A
- crime, on the other hand, is an offense against the public at large, or
- the state. For example, an automobile driver who carelessly bumps into
- your car in a parking lot and crumples the fender has committed a tort
-
- against your property. Because the law recognizes your legal right to
- freedom from injury to your property caused by other people's careless-
- ness, you are entitled to sue the driver and be awarded damages for his
- breach of your tight. But, he has committed no crime.
-
- Once again, a tort is an act that violates your private or personal
- rights. Unless the act that is a tort is also a crime, the state will
- do nothing about it. If you believe someone has violated your personal
- rights -- but has not acted against the interests of the public as a
- whole -- it is entirely up to you to seek relief by suing the person in
- the civil courts. If the person who you believe has legally aggrieved
- you is found liable -- that is, the judge or jury finds that the person
- did in fact injure you or your property -- the person may be required
- to:
-
- 1. give you relief by paying you "damages" for the injury or
- property loss you suffered,
- 2. discontinue the wrongful acts, or
- 3. restore to you what was taken from you.
-
- In some cases the person may be imprisoned.
-
- If the tort is also a crime, two separate legal actions confront the
- wrongdoer: your's and the state's.
-
- A tort is usually committed when someone injures you physically, dam-
- ages or misuses your property, attacks your reputation arbitrarily or
- takes away your liberty and freedom of action without just cause. To
- recover damages for a tort you must prove either that the act was com-
- mitted with deliberate intent (as when someone spreads false accusa-
- tions about you) or that it was the result of negligence.
-
- In most cases you must prove that the act inflicted actual damage or
- injuries. A malicious act that does you no harm is not sufficient cause
- for legal action.
-
- A person who is proved to have committed a tort will be held respon-
- sible for all the damages proved to have resulted from the act, includ-
- ing damages to "third parties."
-
- WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR COMMITTING A TORT - Generally speaking, any per-
- son, young or old, mentally competent or not, is responsible for
- his/her torts, i.e., for the consequences of the actions to others in-
- jured by those actions. Here is an interesting distinction between
- torts and crimes. Children below a certain age not usually liable for
- crimes they commit, on the ground that children of their age really do
- not understand the significance of their actions. For basically the
- same reason, persons who have been adjudged mentally incompetent are
- not liable for their crimes. BUT, these SAME persons may be liable for
- their torts, whether they are deliberate or the result of carelessness.
-
-
- Intent is an essential element in such torts as libel and trespass. Al-
- most all employers are liable for the torts of their employees if the
- employee committed the harmful act during the course of employment.
- (This also applies to "agent" and "principal" relationships.) The point
- to keep in mind is that the law usually holds an employer liable for
- what happens when his employee is carrying out instructions and/or
- working on behalf on the employer. But, not all employers -- especially
- not governmental ones. The doctrine of sovereign immunity -- that the
- state cannot be sued except by its own consent -- severely limits your
- right to sue governments and governmental bodies for the torts of their
- employees. However, the US government and the government of many states
- have in recent years passed laws that do permit such suits to be
- brought against them. In some instances separate courts, usually called
- courts of claims, have been established to handle these actions.
-
- Some people may not be held liable in tort actions. Among them are hus-
- bands and wives, who are not considered responsible for each other's
- torts, and parents, who are not usually liable for the torts of their
- children. The situation changes, however, if the parent knows that the
- child has developed what lawyers call a vicious propensity to commit
- acts that injure other people or their property. In addition, some
- states have passed laws that do make the parents responsible for will-
- ful damage caused by their minor children.
-
- Of course, if it can be established that the husband or wife or parent
- or other adult actually thought up the tortious action, planned it and
- coerced or persuaded the spouse or child into committing it, than that
- adult or spouse WILL be held responsible for the act and liable for the
- damage it caused.
-
- Except for so-called acts of God, any interference with your personal
- or property rights, whether intentional or through negligence, is a
- tort.
-
- When it comes to personal rights, torts typically deal with one or more
- of the following intentional violations: (negligence comes later)
-
- 1. Interference with your freedom of movement
- 2. Misuse of the legal process
- 3. Interference with your person
- 4. Interference with your peace of mind
- 5. Interference with your privacy
- 6. Interference with your reputation
-
- For our purposes, we shall examine only items 4, 5 and 6 -- interfer-
- ence with your peace of mind, your privacy and your reputation.
-
-
- INTERFERENCE WITH YOUR PEACE OF MIND - The growth in the sciences of
- medicine and psychology has brought about an expansion of the idea of
- freedom from fear or apprehension. You may have an action against some-
- one who intentionally inflicts mental suffering on you. You have a
- right to freedom from the consequences of mentally abusing malicious
- acts, and the courts protect that right by awarding damages -- nominal,
- or small, if the harm is slight; punitive, or large, if the damage is
- great or the act particularly outrageous. Consider the mental anguish
- if you are worried that someone will come into your home and cause dam-
- age, or that someone will "attack" your computer system while you are
- not around to protect it. The more expensive the equipment (your prop-
- erty), the more punitive the damages. At times, the intent alone, par-
- ticularly if shown to be an act of vengeance or malice, can be suffi-
- cient to award punitive damages that are considerably greater than the
- cost or value of property, depending on the mental anguish suffered. If
- such an act disrupts a business, the mental anguish can be quite se-
- vere, and the tort may be punishable by stiff fines and/or a jail term.
- In some cases, such torts can be classified as a crime, which then ne-
- cessitates the state to step in, since some states view the mental an-
- guish to be associated with acts of violence that concern the public at
- large. This applies since other businesses may be subjected to similar
- malfeasance.
-
- INTERFERENCE WITH YOUR PRIVACY - This is another right protected by the
- courts -- your right to be let alone. Such interference can take many
- forms, some obvious, others not so obvious. One of the not-so-obvious,
- or less direct violations to privacy, is the objectionable publicity to
- private information about you.
-
- INTERFERENCE WITH YOUR REPUTATION - As important as any freedom to
- which you are entitled is freedom from unwarranted, untruthful attacks
- on your character. This kind of attack, if made in the presence of
- other people, constitutes defamation, for which you are entitled to
- nominal or punitive damages, as the case may be. If you are defamed
- orally, you have been slandered. If the defamation is in writing and
- shown to or seen by someone else, you have been libeled. Slander is the
- less serious of the two torts because it is fleeting. The spoken words
- of defamation exist only as they are uttered and then disappear for-
- ever. Libel is permanent, and the damages awarded are therefore usually
- larger. Generally speaking, defamatory statements made over radio and
- television, and via computer are now considered libelous rather than
- slanderous.
-
- You can recover damages for slander or libel without proving actual fi-
- nancial loss if you are accused of something considered serious. The
- reason is that, since the good reputation of a professional person is
- essential to his/her ability to make a living, the law assumes that
- such accusations will diminish that ability and will therefore damage
- the individual. This kind of attack slander or libel is called slander
- or libel per se. Spreading lies about others, especially when the lies
- affect their ability to make a living or may hurt them in their family
- or public relationships, constitutes slander if spoken to others and
- libel if written or transmitted to others.
-
- With property rights, torts are generally concerned with the following
- intentional violations: (negligence comes later)
-
- 1. Nuisances
- 2. Keeping others off your property
- 3. Misuse of your personal property
- 4. Interference with your contractual and business
- relationships
- 5. Fraud, deceit and misrepresentation
-
-
- For our purposes, we shall examine items 3, 4 and 5 above, i.e., misuse
- of your personal property, interference with contractual/business rela-
- tionships, and fraud, etc.
-
- MISUSE OF YOUR PERSONAL PROPERTY - You have the right to the unre-
- stricted and uninterrupted enjoyment of your personal property. The law
- provides remedies for the intentional interruption of your right or in-
- terference with it. Interference with your personal property is called
- the tort of conversion. It can be conduct intended to affect your per-
- sonal property or conduct that, even though not intentionally wrong, is
- inconsistent with your right of ownership.
-
- Examples of conversion are:
-
- 1. Someone intentionally alters the property
- 2. Someone uses your property in a manner inconsistent
- with your wishes or requirements
-
- In both of these cases, your control of your property has been inter-
- fered with, and you are entitled to sue for the tort of conversion.
-
- INTERFERENCE WITH YOUR CONTRACTUAL AND BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS - You
- have a right to freedom from interference by others with the contrac-
- tual relationships you have entered into. This applies even when, after
- the contractual or business relationship, admission of errors are ac-
- knowledged by the offending party. (Remember, contracts occur into com-
- mon forms: oral and written. NOTE: The law of contracts is beyond the
- scope of this paper, and will only be referred to as sufficient to re-
- late to torts as defined herein.) Damages can be punitive if you can
- convince the court that the defendant specifically set out to interfere
- with the relationship or set out to ruin your reputation within the
- confines of your relationship. Proof need only be beyond a reasonable
- doubt and not necessarily overwhelmingly convincing. Potential disrup-
- tion also is considered, since business relationships can be both
- short- and long-term.
-
- FRAUD, DECEIT AND MISREPRESENTATION - You have a right to freedom from
- being improperly induced or persuaded to do something, or not to do
- something, by someone's trickery. What is involved in this tort is:
-
- 1. A conscious or knowing false statement made to you,
- 2. by someone who knew the statement was false,
- 3. with the intention that you would rely on it,
- 4. followed by your actual reliance on it, and
- 5. your "suffering" as a result.
-
- The main thing here is for the person suing to establish that he/she
- was consciously tricked and that if the correct information had been
- given, the suing person would not have acted as he/she did.
-
-
- We now move onto the Law of Torts as it applies to the accidental in-
- terference with your personal or property rights. This is typically
- classified under the general heading of NEGLIGENCE.
-
- Earlier, we were concerned with the intentional interferences with your
- various rights as a member of society. In each of the torts presented
- the harm was intended or the result of an intended act. But, there is a
- large area of the law of torts that is basically different -- the area
- of civil wrongs or torts that are the result of negligence, or mere
- carelessness.
-
- In our increasingly complex society, wrongs resulting from carelessness
- are becoming more numerous than intentional torts. In any case, there
- is a major difference between the two kinds of wrong: to recover from
- someone's negligent conduct toward you, you must prove actual damages
- -- you must establish that the person really did injure your person or
- your property. By contrast with intentional torts, such as trespass,
- you are entitled to some damages just by proving the tort was commit-
- ted.
-
- Unintentional interference can result either from negligence or from
- accident.
-
- WHAT IS NEGLIGENCE - Legal actionable negligence exists when:
-
- 1. You have a legal duty or obligation to conform to a
- certain standard of conduct to protect others against
- unreasonable risk;
- 2. You fail to conform to that standard;
- 3. Your conduct is so closely related to the resulting
- injury that it can be said to have caused it --
- to have been its proximate cause, and
- 4. Actual damages results from your conduct.
-
- If these four elements are present in a situation in which you are in-
- volved, you may be sued and you will find it hard to defend yourself.
-
- These elements of negligence are reasonably clear. But, you should rec-
- ognize that the existence of "a legal duty or obligation" to others may
- depend on the circumstances of the case in which you are being sued.
- You have a legal duty to others only if the court or a statute says you
- do. You have no obligation if the court finds none.
-
- When a tort suit is tried, the standard of care expected of the defen-
- dant is defined by the judge (or the jury). The judge (or the jury, if
- there is one) determines the facts of the case and applies them in
- light of his/her (or their) definition.
-
-
- In groping around for guidelines as to whether you do or do not have a
- duty to act a certain way, and in deciding whether your conduct meets
- the required standard, the courts compare your conduct with the pre-
- sumed conduct of a reasonable or prudent man. If this imaginary reason-
- able or prudent man would have acted a certain way, the person who does
- is liable. You are supposed to do what the prudent man would do, and
- you are not supposed to do what the prudent man would not do.
-
- As A.P. Herbert, the English legal humorist, put it:
-
- He is an ideal, a standard, the embodiment of all
- those qualities which we demand of the good citizen...
- He is one who invariably looks where he is going,
- and is careful to examine the immediate foreground
- before he executes a leap or a bound...who never swears,
- gambles or loses his temper; who uses nothing except
- in moderation....In all that mass of authorities which
- bears upon this branch of the law there is no single
- mention of a reasonable woman.
-
- A key element in a successful negligence suit is the connection between
- what was done and the injury that supposedly resulted from the act. The
- person suing must prove that the defendant caused injury to his/her
- person or property. Some courts in trying to decide whether an act was
- the proximate cause of subsequent damage have applied what is called
- the "foreseeability test." They hold that the negligence is not the
- proximate cause unless the consequence was one that, in the light of
- all circumstances, our reasonably prudent man could have foreseen as a
- probably result of his actions or his failure to act.
-
- (NOTE: There is modification to the prudent man rule when professionals
- or experts in given fields are involved. Here, the court views the
- facts in light of the nature of the knowledge of the expert. For ex-
- ample, a computer programmer is not viewed the same way as a casual
- computer user. Actions attributable to an expert are viewed in terms of
- how the typical expert in that field would have acted or would not have
- acted. If a casual computer user unintentionally damaged your computer
- system, it would not be given the same consideration as if an "expert"
- did the same thing. Remember, we are dealing with reasonableness, and
- expertise or skills above the "ordinary person" can weigh heavily in
- determining the final outcome of a tort-based lawsuit.
-
- Other circumstances can apply, particularly if a business transaction
- occurs and/or a contract is in force.)
-
-
- YOUR DUTY TO OTHERS WHO COME ONTO YOUR PROPERTY - If you own property
- (any kind of property, not just real estate, e.g., computer bulletin
- board systems), you have definite responsibilities to persons coming
- onto that property legally or otherwise. Even to a trespasser, someone
- entering your property illegally, you have an obligation to give warn-
- ing of any genuinely dangerous (or injurious/harmful) condition known
- only to you. If you hobby is a computer bulletin board, you'd be wise
- to post a warning sign (or disclaimer) so that casual trespassers real-
- ize that there may be a danger in wandering around your property.
-
- (NOTE: You must be able to prove that the warning was in fact in such a
- place, state or condition that it could not have been bypassed or mis-
- interpreted. A warning (or disclaimer) that people cannot easily view
- or is not reasonably obvious is no warning at all. For example, a
- typical news item that can be bypassed on a bulletin board log-on is
- not considered a reasonable posting of a warning because it can be by-
- passed -- is not necessarily obvious to all.)
-
- You owe a stricter responsibility to trespassing children (minors) be-
- cause they are children and unlikely to realize or care about the fine
- points of the law of trespass. To protect young trespassers and to com-
- pensate them for injuries they may suffer in behaving like children,
- the courts have thrown over them a mantle called the attractive nui-
- sance doctrine. This doctrine requires the property owner who maintains
- on his property anything attractive to young children, and dangerous to
- them because of their immaturity and unawareness of possible risks, to
- exercise reasonable care in protecting them against the dangers of the
- attraction.
-
- (Think about this should you be carrying pornographic material on your
- bulletin board, or other such attractions that children can be harmed
- from. Computer games may become a potential source of difficulty given
- the current lawsuit against the manufacturers and distributors of Dun-
- geons & Dragons -- the "game" being blamed as a teenager's cause for
- committing a crime. As "ludicrous" as it may sound, the case is going
- to court.)
-
- There is a group of people called licensees who may come onto your
- property with your implied permission. They are different from tres-
- passers who have no permission, and you have a somewhat stronger obli-
- gation to protect them. You have a duty to warn them of dangerous or
- hazardous or harmful conditions they may not anticipate or easily see.
- (The law regarding your obligation to casual guests in your computer
- system is specialized and evolving.)
-
- Invitees are the people coming onto your property to whom you owe the
- maximum duty of protection, not only against risks you actually do know
- about, but also against dangers that you should know about if you exer-
- cised reasonable care. Invitees are persons who enter your property
- upon your business and upon your express or implied invitation.
-
-
- As in most tort cases, the court and the jury will carefully consider
- the facts in each situation before coming to a decision about whether
- or not the defendant was negligent. One rule commonly applied is that
- the standard of care required of the property owner is greater to the
- degree that the presence of people on his property is helpful or prof-
- itable to the property owner. In other words, a bulletin board sysop,
- who gains a benefit from your visiting his/her system, has a greater
- duty to you than does a friend who invites you to his/her home as a so-
- cial guest. (Note: the benefit need NOT be monetary.). The application
- of general rules is up to the court. The liability to trespassers,
- invitees and licensees is the owner's or that of the person in legal
- possession. (For example, if you lend your computer system to someone,
- and harm is done, the liability belongs to the person in legal posses-
- sion, which may or may not be your's., depending on the nature of the
- possession and of the restrictions thereof.)
-
- Torts frequently occur under circumstances in which, although it is im-
- possible to prove negligence on anyone's part, what happens is so ex-
- traordinary that negligence is presumed. As the courts say, the thing
- speaks for itself: res ipsa loquitur.
-
- The doctrine of res ipsa loquitur may also be invoked where damage is
- caused by the breakdown of a device that is under the complete owner-
- ship and control of the defendant.
-
-
- THE IMPORTANCE OF LIABILITY - Underlying all of this is your right to
- recover for injuries you suffer from interference with your right to be
- free from a variety of wrongs, some well established and others just
- becoming established. If you feel that you have been wronged, you
- should carefully consider still another factor that will influence your
- decision whether or not to sue.
-
- This is the question, which only your lawyer should decide, of whether
- there is any liability on the part of the person who has wronged you.
- He will be liable, and your legal action against him will succeed, only
- if he/she has actually violated a legal duty which is owed to you as an
- individual. Forgetting momentarily the question of your responsibility
- for what happened, you can recover only where what was done or failed
- to be done violated the course of conduct that the reasonably prudent
- man would have done.
-
- If the conduct of the person you want to sue has not, judged by the
- presumed conduct of the reasonably prudent man, violated a duty to you,
- the chances are you have no action. Liability is essential: you can win
- your suit only if the person you are suing acted or failed to act in
- such a way as to make the person liable. Liability results from conduct
- that violates or interfers with one of your rights that the law recog-
- nizes. If there is no such conduct there is no liability, no matteer
- how aggrieved you may feel.
-
-
- However, remember that the "prudent man" standard can also vary. Pro-
- fessionals, i.e., doctors, lawyers, computer specialists, and the like,
- are not your "ordinary" layperson. As such, the standards that govern
- their conduct are viewed as a prudent practioner within the area of
- speciality. These standards are gauged at a higher level than the ordi-
- nary citizen's.
-
- RIGHTING THE WRONG - Let's say that your lawyer has decided that, on
- the basis of the facts you have given, the person who has wronged you
- had a duty not to do so and that a court can therefore find the person
- liable for violation of that duty. The question of which remedy you
- should seek becomes all-important. Underlying the answer to this ques-
- tion is the subject of damages. Also, keep in mind that many inten-
- tional torts are or can be crimes.
-
- Someone, for example, breaks into your computer system and destroys all
- of the information you had stored there. It would take you weeks, if
- not months, if at all, to be able to restore that information. However,
- in the process you are severely compromised for work that you were per-
- forming for someone for a fee. What is the "cost" of the damage? You
- need to decide whether what you've lost is worth the expense of suing.
- Also, is the person you are suing "judgment-proof?" That is, is the
- person being sued broke or without assets? Sure you can sue, but if you
- can't recover anything, you've gained nothing. You've lost the expense
- of the legal action. You may, therefore, decide to sue on principle.
- Provided you have the funds to take legal action, and do not care very
- much about recovering money damages, you may continue your efforts. In
- this example, some states would view the action as a crime. If so,
- "punishment" may no longer be simply "monetary" in nature.
-
- You are not limited to asking for money damages when you have been de-
- prived of your property. You may try to get back the property itself,
- or a reasonable facsimile. Let's say that someone causes damage to your
- equipment. You may sue to get back equipment of equal value.
-
- There are certain other torts for which money damages are not the re-
- lief you want. If you are bothered by the neighbor who persists in
- walking across your property despite all your requests that he stop,
- money damages don't help you much. What you want in such a case is a
- court order that he stop. Such an order is called an "injunction."
-
- Now, let's apply all of this to the BBS environment.
-
-
- ABBS wishes to thank Frank Levine, Attorney at Law and Co-Sysop
- at ABBS, for the following. We are uncertain as to its origin,
- but know that it has come from another bulletin board system.
-
- This and our paper on the Law of Torts, represent our efforts
- to provide information to fellow Sysops/BBS operators in hopes
- to enlighten and contribute toward the growth and success of
- the services we all provide and the communities we all serve.
-
- James J. Spinelli
- Sysop, ABBS
- (914) 779-4273
-
-
-
- ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS PRIVACY ACT OF 1986
- H.R. 4952
-
- Some of its provisions are important to BBS sysops and users.
- The following is an excerpt from the House Report (
- 99-647).
-
- CHAPTER 121--STORED WIRE AND ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS
- AND TRANSACTION RECORDS ACCESS
-
- Section 2701. Unlawful access to stored communications
-
- (a) Offense.--Except as provided in subsection 9c) of
- this section whoever--
- (1) intentionally accesses without authorization a
- facility through which an electronic
- communiation service is provided; or
-
- (2) intentionally exceeds an authorization to ac-
- cess that facility and thereby obtains, alters,
- or prevents authorized access to a
- wire or electronic communication while it is
- in electronic storage in such system shall be
- punished as provided in subsection (b) of this
- section.
-
-
- (b) Punishment.-- The punishment for an offense under
- sub section (a) of this section is--
- (1) if the offense is committed for purposes of
- commercial advantage, malicious destruction or
- damages, or private commercial gain--
- (A) a fine of not more than $250,000 or
- imprisonment for not more than one
- year, or both, in the case of a first
- offense under this subparagraph; and
- (B) a fine under this title or imprison-
- ment for not more than two years or
- both for an subsequent offense under
- this subparagraph; and
- (2) a fine of not more than $5,000 or imprisonment
- for not more than six months, or both in any
- other case.
-
- Section 2702. Disclosure of Contents
-
- (a) Prohibitions.--Except as provided in subsection
- (b)--
- (1) a person or entitle providing an electronic
- communication service to the public shall not
- knowingly divulge to any person or entity the
- contents of a communication while in
- electronic storage by that service; and
- (2) a person or entity providing remote computing
- service to the public shall not knowingly di-
- vulge to any person or entity the contents of
- any communication which is carried or main-
- tained on that service--
- (A) on behalf of, and received by means
- of electronic transmission from (or
- created by means of computer
- processing of communications received
- by means of electronic transmission
- from), a subscriber or customer of
- such service; and
- (B) solely for the purpose of providing
- storage or computer processing ser-
- vices to such subscriber or customer,
- if the provider is not authorized to
- access the contents of any such
- communications for purposes of pro-
- viding any services other than
- storage or computer processing.
-
-
- (b) Exceptions.--A person or entity may divulge the con-
- tents of a communication ---
- (1) to an addressee or intended recipient of such
- communication or an agent of such addressee or
- intended recipient;
- (2) as otherwise authorized in section 2516,
- 2511(2)(a) or 2703 of this title;
- (3) with the lawful consent of the originator or an
- addressee or intended recipient of such
- communication, or the subscriber in the case of
- remote computing service;
- (4) to a person employed or authorized or whose fa-
- cilities are suited to forward such communication
- to its destination;
- (5) as may be necessarily incident to the rendition
- of the service or to the protection of the
- rights or property of the provider of that ser-
- vice; or
- (6)to a law enforcement agency, if such contents--
- (A) were inadvertently obtained by ser-
- vice provider; and
- (B) appear to pertain to the commission
- of a crime.
-
- REPORT LANGUAGE
-
- Proposed section 2701 provides a new criminal offense. The
- offense consists of either: (1) intentionally accessing,
- without authorization, a facility through which an electronic
- communication service is provided or (2) intentionally exceeding
- the authorization of such facility.
-
- In addition, the offense requires that the offender must, as
- a result of such conduct, obtain, alter, or prevent
- unauthorized access to a wire or electronic communication
- while it is in electronic storage in such a system. The
- term electronic storage is defined in section 2510(17) of
- Title 18. Electronic storage means any temporary,
- intermediate storage of a wire or electronic communication
- incidental to the electronic transmission thereof and the
- storage of such communication by an electronic communications
- service for the purpose of back-up protection of such
- communication.
-
- Section 2701(a) makes it an offense intentionally to access
- without authorization, or to exceed an authorization to ac-
- cess, an electronic communication service and thereby obtain,
- or prevent authorized access to a wire or electronic
- communication while it is in electronic storage in such sys-
- tem. This provision addresses the growing problem of unautho-
- rized persons deliberately gaining access to, and sometimes
- tampering with, electronic or wire communication that are not
- intended to be available to the public.
-
- The Committee recognizes however that some electronic com-
- munication services offer specific features, sometimes known
- as computer "electronic bulletin boards," through which
- interested person may communicate openly with the public to
- exchange computer programs in the public domain and other
- types of information that may be distributed without legal
- constraint.
-
- It is not the intent to hinder the development or use of
- "electronic bulletin boards" or other comparable services.
- The Committee believes that where communciations are
- readily accessible to the general public, the sender has,
- for purposes of Section 2701(a), extended an "authorization"
- to the public to access those communications. A person may
- reasonably conclude that a communication is readily acces-
- sible to the general public if the telephone number of the
- system and other means of access are widely known, and if a
- person does not, in the course of gaining access, encounter
- any warnings, encryptions, password requests or other indicia
- of intended privacy. To access a communication on such a
- system should not be a violation of the law.
-
- Some communcation systems offer a mixture of services, some,
- such as bulletin boards, which may be readily accessible to
- the general public, while others--such as electronic
- mail--may be intended to be confidential. Such a system
- typically has two or more distinct levels of security. A
- user may be able to access electronic bulletin boards and
- the like merely with a password he assigns to himself,
- while access to such features as electronic mail ordinarily
- entails a higher level of security (i.e., the mail must be
- addressed to the user to be accessible specifically).
-
- Section 2701 would apply differently to the different
- services. These wire or electronic communications which the
- service provider attempts to keep confidential would be
- protected, while the statute would impose no liability for
- access to feature configured to be readily accessible to the
- general public.
-
- Section 2702 specifies that a person or entity providing wire
- or electronic communication service to the public may
- divulge the contents of a communication while in electronic
- storage by that service with the lawful consent of the
- originator or any addressee or intended addressee or
- intended recipient of such communication. The committee
- emphasizes that "lawful consent" in this context, need not
- take the form of a formal written document of consent. A
- grant of consent electronically would protect the service
- provider from liability for disclosure under section 2702.
-
-
- Under various circumstances, consent might be inferred to
- have arisen from a course of dealing between the service
- provider and the customer or subscriber--e.g. where a
- history of transactions between the parties offers a basis
- for a reasonable understanding that a consent to disclosure
- attaches to a particular class of communications. Consent
- may also flow from a user having had a reasonable basis for
- knowing that disclosure or use may be made with respect to a
- communications, and having taken action that evidences
- acquiescence to such disclosure or use--e.g., continued use
- of such an electronic communication system. Another type of
- implied consent might be inferred from the very nature of
- the electronic transaction. For example, a subscriber who
- places a communication on a computer "electronic bulletin
- board," with a reasonable basis for knowing that such
- communications are freely made available to the public,
- should be considered to have given consent to the disclosure
- or use of the communication. If conditions governing
- disclosure or use are spelled out in the rules of an
- electronic communication service, and those rules are
- available to users or in contracts for the provision of such
- services, it would be appropriate to imply consent on the
- part of a user to disclosures or uses consistent with those
- rules.
-
- Section 2702(a) specifies that a person or entity providing
- a wire or electronic communication service or remote
- computer services to the public shall not knowingly divulge
- the contents of any communication while in electronic
- storage by that service to any person or entity other than
- the addressee or intended recipient of such communication or
- an agent of such addressee or intended recipient of the
- communications. Under some circumstances, however, a
- customer or subscriber to a wire or electronic communication
- service may place a communication on the service without
- specifying an addressee.
-
- The Committee intends, in that situation, that the communica-
- tion at a minimum be deemed addressed to the service provider
- for purposes of Section 2702(b). Because an addressee may
- consent to the disclosure of a communication to any other
- person, a service provider or system operator, as implied
- addressee, may disclose the contents of an unaddressed
- communcation.
-
-
- A person may be an "intended recipient" of a
- communication, for purpose of section 2702, even if he is
- not individually identified by name or otherwise. A
- communication may be addressed to the members of a group,
- for example. In the case of an electronic bulletin board,
- for instance, a communication might be directed to all
- members of a previously formed "special interest group" or,
- alternatively, to all members of the public who are
- interested in a particular topic of discussion. In such an
- instance, the service provider would not be liable for
- disclosure to any person who might reasonably be considered
- to fall in the class of intended recipients.
-
- COMMENTS
-
- The entire document has to be read and studied to draw final
- conclusions on a number of important issues. However, the
- following observations can be made:
-
- 1. SYSOPS are to be considered providers of an electronic
- communications service. In other words, whenever a BBS
- goes up, it becomes an electronic communication service
- subject to the requirements of the law.
-
- 2. Users of the BBS are protected and may have grounds to take
- action against or ask that criminal charges be brought if
- their communications are improperly disclosed.
-
- 3. SYSOPs do have added protection against hackers, and
- federal law enforcement is available.
-
- 4. Any "general" messages addressed to all members of the
- board, provided the board is open to the general public, may
- be disclosed and are not protected.
-
- 5. However:
-
- a. It is unclear whether a sysop may legally read pri-
- vate mail on his board addressed to another user, un-
- less sysop discloses in a warning message that
- he/she may read such messages.
-
- b. Conferences that are not generally open to the pub-
- lic may create an expectation of privacy and there
- will be limited rights to disclose information.
-
- c. Major changes in security procedures may require
- user consent, or their messages may have to be re-
- moved.
-
-
- 6. It would be prudent to have a major disclaimer in the in-
- troduction of each BBS session, stating that there is no ex-
- pectation of privacy and that anything left on the board
- may be read or disclosed by the sysop.
-
- Next, we present the "LEGAL" view.
-
- We wish to thank our friend, Ruel Hernandez, for the information in
- this section of our report.
-
- COMPUTER_ELECTRONIC_MAIL_AND_PRIVACY
-
- INTRODUCTION
-
- Four years ago, Congress introduced legislation which sought to
- provide federal statutory guidelines for the privacy protection of
- electronic communications, including electronic mail (e-mail) found on
- commercial computer-based services and on other remote computer systems such
- as electronic bulletin board systems (BBS). The old federal wiretap law
- only gave protection to normal audio telephone communications. Before the
- legislation culminated into the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of
- 1986 (ECPA), which went into effect on January 20, 1987, there was no
- contemplation of computer-based electronic communications being transmitted
- across telephone lines and then being stored on disk for later retrieval by
- or forwarding to its intended recipient. Federal law did not provide
- guidelines for protecting the transmitted electronic messages once they were
- stored on these computer-based communications services and systems.
-
- QUESTIONS
-
- (1) Whether electronic mail and other intended private material stored
- on an electronic computer communications service or system have Fourth
- Amendment privacy protection?
-
- (2) Should private electronic mail and other such material be accorded
- federal statutory protection guidelines such as those enjoyed by the U.S.
- Mail?
-
- PROBLEM
-
- Law enforcement seeks criminal evidence stored as e-mail either on a
- commercial computer service, such as CompuServe, GEnie or The Source, or on
- a hobbyist-supported BBS. (Note, this situation is equally applicable to
- personal, private data stored on a remote system for later retrieval, such
- as with CompuServe's "personal file" online storage capabilities.)
-
-
- For example, a computer user calls up a computer communication system.
- Using the electronic mail function, he leaves a private message that can
- only be read by an intended recipient. The message is to inform the
- recipient of a conspiracy plan to violate a federal or state criminal
- statute. Law enforcement gets a tip about the criminal activity and learn
- that incriminating evidence may be found on the computer system.
-
- In 1982, such a situation occurred. (Meeks, Life_at_300_Baud:_Crime_on
- the_BBS_Network, Profiles, Aug. 1986, 12-13.) A Detroit federal grand jury,
- investigating a million-dollar cocaine ring, issued a subpoena ordering a
- commercial service, The Source, to hand over private subscriber data files.
- The files were routinely backed up to guard against system crashes. The
- grand jury was looking for evidence to show that the cocaine ring was using
- The Source as a communications base to send messages to members of the ring.
- With such evidence, the grand jury could implicate and indict those
- suspected of being part of the cocaine ring. The Source refused to obey the
- subpoena on the basis of privacy. The prosecution argued The Source could
- not vicariously assert a subscriber's privacy rights. Constitutional rights
- are personal and could only be asserted by the person whose rights are
- invaded. Additionally, since the files containing messages were duplicated
- by the service, any user expectation of privacy would be extinguished. A
- court battle ensued. However, before a ruling could be made, the kingpin of
- the cocaine ring entered a surprise preemptive guilty plea to federal drug
- trafficking charges. The case against The Source was discontinued.
-
- Publicly posted messages and other public material may be easily
- retrieved by law enforcement. It is the private material, such as e-mail,
- which posed the problem.
-
- Law enforcement's task was then to gather enough evidence to
- substantiate a criminal case. Specifically, they would want the e-mail, or
- other private files, transmitted by suspected criminals. In opposition, the
- provider or systems operator of a computer communications service or system,
- in his assumed role as keeper of transmitted private electronic messages,
- would not want to turn over the private data.
-
- INADEQUACY OF OLD LAW
-
- Meeks noted that as of August, 1986, "no ... protection exist[ed] for
- electronic communications. Any law enforcement agency can, for example,
- confiscate a local BBS and examine all the message traffic," including all
- private files and e-mail. (Id.)
-
- CASE LAW
-
- There is little case law available on computer communications and
- Fourth Amendment constitutional problems. (See_generally M.D. Scott,
- Computer Law, 9-9 (1984 & Special Update, Aug. 1, 1984).) If not for the
- preemptive guilty plea, the above described Detroit case may have provided
- some guidance on computer-based communications and privacy issues.
-
-
- Of the available cases, there are those which primarily dealt with
- financial information found in bank and consumer credit organization
- computers. In U.S._v._Davey, 426 F.2d 842, 845 (2 Cir. 1970), the
- government had the right to require the production of relevant information
- wherever it may be lodged and regardless of the form in which it is kept and
- the manner in which it may be retrieved, so long as it pays the reasonable
- costs of retrieval. In a California case, Burrows_v._Superior_Court, 13
- Cal. 3d 238, 243, 118 Cal. Rptr. 166, 169 (1974), a depositor was found to
- have a reasonable expectation that a bank would maintain the confidentiality
- of both his papers in check form originating from the depositor and the
- depositor's bank statements and records of those checks. However, in
- U.S._v. Miller, 425 U.S. 435, 96 S.Ct. 1619 (1976), customer account
- records on a bank's computer were held to not be private papers of the bank
- customer, and, hence, there was no Fourth Amendment problem when they are
- subpoenaed directly from the bank.
-
- Although these cases have more of a business character in contrast to
- personal e-mail found on computer systems such as CompuServe or a hobbyist-
- supported BBS, they would hold that there would be very little to legally
- stop unauthorized access to computer data and information.
-
- Under the old law, a prosecutor, as in the Detroit case, may try to
- analogize duplicated and backed up e-mail to business situations where data
- on business computer databases are also backed up. Both types of computer
- data are stored on a system and then later retrieved. The provider or
- systems operator of a computer electronic communications system would
- counterargue that the nature of computers always require the duplication and
- backup of any computer data, whether the data files be e-mail or centrally-
- based financial or credit data. Data stored on magnetic media are prone to
- possible destruction. Duplication does not necessarily make e-mail the same
- as financial or credit data stored in business computers. Centrally-based
- business information is more concerned with the data processing. That
- information is generally stored and retrieved by the same operator. E-mail
- is more concerned with personal communications between individuals where the
- sender transmits a private message to be retrieved only by an intended
- recipient. The sender and the recipient have subjective expectations of
- privacy that when viewed objectively are reasonable. Therefore, there would
- be a constitutionally protected expectation of privacy under Katz_v._U.S.,
- 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507 (1967).
-
- However, the prosecution would note under California_v._Ciraolo, --
- U.S. --, 106 S.Ct. 1809 (1984), users would have to protect their electronic
- mail from any privacy intrusion. The provider or operator of the service or
- system has ultimate control over it. He has complete access to all areas of
- the system. He could easily examine the material. The prosecution would
- note the user could not reasonably protect his private data from provider or
- operator invasion. This "knot-hole," where an observer can make an
- observation from a lawful position, would exclude any reasonable expectation
- of privacy. If there is no privacy, there can be no search and therefore no
- Fourth Amendment constitutional violation. Law enforcement can retrieve the
- material.
-
-
- The Justice Department noted the ambiguity of the knothole in a
- response to Senator Leahy's question whether the then existing wiretap law
- was adequate to cover computer communications. (S. Rep. No. 541, 99th
- Cong., 2d Sess. 4 reprinted_in 1986 U.S. Code Cong. & Ad. News 3558.) It
- was "not always clear or obvious" whether a reasonable expectation of
- privacy existed. (Id.)
-
- FEDERAL WIRETAP STATUTES
-
- The old federal wiretap statutes protected oral telephone
- communications from police interceptions. This protection was made during
- 1968 in response to electronic eavesdropping conducted by government.
- (Cohodas, Congress_Races_to_stay_Ahead_of_Technology, Congressional
- Quarterly Weekly Report, May 31, 1986, 1235.) Although e-mail appears to
- come under the old 18 U.S.C. sec. 2510(1) definition of "wire
- communication," it was limited to audio transmissions by wire or cable. The
- old 18 U.S.C. sec. 2510(4) required that an interception of a wire
- communication be an oral acquisition of the communication. By being
- "oral," the communication must be "heard." There would be a problem as to
- whether an electronic communication could be "heard." Data transmissions
- over telephone lines generally sound like unintelligible noisy static or
- high pitched tones. There would certainly be no protection after a
- communication has completed its transmission and been stored on a computer.
- The communication's conversion into computer stored data, thus no longer in
- transmission until later retrieved or forwarded as transmission to another
- computer system, would clearly take the communication out of the old
- statutory protected coverage.
-
- "Eighteen years ago ... Congress could not appreciate - or in some
- cases even contemplate - [today's] telecommunications and computer
- technology...." (132 Cong. Rec. S7992 (daily ed. June 19, 1986) (statement
- of Sen. Leahy).)
-
- COMPARISON WITH U.S. MAIL PROTECTION
-
- A letter sent by first class mail is given a high level of protection
- against unauthorized intrusion by a combination of federal and U.S. Postal
- Service statutes and regulations. For instance, the unauthorized taking out
- of and examining of the contents of mail held in a "depository for mail
- matter" before it is delivered to the mail's intended recipient is
- punishable by fine, imprisonment, or both. (18 U.S.C. sec. 1702.) In
- comparison, under the old law, electronic communications had no protection.
- Federal protection for U.S. Mail provided a suggested direction as to how
- electronic communications should be protected when it was no longer in
- transmission.
-
- SOLUTION - THE NEW LAW
-
- There are two methods towards a solution: (1) court decisions; or (2)
- new legislated privacy protection.
-
-
- COURT DECISIONS
-
- Courts may have chosen to read computer communications protection into
- the old federal wiretap statute or into existing state law. However, they
- were reluctant to do so. Courts "are in no hurry to [revise or make new law
- in this area] and some judges are openly asking Congress for help....
- [F]ederal Appeals Court Judge Richard Posner in Chicago said Congress needed
- to revise current law, adding that 'judges are not authorized to amend
- statutes even to bring them up-to-date.'" (Cohodas, 1233.)
-
- NEW STATUTE
-
- On October 21, 1986, President Reagan signed the new Electronic
- Communications Privacy Act of 1986 amending the federal wiretap law. ECPA
- went into effect during the beginning of 1987. (P.L. 99-508,
- Title I, sec. 111, 100 Stat. 1859; P.L. 99-508, Title II, sec. 202, 100
- Stat. 1868.) ECPA created parallel privacy protection against both
- interception of electronic communications while in transmission and
- unauthorized access to electronic communications stored on a system.
-
- The new ECPA first provides privacy protection for any
-
- 'electronic communication' ... [by] any transfer of signs,
- signals, writing, images, sounds, data or intelligence of any
- nature transmitted in whole or in part by a wire, radio,
- electromagnetic, photoelectronic or photooptical system that
- affects interstate or foreign commerce...."
-
- (18 U.S.C. secs. 2510(12), 2511.) The Senate Report noted examples of
- electronic communications to include non-voice communications such as
- "electronic mail, digitized transmissions, and video teleconferences." (S.
- Rep. No. 541, 99th Cong., 2d Sess. 14 reprinted_in 1986 U.S. Code Cong. &
- Ad. News 3568.) Electronic communication is defined in terms of how it is
- transmitted. So long as the means by which a communication is transmitted
- affects interstate or foreign commerce, the communication is covered ECPA.
- (18 U.S.C. sec. 2510(12).) Generally, that would include all telephonic
- means including private networks and intra-company communications. (S.
- Rep. No. 541, 99th Cong., 2d Sess. 12 reprinted_in 1986 U.S. Code Cong. &
- Ad. News 3566.)
-
- Second, ECPA protects the electronic communication when it has been
- stored after transmission, such as e-mail left on an electronic computer
- communication system for later pickup by its intended recipient. (18 U.S.C.
- sec. 2510(17).) The legislation makes it a federal criminal offense to
- break into any electronic system holding private communications or to exceed
- authorized access to alter or obtain the stored communications. (18 U.S.C.
- sec. 2701(a).)
-
-
- The legislation would protect electronic computer communication systems
- from law enforcement invasion of user e-mail without a court order. (18
- U.S.C. secs. 2517, 2518, 2703.) Although the burden of preventing
- disclosure of the e-mail is placed on the subscriber or user of the system,
- the government must give him fourteen days notice to allow him to file a
- motion to quash a subpoena or to vacate a court order seeking disclosure of
- his computer material. (18 U.S.C. sec. 2704(b).) However, the government
- may give delayed notice where there are exigent circumstances as listed by
- the Act (18 U.S.C. sec. 2705.) Recognizing the easy user destruction of
- computer data, ECPA allows the government to include in its subpoena or
- court order the requirement that the provider or operator retain a backup
- copy of electronic communications when there is risk of user destruction.
- (18 U.S.C. sec. 2704(a).)
-
- The legislation gives a civil cause of action to the provider or
- operator, subscriber, customer or user of the system aggrieved by an
- invasion of an electronic communication in the system in violation of the
- ECPA. (18 U.S.C. secs. 2520, 2707.) If the provider or operator has to
- disclose information stored on his system due to a court order, warrant,
- subpoena, or certification under ECPA, no cause of action can be brought
- against him by the person aggrieved by such disclosure. (18 U.S.C. sec.
- 2703(e); see_also 18 U.S.C. secs. 2701(c), 2702(b), 2511(2)(a)(i),
- 2511(3)(b)(iii) where the systems operator or provider is not held
- criminally liable, may observe a private communication while performing
- employment duties or according to authorization, etc., may intercept private
- communication while making quality control checks or during the course of
- forwarding communications to another system.)
-
- SYSTEMS COVERED
-
- Clearly, the national commercial services in the United States,
- including CompuServe, MCI Mail or a company using a contracted e-mail
- service, such as GE QUIK-COM (See S. Rep. No. 99-541, 99th Cong., 2d Sess.
- 8 reprinted_in 1986 U.S. Code Cong. & Ad. News 3562) are covered by ECPA.
-
- However, there may be some confusion as to whether ECPA would protect
- electronic communications found on a mere user-supported BBS. For
- instance, language in ECPA does not expressly state the term "bulletin
- board." Nonetheless, ECPA would indeed cover electronic bulletin boards.
-
- What are electronic bulletin boards? Generally, they are personal
- computers provided for and maintained by computer users out of their own
- personal resources. These systems traditionally allow free access to
- computer/modem-equipped members of local communities and provide for both
- public and private electronic mail exchange. Some sophisticated systems,
- such as the ProLine system written for Apple II computers, provide callers
- with personal user areas where they may keep private files much like the
- CompuServe personal file areas.
-
-
- Augmenting the single stand-alone BBS, there are networks of bulletin
- boards linked together, often with the assistance of university mainframes,
- with other bulletin boards or mainframe computers by sophisticated "mail
- routing" systems (such as ARPAnet and FIDOnet). These networks use
- sophisticated message addressing instructions and computer automation where
- networked computers make calls to other networked computers to exchange
- "net-news" or private mail between users of the different bulletin boards.
- Given the proper address routing instructions, a user may communicate with
- another user on a cross-town BBS or on a BBS in another part of the country.
- Although there is some delay with messages being routed through a network,
- these networks help to reduce or eliminate the computer user's need to
- make direct toll or long distance calls to faraway systems. (Note, there
- are also network exchange systems and "gateways" between commercial
- services.)
-
- Businesses have been turning to the use of BBS's and BBS mailing
- networks for increased productivity, paperwork reduction, improved client
- contact and the elimination of "telephone tag." (See Keaveney,
- Custom-Built_Bulletin_Boards, Personal Computing, Aug. 1987, 91.)
- A number of these corporate BBS's are open to the public with
- restricted access to business and client system areas. Examples of
- such systems include (a) two Washington D.C. area boards run by Gannet
- Company Inc. ("[f]or all Gannet/USA Today employees and other computer
- users"), Issue Dynamics Inc. (catering to the consulting company's clients),
- and (b) A Westchester County (NY) area board run by VITRON Management
- Consulting, Inc. (catering to the general business community).
-
- ECPA language would show protection for bulletin boards. 18 U.S.C.
- sec. 2510(15) provides that "'electronic communication service' means any
- service which provides to users thereof the ability to send or receive wire
- or electronic communications". A "remote computing service" was defined in
- the Act as an electronic communications system that provides computer storage
- or processing services to the public. (18 U.S.C. sec. 2710(2).)
-
- Intra-company communications systems, corporate BBSes, would also be
- protected. (S. Rep. No. 541, 99th Cong., 2d Sess. 12 reprinted_in 1986 U.S.
- Code Cong. & Ad. News 3566.) Language in ECPA refers to "the person or entity
- providing the wire or electronic communication service," such as in 18 U.S.
- secs. 2701(c)(1) and 2702(a)(1). Such language would indicate the inclusion
- of individuals and businesses who operate bulletin board systems.
-
- The Senate report, in addition to defining "electronic mail," gave a
- separate definition of "electronic bulletin boards":
-
- Electronic "bulletin boards" are communications networks created
- by computer users for the transfer of information among computers.
- These may take the form of proprietary systems or they may be commercial,
- or noncommercial systems operating among computer users sharing special
- interests. These systems may [or may not] involve fees covering
- operating costs and may require special "passwords" which restrict
- entry to the system. These bulletin boards may be public or
- semi-public in nature, depending on the degree of privacy sought by
- users, operators or organizers of such systems.
-
- (S. Rep. No. 541, 99th Cong., 2d Sess. 8-9 reprinted_in 1986 U.S. Code
- Cong. & Ad. News 3562-3563.)
-
- ECPA, as enacted, takes note of the different levels of security found
- on user-supported BBS's, i.e. the difference between configured system
- areas containing private electronic mail and other areas configured to
- contain public material. (18 U.S.C. sec. 2511(2)(g)(i).) The electronic
- communications which a user seeks to keep private, through methods provided
- by the system, would be protected by ECPA. In contrast, there would be no
- liability for access to features configured by the system to be readily
- accessible by the general public. An indicia of privacy on the system, with
- no notice to show otherwise, would trigger ECPA coverage. An indicia of
- privacy may include passwords and prompts asking if a message is to be kept
- private.
-
- House Representative Kastenmeier noted that there was an unusual
- coalition of groups, businesses and organizations interested in ECPA.
- (Kastenmeier, Communications_Privacy, Communications Lawyer, Winter 1987,
- 1, 24.) Among those interested included the BBS community. Reporters in
- the BBS community noted how Senator Leahy and others were receptive to their
- concerns. They report Leahy to have been "soliciting [users and BBS
- operators'] comments and encourag[ing] sensitivity to the needs of BBS's in
- the legislation.... [Senators and congressional members] are ... willing to
- listen to our side of things." (BBSLAW02.MSG, dated 07/24/85, information
- from Chip Berlet, Secretary, National Lawyers Guild Civil Liberties
- Committee, transmitted by Paul Bernstein, SYSOP, LAW MUG, Chicago, Illinois
- regarding Federal Legislation Affecting Computer Bulletin Boards, deposited
- on The Legacy Network in Los Angeles, California.)
-
- ESCAPING COVERAGE
-
- There are at least two possible ways to escape ECPA coverage. The
- first is to provide adequate notice that all material on a service or system
- may be publicly accessible even though methods of providing privacy remain.
- The bulletin board system maintained by DePaul University College of Law
- Chicago, Illinois, provides an example of an electronic notice (displayed
- upon user access):
-
- PURSUANT TO THE ELECTRONIC AND COMMUNICATIONS PRIVACY ACT OF 1986, 18
- USC 2510 et. seq., NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT THERE ARE NO FACILITIES
- PROVIDED BY THIS SYSTEM FOR SENDING OR RECEIVING PRIVATE OR
- CONFIDENTIAL ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS. ALL MESSAGES SHALL BE DEEMED
- TO BE READILY ACCESSIBLE TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC.
-
- Do NOT use this system for any communication for which the sender
- intends only the sender and the intended recipient or recipients to
- read.
-
- Note, although the DePaul notice states otherwise, user-operated message
- privacy toggles remain on the board. The second possible method to escape
- ECPA coverage would be to merely not provide any means of privacy.
-
-
- One way of foiling the intent of a government subpoena or court order
- requirement to keep duplicate copies of private electronic communications
- would be the use of passworded private e-mail. For instance, the private
- e-mail capabilities of GEnie Mail and GE QUIK-COM include user-toggled
- passwording which utilizes an encryption technique that no one, not even the
- provider, knows how to decipher. Bill Louden, General Manager of GEnie
- (General Electric Network for Information Exchange), noted how GEnie Mail
- and GE QUIK-COM passworded e-mail cannot be read by anyone who did not know
- the password. "[N]ot even our 'god' number could ever read the [passworded]
- mail." (Message from Bill Louden, GEnie, Legacy RoundTable (LAW), category
- 1, topic 7, message 6 (May 15, 1987).) The writer of the encryption
- software has since left General Electric and no one has had success in
- breaking the code. (Message from Bill Louden, GEnie, Legacy RoundTable
- (LAW), category 1, topic 7, message 10 (May 17, 1987).)
-
- CONCLUSION
-
- With ECPA, e-mail and other private electronic communications stored on
- computer communication systems have privacy protection. Unfortunately,
- before ECPA, federal statutory guidelines for such protection were not
- articulated. Case law also did not provide any helpful guidance. The
- peculiarities of computers and computer storage were not addressed by the
- old wiretap laws. Electronic communications privacy could not stand up
- against constitutional privacy law as defined by the United States Supreme
- Court. The then existing law was "hopelessly out of date." (S. Rep. No.
- 541, 99th Cong., 2d Sess. 2 reprinted_in 1986 U.S. Code Cong. & Ad. News
- 3556 (statement of Sen. Leahy).) Fortunately, a legislative solution to
- bring privacy law up to date with the advancing computer communication and
- information technology was provided for in ECPA.
-
-
- OBSERVATIONS
-
- One should note that ECPA was designed as a statutory solution to fill a
- loop-hole in federal constitutional law where computer-communication
- messages (e.g., email) are not protected. Under traditional Fourth
- Amendment Search and Seizure law, email and similar computer-communication
- material are not considered to have any constitutional privacy protection
- against government intrusion. ECPA provides statutory privacy protection
- where there is no constitutional protection.
-
- Generally, a BBS may fall under the coverage of ECPA if there is some
- indicia of privacy found on the BBS. There are various degrees of privacy
- found on a BBS ranging from the opening login password to the sending of a
- private message via UUCP. Under ECPA, a sysop or online service employee
- may not be found civilly liable for intercepting (i.e., reading/viewing)
- private information or private messages between users who call in to a BBS
- so long as he is performing "quality control checks" or other similar
- duties. This may include passive maintenance activity and intermail or
- echomail forwarding. ECPA thus provides some protection for a sysop from
- civil liability if his system is found to fall under ECPA coverage.
-
- To escape coverage from ECPA, a BBS sysop may place a disclaimer at the
- "front door" or throughout his system (such as an automatic notice whenever
- if the caller wishes to send private email) giving the caller adequate
- notice that the system has no privacy privileges. (Note: what I mean by
- privileges, in the legal sense, is much broader than mere privacy toggle
- commands found on a BBS.) Giving such notice would work to negate any
- indicia of privacy that may be found on the system. For instance, the sysop
- may say that he has access to all private email, he will read all private
- email, and he will disclose all improper or criminal information left on his
- system to the appropriate authorities even if there are privacy toggle
- commands found on the system -- and suggest the caller try another system if
- he/she wishes to send secure private messages. The sysop may then stand a
- better chance of not being found liable under ECPA.
-
- The DePaul University College of Law BBS Disclaimer:
- ----------------------------------------------------
-
- This type of disclaimer, dealing with communications, should not be found to
- be applicable to private login passwords -- in other words, passwords should
- maintain their privileged private status. (Note, some attorney may try to
- argue that passwords are messages and therefore are excluded from ECPA by
- the disclaimer and may be disclosed.)
-
- Note, ECPA is primarily first a statutory solution to providing
- statutory protection against government intrusion into private computer
- communications in order to be more in tune with traditional Fourth Amendment
- Search and Seizure law. Generally, in order for police or other government
- authorities to intrude into private computer communications, a court order,
- subpeona, or warrant must be obtained. A sysop may be ordered to provide
- copies of particular information -- the warrant should particularly describe
- what is sought, such as the author of the message, subject matter, etc. The
- author of the private information may also be given 14 days notice of the
- search unless there are exigent circumstances, e.g., the author has the
- ability to destroy the information. Note, although there may be the
- possibility that a sysop may be held in contempt of court for not providing
- copies, this does not necessarily mean the sysop has the affirmative duty to
- make and keep copies of all information kept on his system if it is not
- reasonable for him to do so, e.g., the system program does not keep backups,
- old messages are automatically destroyed after a certain period of time such
- as on an HBBS system, etc. -- he may only have to provide copies when
- ordered to do so and if reasonable (my interpretation).
-
- Although a sysop may not be found liable under the federal ECPA statute,
- there may be alternative liability found under state law. Generally, at the
- state level, there is either state statutory or common law protection
- against INVASION OF PRIVACY. In particular, this would include (1) public
- disclosure of private facts and (2) intrusion upon seclusion. A possible
- situation would include not only public disclosure of private email, but
- also public discussion or private system passwords. A good attorney may be
- able to make good arguments to find liability under either one of the two
- tort law causes of action -- particularly when a sysop holds himself or
- herself out as a provider of private or semi-private information exchange.
-
- Note, under either the federal ECPA or state invasion of privacy laws, a
- sysop or caller to a system may be able to sue users who break into the
- closed or private areas of the system. Of course, evidence would have to be
- obtained to prove causation and liability and evidence is a completely
- different issue problem....
-
-
- Finally, there are several issues that are currently being reviewed for
- possible statute inclusion. Such issues involve, but are not limited to:
-
- 1. The dissemination and distribution of elements contributing to
- the delinquency or corruption of minors:
- - pornography
- - advocacy of games of chance (gambling)
-
- 2. The maintenance of the integrity of electronically stored data
- and information within communication systems, including electronic
- bulletin boards.
-
- These issues are the subject of a subsequent paper. In addition, they are
- topics that represent areas of discussion within the potential PCBRelay
- Legal conference.
-
- We at VITRON (and ABBS) would greatly appreciate your feedback and input
- regarding this paper. If you have any questions, comments, observations or
- suggestions, please leave us a message. Your message will receive as prompt
- a reply as is feasible (usually within 24 to 48 hours).
-
- *************************************************************************
-
- Subject: HR 4079 is for REAL!
- Date: 29 Jun 90 20:04:36 GMT
-
- (Thant Tessman) writes:
- >A new bill, HR 4079 [...]
-
- This posting bothered me enough even after dismissing the alarming rhetoric
- that I placed a call to my Representative's local office. Two days later I
- received a copy of HR 4079 in the mail. (I recommend others do the same - it
- is too long for a lousy typist such as me to enter).
-
- I found some errors in the claims made about it - but it is pretty bad stuff
- anyway! Some notes follow:
-
- >[...] would open the way for American concentaration camps to be built,
-
- It does. It calls for housing prisoners in "tent housing or other shelters
- placed on available military bases and at other suitable locations." [P10L3-5]
- It does not restrict the prisoners to those convicted of drug crimes.
-
- In case that is insufficient, it calls for "any property that is determined
- to be excess to the needs of a Federal agency that may be suitable for use as
- a correctional facility shall be made available for such use..." [P15L5-7]
-
- Oh, yes, it also says, "a Federal court shall not hold prison or jail
- crowding unconstitutional under the eighth amendment except to the extent
- that an individual plaintiff proves that the crowding causes the infliction
- of cruel and unusual punishment of that inmate." [P8L14-18] The remedy?
- "(2) The relief in a case described in paragraph (1) shall extend no
- further than necessary to remove the conditions that are causing the cruel
- and unusual punishment of the plaintiff inmate." [P8L19-22]
-
- >and thereafter permit the state to round up suspected drug users
-
- This one is a little difficult. Maybe I missed it, but it still requires
- conviction. However, it does say, "Evidence which is obtained as a result of
- a search or seizure shall not be excluded in a proceeding in a court of the
- United States on the ground that the search or seizure was in violation of
- the fourth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, if the search
- or seizure was carried out in circumstances justifying a reasonably objective
- belief that is was in conformity with the fourth amendment." [P35L25-P36L7]
-
- This is followed by (and this has been mentioned before): "The fact that
- evidence was obtained pursuant to and within the scope of a warrant
- constitutes prima facie evidence of the existence of such circumstances."
- [P36L7-9]
-
- >so they can be forced to work without compensation for the state.
-
- This is wrong. On Page 27, "Subtitle C - Mandatory Work Requirements for
- Prisoners, Withholding Federal Benefits, and Drug Testing of Prisoners", it
- does say "It is the policy of the Federal Government that convicted prisoners
- confined in Federal prisons, jails, and other detention facilities shall
- work." [P27L7-9]
-
- However, it also says, "(2) Prisoners shall be paid a share of funds
- generated by their labor conducted pursuant to this section." [P28L10-11]
-
-
- >"The Drug Crime Emergency Act" drips with patriotism as Gingrich tries to
- >vaguely connect the freedom movement in eastern Europe with America falling
- >deeper and deeper into "the slavery of drug addiction."
-
- I didn't find anything even remotely resembling this.
-
-
- >The bill proposes suspending the Constitution for five years so millions of
- >illegal drug users can be held by the state in concentration camps. All
- >internees will be forced to work and if anyone is caught with drugs in the
- >camps they will have one year added to their sentence each time - with no
- >right to appeal.
-
- One small nit, there are exceptions listed to "All internees".
-
-
- >HR 4079 calls for the declaration of a five year national state of
- >emergency - in essence, martial law. It proposes reopening the
- >concentration camps of WWII, using active and inactive military bases as
- >prisons, and a new privately owned prison system as well. To aid in
- >accomplishing this, the 4th Amendment, the 8th Amendment, and habeas corpus
- >are either superseded, redefined, or disallowed.
-
- The 4th and 8th have been mentioned. There is a lengthy section called the
- "Strom Thurmond Habeus Corpus Reform Initiative" [P37-43] which I cannot
- reasonably comment on.
-
- >A provision has been built in to allow the government to purchase goods
- >manufactured by prison slave labor. To insure the duration of this labor
- >force, all previous maximum sentences would be changed to minimum sentences.
-
- Just to clarify: This is a sentencing change - those already sentenced would
- not be affected by this section.
-
- >New mandatory sentences would be established, and probation, parole, and
- >suspension of sentences revoked.
-
- True.
-
-
- >To provide an even greater pool to draw from, mandatory drug testing of
- >just about everyone above junior high school level has been included. The
- >resolution carefully avoids addressing the funding necessary.
-
- It says "no institution of higher education shall be eligible to receive
- funds or any other form of financial assistance under any Federal program,
- including participation in any federally funded or guaranteed student loan
- program, unless it certifies to the Secretary that it has adopted and has
- implemented a program to prevent the use of illicit drugs and the abuse of
- alcohol by students and employees that, at a minimum, includes -
- (1) the annual distribution to each student and employee of -
- (A-E) [...information...]
- (2) provisions for drug testing; and
- (3) a biennial review by the institution of its program to -
- [...]"
- [P57L19-P59L5]
-
- It repeats essentially the same as above for "local educational agency".
- [P60L13-P63L20]
-
- >Even after 30 press releases were sent to all the national and local news
- >outlets by Maryland LP members, there has been practically no mention of
- >the bill in the media. The state evidently is hoping to sweep this bill
- >into law right under our noses while we are all preoccupied with other
- >events taking place around the world. Surprisingly, the response from
- >libertarians as well as mainstream folks has been one of complacency.
-
- There is even more in this bill than the authors of the quoted newsletter
- mentioned. For example, it calls for:
- -revoking the driver's license of those convicted of drug crimes,
- -expansion of the "war on drugs" to include alcohol abuse,
- -the RICO-like seizure of property alleged to be used in or obtained through
- profits from drug crimes (with the burden upon victim/defendant to *prove*
- that it was not - could you *prove* you didn't buy your car with profits
- from illicit transactions?)
- -division of "profits" from such seizures, upon conviction, to be shared
- between the state and individuals who provided information leading to the
- conviction...
-
- >Everyone needs to make phone calls and write letters. Direct your
- >correspondence to the media and your representatives, as well as Gingrich
- >and Gramm. If they don't think you care about this bill becoming law - it
- >will! Act now or cry behind the barbwire later.
-
- --
- ~~
- From: bill@flash.UUCP (bill)
- Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
- Subject: Bye, bye, 6th
- Summary: another "right" going down the drain
- Keywords: public defenders, 6th Amendment, Bill of Rights, War on Drugs, Sh*t
- Date: 13 Jul 90 15:42:04 GMT
- Organization: Prodisestablishmentarianism, Inc. :-)
-
- (Andrew Duane):
- > DRUG SUSPECTS BARRED FROM PUBLIC DEFENDERS
- >Danbury, CT. - A judge has said he will not appoint free legal aid
- >lawyers for people arrested on drug charges who say they cannot
- >afford lawyers.
- > "I don't appoint public defenders to people in drug cases,"
- >Judge Joseph Sylvester of Superior Court told a defendant on Tuesday
- >at his arrignment. [...] Lawyers at the courthouse said 60 suspects
- >had been denied public defenders.
- >[...]
- >The judge has also denied public defenders in drunken-driving cases.
- >[ End of Article ]
- >
- >Well, there goes the sixth amendment. [...]
- >Does anyone else find this as scary as me?
-
- Yes! (and thank you, Andrew, for posting this!)
-
-
- >What is his rationale disallowing use of public defenders in drug cases?
-
- What else can it be but that "this problem has become so serious we must
- take special measures!"?
-
- Sooo... if you're *accused* of drug offences, you no longer have a Sixth
- Amendment right to the assistance of counsel. What issue of easy political
- popularity will be next, I wonder: child abuse cases? Crimes against women
- or the elderly? Flag desecration?
-
-
- [And people wonder at my concern that we have passed the point where the
- Bill of Rights is used to enumerate specifically the rights of the people,
- as opposed to the idea expressed in the Tenth that: "The powers not
- delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it
- to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people."]
- --
- ~~
-
- Subject: Re: stoke up the ovens
- Date: 13 Jul 90 16:08:59 GMT
- Organization: Prodisestablishmentarianism, Inc. :-)
-
- (Michael Carr) writes:
- >>The Senate proposes the death penalty for the following crimes:
- >>Destruction of aircraft (better not crash that plane )
- >>Destruction of motor vehicle (this surely warrants the death penalty)
-
- I'd be pretty sure that "destruction" means "as with a bomb", not your
- typical highway accident or plane crash.
-
- >>Espionage
- >>Arson of federal property (watch those campfires in the Natl. forests)
- >>Arson of property in interstate commerce
-
- Arson is most likely deliberate arson, again not accidents (but I'd sure
- like to see the actual text of the bill, whatever it is).
-
- >>Wrecking a train
- >>Mailing of injurious articles (better not mail a pack of cigarettes)
-
- Probably letter bombs and the like.
-
- >>Bank robbery
- >>Treason (don't talk bad about the good old USA)
-
- Treason: The offence of *attempting* by overt act to overthrow the
- government, or (Art. III section 3 US Constitution), "only
- in levying war against them [the States], or in adhering
- to their enemies, giving aid and comfort to them."
- Well, maybe you got a point.
-
- >>Kidnapping
- >>Hostage taking
- >>Major crime by drug kingpin (what major crimes aren't covered in this list
- >>already??)
- >>Attempted homicide by drug kingpin while seeking to obstruct justice
- >>Unintentional killing by drug felon involving aggravated recklessness
- >>(does this include drunk drivers??)
- >>Use of a firearm in violent crime or drug trafficking
- >>Murder of family member of federal official
- >>Murder of member of congress, cabinet, or Supreme court
- >>Murder of nuclear regulatory inspector,federal official,federal witness,
- >>horse inspector,meat inspector, poultry inspector, egg products inspector,
- >>foreign official, Agriculture dept. official
-
- Hmmm... note how the Ruling Class now gets special "privileges" under the
- law... Oligarchy, here we come.
-
-
- > This is serious??!!! How much of this was in that bullshit crime bill
- >that just passed in the Senate? Is this it? This is way out of hand.
-
- I also would a pointer to the source of that posting...
-
-
- > I've only listed what I thought were some of the more outrageous ones
- >( I'm against the death penalty in general, but don't want to start that war
- >again ). BTW, what the hell constitutes "treason" ??? This country is getting
- >scarier every day.
- > Does anyone know how close this is to being law? All the congress-
- >critters are wetting their pants trying to look tough on crime for the
- >upcoming elections so this kind of dangerous stuff is probably going to
- >pass.
- > Argghh, you just ruined my day! :-( See you on death row!
- > Mike Carr carr@cs.unc.edu
- >
- >OK, so maybe I'm a little alarmist, but if we don't fight back we'll wake up
- >some morning with the FBI/CIA in our face, it seems sometimes.
-
- I'm a big alarmist (I outmass most of my friends :-), but you are correct.
- This stuff doesn't go away by wishful thinking, nor when you close your eyes.
- Recommended reading:
-
- _They thought they were free; the Germans, 1933-45_
- by Milton Mayer. (1955, U. of Chicago Press).
-
- (excerpts from an earlier posting)
-
- "What no one seemed to notice, ... was the ever widening gap
- ... between the government and the people. ... And it became
- always wider. ...
-
- "... the whole process of its coming into being, was above all
- *diverting*. It provided an excuse not to think for people who
- did not want to think anyway. ... Nazism gave us some dreadful,
- fundamental things to think about ... and kept us so busy with
- continuous changes and 'crises' and so fascinated ... by the
- machinations of the 'national enemies,' without and within,
- that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that
- were growing, little by little, all around us. ...
-
- "Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained
- or, on occasion, 'regretted,' that ... unless one understood
- what the whole thing was in principle, what all these 'little
- measures' ... must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing
- from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. ...
-
- "... Each act ... is worse than the last, but only a little worse.
- You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great
- shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock
- comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don't want
- to act, or even talk, alone; you don't want to 'go out of your
- way to make trouble.' ... And it is not just fear ... that
- restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.
-
- "... And you *are* an alarmist. You are saying that *this* must
- lead to *this*, and you can't prove it. ...
-
- "But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or
- thousands will join with you, never comes. *That's* the
- difficulty. ...
-
- "... The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the
- houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the
- concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you
- never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying
- it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate
- and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it
- themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. ...
-
- "... You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years
- ago, a year ago, things that your father ... could not have imagined.
-
-
- Cheers.
-
- --
- ~~
- Subject: Full text of H.R. 4079, very long (3,122 lines)
- Date: 7 Aug 90 15:22:43 GMT
-
-
- Here again is the full text of House Resolution 4079. To answer some questions
- I have seen since I posted it the first time: You can get copies of bills by
- asking your Congressional representatives for them. You can locate your
- representatives by looking in local phone books under "United States" or by
- calling Washington, D.C., information at 1-202-555-1212. And, yes, this was
- typed by hand, not scanned in.
-
-
- -- edp (Eric Postpischil)
- "Always mount a scratch monkey."
-
- 101st Congress
- 2d Session
-
- H.R. 4079
-
- To provide swift and certain punishment for criminals in order to deter
- violent crime and rid America of illegal drug use.
-
- ------------------------------------------------
-
- IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
-
- February 22, 1990
-
- Mr. Gingrich (for himself, Mr. Armey, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Smith of New
- Hampshire, Mr. Hansen, Mr. Hiler, Mr. Ireland, Mr. Kyl, Mr. Barton of
- Texas, Mr. McEwen, Mr. Bliley, Mr. Condit, Mr. Weldon, Mr. Fields, Mr.
- Stearns, Mr. Schuette, Mr. Douglas, Mr. Livingston, Mr. Oxley, Ms.
- Ros-Lehtinen, Mr. Hancock, Mr. Schaefer, Mr. Bartlett, Mr. Shumway, Mr.
- Inhofe, Mr. Nielson of Utah, Mr. Donald Lukens, Mr. Paxon, Mr. Herger,
- Mr. Robinson, Mr. Lagomarsino, Mr. Sensenbrenner, Mr. James, Mr. Upton,
- Mr. Bilirakis, Mr. Ritter, Mr. Dornan of California, Mr. Baker, Mr.
- DeLay, Mr. Hyde, Mr. Grandy, Mr. Hefley, Mr. Coughlin, Mr. Craig, Mr.
- Shaw, Mr. Dreier of California, Mr. Solomon, and Mr. McCollum)
- introduce the following bill; which was referred jointly to the
- Committees on the Judiciary, Energy and Commerce, Public Works and
- Transportation, Education and Labor, and Armed Services
-
-
- ------------------------------------------------
-
- A BILL
-
- To provide swift and certain punishment for criminals in order to deter
- violent crime and rid America of illegal drug use.
-
- _Be it enacted by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the
- United States of America in Congress assembled,_
-
- SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
-
- This Act may be cited as the "National Drug and Crime Emergency Act".
-
- SEC. 2. TABLE OF CONTENTS.
-
- Sec. 1. Short title.
- Sec. 2. Table of contents.
- Sec. 3. Findings and declaration of a national drug and crime
- emergency.
- Sec. 4. Definitions.
-
- TITLE I--ELIMINATION OF CRIME WITHOUT PUNISHMENT
-
- Subtitle A--National Drug and Crime Emergency Policies
-
- Sec. 101. Judicial remedies for prison crowding.
- Sec. 102. Temporary prison facilities and expanded capacity.
- Sec. 103. Elimination of early release from prison.
-
- Subtitle B--Imposition of Mandatory Minimum Sentences Without Release
-
- Sec. 111. Increased mandatory minimum sentences without release for
- criminals using firearms and other violent criminals.
- Sec. 112. Life imprisonment without release for criminals convicted a
- third time.
- Sec. 113. Longer prison sentences for those who sell illegal drugs to
- minors or for use of minors in drug trafficking activities.
- Sec. 114. Longer prison sentences for drug trafficking.
- Sec. 115. Mandatory penalties for illegal drug use in Federal prisons.
- Sec. 116. Deportation of criminal aliens.
- Sec. 117. Encouragement to States to adopt mandatory minimum prison
- sentences.
-
- Subtitle C--Mandatory Work Requirements for Prisoners, Withholding
- Federal Benefits, and Drug Testing of Prisoners
-
- Sec. 131. Mandatory work requirement for all prisoners.
- Sec. 132. Repeal of constraints on prison industries.
- Sec. 133. Employment of prisoners.
- Sec. 134. Withholding prisoners' Federal benefits to offset
- incarceration costs.
- Sec. 135. Drug testing of Federal prisoners.
- Sec. 136. Drug testing of State prisoners.
-
- Subtitle D--Judicial Reform To Protect the Innocent and Punish the
- Guilty
-
- Sec. 151. Good faith standards for gathering evidence.
- Sec. 152. Strom Thurmond habeas corpus reform initiative.
- Sec. 153. Proscription of use of drug profits.
- Sec. 154. Jurisdiction of special masters.
- Sec. 155. Sentencing patterns of Federal judges.
-
- TITLE II--ACHIEVING A DRUG-FREE AMERICA BY 1995
-
- Sec. 201. Findings.
- Sec. 202. Payment of trial costs and mandatory minimum fines.
- Sec. 203. Withholding of unearned Federal benefits from drug
- traffickers and users who are not in prison.
- Sec. 204. Revocation of drug users' driver's licenses.
- Sec. 205. Accountability and performance of drug treatment facilities.
- Sec. 206. Drug-free schools.
- Sec. 207. Drug-free transportation.
- Sec. 208. Financial incentives and citizen involvement in the war
- against drugs.
-
- TITLE III--MISCELLANEOUS
-
- Sec. 301. Authorization of appropriations.
- Sec. 302. Severability.
-
- SEC. 3. FINDINGS AND DECLARATION OF NATIONAL DRUG AND CRIME EMERGENCY.
-
- (a) FINDINGS.--The Congress makes the following findings:
-
- (1) Next to preserving the national security, protecting the
- personal security of individual Americans, especially
- children, by enacting and enforcing laws against criminal
- behavior is the most important single function of government.
-
- (2) The criminal justice system in America is failing to
- achieve this basic objective of protecting the innocent and
- punishing the guilty.
-
- (3) Reform is needed to ensure that criminals are held
- accountable for their actions, that they receive swift and
- certain punishment commensurate with their crimes, and that
- the protection of innocent citizens takes priority over other
- objectives.
-
- (4) The principle of individual accountability should also
- dictate policies with respect to drug users. Users should
- face a high probability of apprehension and prosecution, and
- those found guilty should face absolutely certain measured
- response penalties.
-
- (5) According to the Uniform Crime Reports issued in 1989 by
- the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), violent crime
- known to law enforcement reached an unprecedented high in
- 1988. A violent crime occurred ever 20 seconds.
-
- (6) The Department of Justice estimates that 83 percent of
- Americans will be victimized by violent crime during their
- lifetime.
-
- (7) The Federal Bureau of Investigation reports that violent
- crime in America rose by 23 percent during the period
- 1984-1988.
-
- (8) The National Drug Control Strategy reports that in
- certain large cities more than 80 percent of the men arrested
- have tested positive for illegal drug use.
-
- (9) According to the Department of Justice, the total number
- of Federal and State prisoners grew by 90 percent from 1980
- to 1988. The growth rate of the total prison population
- during the first 6 months of 1989 exceeded the largest annual
- increase ever recorded in 64 years of recordkeeping. The
- 6-month growth rate translates to a need of almost 1,800
- additional prison beds per week.
-
- (10) In 1985, 19 States reported the early release of nearly
- 19,000 prisoners in an effort to control prison populations,
- according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
-
- (11) According to the United States Bureau of Justice
- Statistics, 63 percent of State inmates were rearrested for a
- serious crime within 3 years of their discharge from prison.
-
- (12) The criminal justice system is overloaded and does not
- deliver swift and certain penalties for violating the law.
- In America today, there exists crime without punishment.
- Such conditions imperil the public safety, jeopardize the
- rule of law and undermine the preservation of order in the
- community.
-
- (b) DECLARATION OF NATIONAL DRUG AND CRIME EMERGENCY.--(1) Guided by
- the principles that energized and sustained the mobilization
- for World War II, and in order to remove violent criminals
- from the streets and meet the extraordinary threat that is
- posed to the Nation by the use and trafficking of illegal
- drugs, the Congress declares the existence of a National Drug
- and Crime Emergency beginning on the date of enactment of
- this Act and ending on the date that is 5 years after the
- date of enactment of this Act.
-
- (2) During the National Drug and Crime Emergency declared in
- paragraph (1), it shall be the policy of the United States
- that--
-
- (A) every person who is convicted in a Federal
- court of a crime of violence against a person or a
- drug trafficking felony (other than simple
- possession) shall be sentenced to and shall serve a
- full term of no less than 5 years' imprisonment
- without release;
-
- (B) prisoners may be housed in tents, and other
- temporary facilities may be utilized, consistent
- with security requirements; and
-
- (C) the Federal courts may limit or place a "cap"
- on the inmate population level of a Federal or
- State prison or jail only when an inmate proves
- that crowding has resulted in cruel and unusual
- punishment of the plaintiff inmate and no other
- remedy exists.
-
- SEC. 4. DEFINITIONS.
-
- For the purposes of this Act--
-
- (1) the term "crime of violence against a person" means a
- Federal offense that is a felony and--
-
- (A) has as an element the use, attempted use, or
- threatened use of physical force against the person
- or property of another; or
-
- (B) that by its nature, involves a substantial risk
- that physical force against the person or property
- of another may be used in the course of committing
- the offense; and
-
- (C) for which a maximum term of imprisonment of 10
- years or more is prescribed by law; and
-
- (2) the term "drug trafficking crime," (other than simple
- possession) means any felony punishable under the Controlled
- Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 801 et seq.), the Controlled
- Substances Import and Export Act (21 U.S.C. 951 et seq.) or
- the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act (46 U.S.C. App. 1901 et
- seq.), other than a felony constituting a simple possession
- of a controlled substance for which the maximum term of
- imprisonment of 10 years or more is prescribed by law.
-
- TITLE I--ELIMINATION OF CRIME WITHOUT PUNISHMENT
-
- Subtitle A--National Drug and Crime Emergency Policies
-
- SEC. 101. JUDICIAL REMEDIES FOR PRISON CROWDING.
-
- (a) PURPOSE.--The purpose of this section is to provide for reasonable
- and proper enforcement of the eighth amendment.
-
- (b) FINDINGS.--The Congress finds that--
-
- (1) the Federal courts are unreasonably endangering the
- community by sweeping prison and jail cap orders as a remedy
- for detention conditions that they hold are in conflict with
- the eighth amendment; and
-
- (2) eighth amendment holdings frequently are unjustified
- because of the absence of a plaintiff inmate who has proven
- that detention conditions inflict cruel and unusual
- punishment of that inmate.
-
- (c) AMENDMENT OF TITLE 18, UNITED STATES CODE.--(1) Subchapter C of
- chapter 229 of part 2 of title 18, United States Code, is
- amended by adding at the end thereof the following new
- section:
-
- "Section 3626. Appropriate remedies with respect
- to prison crowding.
-
- "(a)(1) During the period of the National Drug and
- Crime Emergency, a Federal court shall not hold
- prison or jail crowding unconstitutional under the
- eighth amendment except to the extent that an
- individual plaintiff proves that the crowding
- causes the infliction of cruel and unusual
- punishment of that inmate.
-
- "(2) The relief in a case described in paragraph
- (1) shall extend no further than necessary to
- remove the conditions that are causing the cruel
- and unusual punishment of the plaintiff inmate.
-
- "(b)(1) A Federal court shall not place an inmate
- ceiling on any Federal, State, or local detention
- facility as an equitable remedial measure for
- conditions that violate the eighth amendment unless
- crowding itself is inflicting cruel and unusual
- punishment on individual prisoners.
-
- "(2) Federal judicial power to issue equitable
- relief other than that described in paragraph (1),
- including the requirement of improved medical or
- health care and the imposition of civil contempt
- fines or damages, where appropriate, shall not be
- affected by paragraph (1).
-
- "(c) Each Federal court order seeking to remedy an
- eighth amendment violation shall be reopened at the
- behest of a defendant for recommended alteration at
- a minimum of two-year intervals.".
-
- (2) Section 3626 of title 18, United States Code, as added by
- paragraph (1), shall apply to all outstanding court orders on
- the date of enactment of this section. Any State or
- municipality shall be entitled to seek modification of any
- outstanding eighth amendment decree pursuant to that section.
-
- (3) The table of sections for subchapter C of chapter 229 of
- title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end
- thereof the following new item:
-
- "3626. Appropriate remedies with respect to prison
- overcrowding.".
-
- SEC. 102. TEMPORARY PRISON FACILITIES AND EXPANDED CAPACITY.
-
- (a) IN GENERAL.--In order to remove violent criminals from the streets
- and protect the public safety, the Attorney General shall take such
- action as may be necessary, subject to appropriate security
- considerations, to ensure that sufficient facilities exist to house
- individuals whom the courts have ordered incarcerated. During the
- period of the National Drug and Crime Emergency, these facilities may
- include tent housing or other shelters placed on available military
- bases and at other suitable locations. The President may direct the
- National Guard and the Army Corps of Engineers to design and construct
- such temporary detention facilities.
-
- (b) USE OF MILITARY INSTALLATIONS.--(1)In order to provide facilities
- for incarceration authorized by subsection (a), the Secretary
- of Defense, the Commission on Alternative Utilization of
- Military Facilities, and the Director of the Bureau of
- Prisons shall--
-
- (A) identify military installations that could be
- used as confinement facilities for Federal or State
- prisoners; and
-
- (B) examine the feasibility of using temporary
- facilities for housing prisoners with a specific
- examination of the successful use of tent housing
- during the mobilization for World War II.
-
- (2) Not later than 90 days after the date of enactment of
- this Act, the Director of the Bureau of Prisoners shall
- submit to the Congress a description and summary of the
- results of the examination conducted pursuant to paragraph
- (1).
-
- (c) PRIORITY FOR DISPOSAL OF CLOSED MILITARY INSTALLATIONS.--Section
- 204(b)(3) of the Defense Authorization Amendments and Base Closure and
- Realignment Act (10 U.S.C. 2687 note) is amended to read as follows:
-
- "(3)(A) Notwithstanding any provision of this title and any
- other law, before any action is taken with respect to the
- disposal or transfer of any real property or facility located
- at a military installation to be closed or realigned under
- this title the Secretary shall--
-
- "(i) notify the Attorney General and the Governor
- of each of the territories and possessions of the
- United States of the availability of such real
- property or facility, or portion thereof; and
-
- "(ii) transfer such real property of facility or
- portion thereof, as provided in subparagraph (B).
-
- "(B) Subject to subparagraph (C), the Secretary shall
- transfer real property or a facility, or portion thereof,
- referred to in subparagraph (A) in accordance with the
- following priorities:
-
- "(i) If the Attorney General certifies to the
- Secretary that the property or facility, or portion
- thereof, will be used as a prison or other
- correctional institution, to the Department of
- Justice for such use.
-
- "(ii) If the Governor of a State, the Mayor of the
- District of Columbia, or the Governor of a
- territory or possession of the United States
- certifies to the Secretary that the property or
- facility, or portion thereof, will be used as a
- prison or other correctional institution, to that
- State, the District of Columbia, or that territory
- or possession for such use.
-
- "(iii) To any other transferee pursuant to the
- Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of
- 1949 (40 U.S.C. 471 et seq.).
-
- "(C) Within each priority specified in clauses (i) and (ii)
- of subparagraph (B), the Secretary shall give a priority for
- the transfer of any real property or facility referred to in
- that subparagraph, or any portion thereof, to any department,
- agency, or other instrumentality referred to in such clauses
- that agrees to pay the Department of Defense the fair market
- value of the real property, facility, or portion thereof.
-
- "(D) In this paragraph, the term 'fair market value' means,
- with respect to any real property or facility, or any portion
- thereof, the fair market value determined on the basis of the
- use of the real property or facility on December 31, 1988.".
-
- (d) REVIEW OF CURRENT STANDARDS OF PRISON CONSTRUCTION.--(1) The
- Director of the Bureau of Prisons (referred to as the
- "Director") shall--
-
- (A) review current construction standards and
- methods used in building Federal prisons; and
-
- (B) examine and recommend any cost cutting measures
- that could be employed in prison construction
- (consistent with security requirements), especially
- expenditures for air conditioning, recreational
- activities, color television, social services, and
- similar amenities.
-
- (2) Not later than 90 days after the date of enactment of
- this Act, the Director shall submit to Congress a description
- and summary of the results of the review conducted pursuant
- to paragraph (1).
-
- (e)(1) Chapter 301 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by
- adding at the end thereof the following new section:
-
- "Section 4014. Private construct and operation of
- Federal prisons
-
- "(a) IN GENERAL.--The Attorney General may contract
- with private persons to--
-
- "(1) construct, own, and operate Federal
- prison facilities; or
-
- "(2) construct or operate Federal prison
- facilities owned by the United States,
-
- including the provision of subsistence, care, and
- proper employment of United States prisoners.
-
- "(b) COOPERATION WITH STATES.--The Attorney General
- shall consult and cooperate with State and local
- governments in exercising the authority provided by
- subsection (a).
-
- "(c) FINANCING OPTIONS FOR PRISON CONSTRUCTION AND
- OPERATION.--(1) To the greatest extent possible,
- the Attorney General shall utilize
- creative and cost-effective private
- financing alternatives and private
- construction and operation of prisons.
-
- "(2) Operating cots of privately-operated
- prisons shall be covered through rent
- charged to participating units of
- Government placing inmates in a prison.
-
- "(3) The Attorney General may finance the
- construction of facilities through lease
- or lease-purchase agreements.
-
- "(4) In order to gain full costs
- advantages from economies of scale and
- specialized knowledge from private
- innovation, the Attorney General may
- contract with consortia or teams of
- private firms to design, construct, and
- manage, as well as finance, prison
- facilities.".
-
- (2) The table of sections for chapter 301 of title 18, United
- States Code, is amended by adding at the end thereof the
- following new item:
-
- "4014. Private construct and operation of Federal
- prisons.".
-
- (f) SURPLUS FEDERAL PROPERTY.--(1) For the purpose of expanding the
- number of correctional facilities, the Administrator of the
- General Services Administration, in consultation with the
- Attorney General, shall, not later than 1 year after the date
- of enactment of this Act, identify and make available a list
- of not less than 20 parcels of surplus Federal property,
- which the Attorney General has certified are not needed for
- Federal correctional facilities but which may be suitable for
- State or local correctional facilities.
-
- (2) During the National Drug and Crime Emergency declared in
- section 3(b)(1), notwithstanding any other law, any property
- that is determined to be excess to the needs of a Federal
- agency that may be suitable for use as a correctional
- facility shall be made available for such use, in order of
- priority, first, to the Attorney General, and second, to a
- State, the District of Columbia, or a local government.
-
- (g) STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT USE OF FACILITIES.--State and local
- governments shall be permitted to use Federal temporary incarceration
- facilities, when they are not needed to accommodate Federal prisoners,
- for the purpose of incarcerating prisoners at a per diem fee to be paid
- to the Bureau of Prisons.
-
- SEC. 103. ELIMINATION OF EARLY RELEASE FROM PRISON.
-
- During the National Drug and Crime Emergency declared in section
- 3(b)(1), notwithstanding any other law, every person who is convicted
- in a Federal court of committing a crime of violence against a person
- or a drug trafficking crime (other than simple possession), shall be
- sentenced to and shall serve a full term of no less than 5 years'
- imprisonment, and no such person shall be released from custody for any
- reason or for any period of time prior to completion of the sentence
- imposed by the court unless the sentence imposed is greater than 5
- years and is not a mandatory minimum sentence without release.
-
- Subtitle B--Imposition of Mandatory Minimum Sentences Without Release
-
- SEC. 111. INCREASED MANDATORY MINIMUM SENTENCES WITHOUT RELEASE FOR
- CRIMINALS USING FIREARMS AND OTHER VIOLENT CRIMINALS.
-
- (a) USE OF FIREARMS.--Section 924(c)(1) of title 18, United States
- Code, is amended to read as follows:
-
- "(c)(1) Whoever, during and in relation to any crime of
- violence or drug trafficking crime (including a crime of
- violence or drug trafficking crime which provides for an
- enhanced punishment if committed by the use of a deadly or
- dangerous weapon or device) for which the person may be
- prosecuted in a court of the United States--
-
- "(A) possesses a firearm, shall, in addition to the
- punishment provided for such crime of violence or
- drug trafficking crime, be sentenced to
- imprisonment for 10 years without release;
-
- "(B) discharges a firearm with intent to injure
- another person, shall, in addition to the
- punishment provided for such crime of violence or
- drug trafficking crime, be sentenced to
- imprisonment for 20 years without release; or
-
- "(C) possesses a firearm that is a machinegun, or
- is equipped with a firearm silencer or firearm
- muffler shall, in addition to the punishment
- provided for such crime of violence or drug
- trafficking crime, be sentenced to imprisonment for
- 30 years without release.
-
- In the case of a second conviction under this subsection, a
- person shall be sentenced to imprisonment for 20 years
- without release for possession or 30 years without release
- for discharge of a firearm, and if the firearm is a
- machinegun, or is equipped with a firearm silence or firearm
- muffler, to life imprisonment without release. In the case of
- a third or subsequent conviction under this subsection, a
- person shall be sentenced to life imprisonment without
- release. If the death of a person results from the discharge
- of a firearm, with intent to kill another person, by a person
- during the commission of such a crime, the person who
- discharged the firearm shall be sentenced to death or life
- imprisonment without release. A person shall be subjected to
- the penalty of death under this subsection only if a hearing
- is held in accordance with section 408 of the Controlled
- Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 848). Notwithstanding any other
- law, a court shall not place on probation or suspend the
- sentence of any person convicted of a violation of this
- subsection, nor shall the term of imprisonment under this
- subsection run concurrently with any other term of
- imprisonment including that imposed for the crime of violence
- or drug trafficking crime in which the firearm was used. No
- person sentenced under this subsection shall be eligible for
- parole, nor shall such person be released for any reason
- whatsoever, during a term of imprisonment imposed under this
- paragraph.".
-
- SEC. 112. LIFE IMPRISONMENT WITHOUT RELEASE FOR CRIMINALS CONVICTED A
- THIRD TIME.
-
- Section 401(b) of the Controlled Substances Act is amended by striking
- "If any person commits a violation of this subparagraph or of section
- 405, 405A, or 405B after two or more prior convictions for a felony
- drug offense have become final, such person shall be sentenced to a
- mandatory term of life imprisonment without release" and inserting "If
- any person commits a violation of this subparagraph or of section 405,
- 405A, or 405B or a crime of violence as defined in section 924(c)(3) of
- title 18, United States Code, after two or more prior convictions for a
- felony drug offense or for a crime of violence as defined in section
- 924(c)(3) of that title or for any combination thereof have become
- final, such person shall be sentenced to a mandatory term of life
- imprisonment without release.".
-
- SEC. 113. LONGER PRISON SENTENCES FOR THOSE WHO SELL ILLEGAL DRUGS TO
- MINORS OR FOR USE OF MINORS IN DRUG TRAFFICKING ACTIVITIES.
-
- (a) DISTRIBUTION TO PERSONS UNDER AGE 21.--Section 405 of the
- Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 845) is amended--
-
- (1) in subsection (a) by striking "Except to the extent a
- greater minimum sentence is otherwise provided by section
- 401(b), a term of imprisonment under this subsection shall be
- not less than one year." and inserting "Except to the extent
- a greater minimum sentence is otherwise provided by section
- 401(b), a term of imprisonment under this subsection shall be
- not less than 10 years without release. Notwithstanding any
- other provision of law, the court shall not place on
- probation or suspend the sentence of any person sentenced
- under the preceding sentence and such person shall not be
- released during the term of such sentence."; and
-
- (2) in subsection (b) by striking "Except to the extent a
- greater minimum sentence is otherwise provided by section
- 401(b), a term of imprisonment under this subsection shall be
- not less than one year." and inserting "Except to the extent
- a greater minimum sentence is otherwise provided by section
- 401(b), a term of imprisonment under this subsection shall be
- not less than 20 years without release. Notwithstanding any
- other provision of law, the court shall not place on
- probation or suspend the sentence of any person sentenced
- under the preceding sentence and such person shall not be
- released during the term of such sentence.".
-
- (b) EMPLOYMENT OF PERSONS UNDER 18 YEARS OF AGE.--Section 405B of the
- Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 845b) is amended--
-
- (1) in subsection (a) by striking "Except to the extent a
- greater minimum sentence is otherwise provided, a term of
- imprisonment under this subsection shall be not less than one
- year." and inserting "Except to the extent a greater minimum
- sentence is otherwise provided by section 401(b), a term of
- imprisonment under this subsection shall be not less than 10
- years without release. Notwithstanding any other provision
- of law, the court shall not place on probation or suspend the
- sentence of any person sentenced under the preceding sentence
- and such person shall not be released during the term of such
- sentence"; and
-
- (2) in subsection (c) by striking "Except to the extent a
- greater minimum sentence is otherwise provided, a term of
- imprisonment under this subsection shall be not less than one
- year." and inserting "Except to the extent a greater minimum
- sentence is otherwise provided by section 401(b), a term of
- imprisonment under this subsection shall be not less than 20
- years without release. Notwithstanding any other provision
- of law, the court shall not place on probation or suspend the
- sentence of any person sentenced under the preceding sentence
- and such person shall not be released during the term of such
- sentence.".
-
- SEC. 114. LONGER PRISON SENTENCES FOR DRUG TRAFFICKING.
-
- (a) SCHEDULE I AND II SUBSTANCES.--Section 401(b)(1)(C) of the
- Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 841(b)(1)(C)) is amended--
-
- (1) in the first sentence by striking "of not more than 20
- years" and inserting "which shall be not less than 5 years
- without release nor more than 20 years"; and
-
- (2) in the second sentence by striking "of not more than 30
- years" and inserting "which shall be not less than 10 years
- without release nor more than 30 years".
-
- (b) MARIHUANA.--Section 401(b)(1)(D) of the Controlled Substances Act
- (21 U.S.C. 841(b)(1)(D)) is amended--
-
- (1) in the first sentence by striking "of not more than 5
- years" and inserting "not less than 5 years without release";
-
- (2) in the second sentence by striking "of not more than 10
- years" and inserting "which shall be not less than 10 years
- without release"; and
-
- (3) by adding the following new sentence at the end thereof:
- "Not withstanding any other provision of law, the court shall
- not place on probation or suspend the sentence of any person
- sentenced under this subparagraph, nor shall a person so
- sentenced be eligible for parole during the term of such a
- sentence.".
-
- (c) SCHEDULE IV SUBSTANCES.--Section 401(b)(2) of the Controlled
- Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 841(b)(2)) is amended--
-
- (1) in the first sentence by striking "of not more than 3
- years" and inserting "which shall be not less than 5 years
- without release";
-
- (2) in the second sentence by striking "of not more than 6
- years" and inserting "which shall be not less than 10 years
- without release"; and
-
- (3) by adding the following new sentence at the end thereof:
- "Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the court shall
- not place on probation or suspend the sentence of any person
- sentenced under this subparagraph, nor shall a person so
- sentenced be eligible for parole during the term of such a
- sentence.".
-
- (d) SCHEDULE V SUBSTANCES.--Section 401(b)(3) of the Controlled
- Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 841(b)(3)) is amended--
-
- (1) in the first sentence by striking "of not more than one
- year" and inserting "which shall be not less than 5 years
- without release";
-
- (2) in the second sentence by striking "of not more than 2
- years" and inserting "which shall be not less than 10 years
- without release"; and
-
- (3) by adding the following new sentence at the end thereof:
- "Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the court shall
- not place on probation or suspend the sentence of any person
- sentenced under this subparagraph, nor shall a person so
- sentenced be eligible for parole during the term of such a
- sentence.".
-
- SEC. 115. MANDATORY PENALTIES FOR ILLEGAL DRUG USE IN FEDERAL PRISONS.
-
- (a) DECLARATION OF POLICY.--It is the policy of the Federal Government
- that the use or distribution of illegal drugs in the Nation's Federal
- prisons will not be tolerated and that such crime shall be prosecuted
- to the fullest extent of the law.
-
- (b) AMENDMENT.--Section 401(b) of the Controlled Substances Act (21
- U.S.C. 841(b)) is amended by adding the following new paragraph and the
- end thereof:
-
- "(7)(A) In a case involving possession of a controlled
- substance within a Federal prison or other Federal detention
- facility, such person shall be sentenced to a term of
- imprisonment of 1 year without release in addition to any
- other sentence imposed for the possession itself.
-
- "(B) In a case involving the smuggling of a controlled
- substance into a Federal prison or other Federal detention
- facility or the distribution of a controlled substance within
- a Federal prison or other Federal detention facility, such
- person shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 10
- years without release in addition to any other sentence
- imposed for the possession or distribution itself.
-
- "(C) Notwithstanding any other law, the court shall not place
- on probation or suspend the sentence of a person sentenced
- under this paragraph. No person sentenced under this
- paragraph shall be eligible for parole during the term of
- imprisonment imposed under this paragraph.".
-
- SEC. 116. DEPORTATION OF CRIMINAL ALIENS.
-
- (a) DEPORTATION OF ALIENS CONVICTED OF CRIMES OF VIOLENCE.--Section
- 241(a)(14) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C.
- 1251(a)(14)) is amended by inserting after "convicted" the following:
- "of a drug trafficking crime or a crime of violence (as those terms are
- defined in paragraphs (2) and (3) of section 924(c) of title 18, United
- States Code), or".
-
- (b) REENTRY OF DEPORTED ALIENS.--Section 276(b)(2) of the Immigration
- and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1326(b)(2)) is amended to read as
- follows:
-
- "(2) whose deportation was subsequent to a conviction for a
- drug trafficking crime or a crime of violence (as those terms
- are defined in sections 924(c) (2) and (3) of title 18,
- United States Code), such alien shall be fined under such
- title and imprisoned for 20 years without release, and in the
- case of a second violation of subsection (a) shall be
- imprisoned for life without release. Notwithstanding any
- other law, the court shall not place on probation or suspend
- the sentence of any person sentenced under this paragraph and
- such person shall not be released during the term of such
- sentence.".
-
- SEC. 117 ENCOURAGEMENT TO STATES TO ADOPT MANDATORY MINIMUM PRISON
- SENTENCES.
-
- (a) PRIORITY.--Beginning on the date that is 2 calendar years after the
- date of enactment of this Act, a request for Federal drug law
- enforcement assistance funds from the Bureau of Justice Assistance
- Grant Programs by a State whose law provides for--
-
- (1) mandatory minimum sentences equal to or greater than the
- sentences authorized in sections 111, 112, 113, 114, and 115
- for the commission of crimes against the State that are
- equivalent to the Federal crimes punished in those sections;
-
- (2) elimination of early release from prison of persons
- convicted in a State court of committing a crime of violence
- against a person or drug trafficking crime (other than simple
- possession), equivalent to the requirements of section 103;
- and
-
- (3) payment of trial costs and mandatory fines equivalent to
- that imposed by section 202,
-
- shall receive priority over a request by a State whose law does not so
- provide.
-
- (b) REDISTRIBUTION.--Beginning on the data that is 2 calendar years
- after the date of enactment of this Act, the formula for determining
- the amount of funds to be distributed from the Drug Control and System
- Improvement Grant Program to state and local governments shall be
- adjusted by--
-
- (1) reducing by 10 percent the amount of funds that would,
- except for the application of this paragraph, be allocated to
- States whose laws do not provide as stated in subsection (a);
- and
-
- (2) allocating the amount of the reduction pro rata to the
- other States.
-
- Subtitle C--Mandatory Work Requirements for Prisoners, Withholding
- Federal Benefits, and Drug Testing of Prisoners
-
- SEC. 131 MANDATORY WORK REQUIREMENT FOR ALL PRISONERS.
-
- (A) IN GENERAL.--(1) It is the policy of the Federal Government that
- convicted prisoners confined in Federal prisons, jails, and
- other detention facilities shall work. The type of work in
- which they will be involved shall be dictated by appropriate
- security considerations and by the health of the prisoner
- involved. Such labor may include, but not be limited to--
-
- (A) local public works projects and infrastructure
- repair;
-
- (B) construction of new prisons and other detention
- facilities;
-
- (C) prison industries; and
-
- (D) other appropriate labor.
-
- (2) It is the policy of the Federal Government that States
- and local governments have the same authority to require all
- convicted prisoners to work.
-
- (b) PRISONERS SHALL WORK.--Medical certification of 100 percent
- disability, security considerations, or disciplinary action shall be
- the only excuse to remove a Federal prisoner from labor participation.
-
- (c) USE OF FUNDS.--(1) Subject to paragraph (2), any funds generated by
- labor conducted pursuant to this section shall be deposited
- in a separate fund in the Treasury of the United States for
- use by the Attorney General for payment of prison
- construction and operating expenses or for payment of
- compensation judgements. Notwithstanding any other law, such
- funds shall be available without appropriation.
-
- (2) Prisoners shall be paid a share of funds generated by
- their labor conducted pursuant to this section.
-
- SEC. 132. REPEAL OF CONSTRAINTS ON PRISON INDUSTRIES.
-
- (a) SUMNERS-ASHURST ACT.--(1) Chapter 85 of part 1 of title 18, United
- States Code, is repealed.
-
- (2) The table of chapters for part 1 of title 18, United
- States Code, is amended by striking the item for chapter 85
- and inserting the following:
-
- "[85. Repealed.]".
-
- (3) The repeal made by this subsection shall not affect the
- performance to completion of the pilot projects authorized by
- section 1761(c) of title 18, United States Code, prior to
- enactment of this act.
-
- (b) FEDERAL PRISON INDUSTRIES.--(1) Section 4122(a) of title 18, United
- States Code, is amended to read as follows:
-
-
- "(a) Federal Prison Industries shall determine in
- what manner and to what extent industrial
- operations shall be carried on in Federal penal and
- correctional institutions for the product of
- commodities for consumption in such institutions
- or for sale to governmental departments and
- agencies and to the public.".
-
- (2) The first paragraph of section 4124 of title 18, United
- States Code, is amended to read as follows:
-
- "The several Federal departments and agencies and
- all other Government institutions of the United
- States may purchase such products of the industries
- authorized by this chapter as meet their
- requirements and may be available.".
-
- (3) The second sentence of section 4126(f) of title 18,
- United States Code, is amended to read as follows: "To the
- extent that the amount of such funds is excess to the needs
- of the corporation for such purposes, such funds may be
- transferred to the Attorney General for the construction or
- acquisition of penal and correctional institutions, including
- camps described in section 4125.".
-
- (c) WALSH-HEALY ACT.--Subsection (d) of the first section of the Act
- entitled "An Act to provide conditions for the purchase of supplies and
- the making of contracts by the United States, and for other purposes",
- approved June 30, 1936, (41 U.S.C. 35(d)), is amended--
-
- (1) by striking "and no convict labor"; and
-
- (2) by striking ", except that this section, or any law or
- Executive order contrasting similar prohibitions against
- purchase of goods by the Federal Government, shall not apply
- to convict labor which satisfies the conditions of section
- 1761(c) of title 18, United States Code".
-
- (d) LEGISLATIVE RECOMMENDATIONS.--The Attorney General shall submit to
- Congress a report making recommendations for legislation to--
-
- (1) ensure that private businesses and labor do not suffer
- unfair consequences from the repeal in subsection (a); and
-
- (2) encourage greater private sector participation in prison
- industries and create incentives for cooperative arrangements
- between private businesses and prisons providing for such
- participation.
-
- SEC. 133. EMPLOYMENT OF PRISONERS.
-
- (a) IN GENERAL.--The Attorney General may enter into contracts with
- private businesses for the use of inmate skills that may be of
- commercial use to such businesses.
-
- (b) USE OF FEES AND PAYMENTS.--A portion of the fees and payments
- collected for the use of inmate skills under contracts entered into
- pursuant to subsection (a) shall be deposited in the fund described in
- section 131(c)(1), and a portion shall be paid to the prisoners who
- conduct the labor.
-
- (c) SECURITY REQUIREMENT.--In the case of contracts described in
- subsection (a) in which the provision of inmate skills would require
- prisoners to leave the prison--
-
- (1) prisoners shall be permitted to travel directly to a work
- site and to remain at the work site during the work day and
- shall be required to return directly to prison at the end of
- each work day; and
-
- (2) only prisoners with no history of violent criminal
- activity and who are able to meet strict security standards
- to insure that they pose no threat to the public, shall be
- eligible to participate.
-
- SEC. 134. WITHHOLDING PRISONERS' FEDERAL BENEFITS TO OFFSET
- INCARCERATION COSTS.
-
- (a) IN GENERAL.--The Federal benefits received by any prisoner (not
- including those of a prisoner's spouse or dependents) who has been
- convicted of a crime of violence against a person or drug trafficking
- crime (other than simple possession) under Federal or State law and who
- is incarcerated in a Federal or State prison shall, during the period
- of the prisoner's incarceration, be withheld to offset the costs of--
-
- (1) any victim compensation award against such prisoner; and
-
- (2) any incarceration costs of the prisoner incurred by the
- prison system.
-
- (b) PAYMENT.--(1) In the case of a Federal Prisoner, Federal benefits
- withheld for the purpose of subsection (a)(2) shall be paid
- into the fund established by section 131(c).
-
- (2) In the case of a State prisoner, Federal benefits
- withheld for the purpose of subsection (a)(2) shall be paid
- to the State.
-
- (c) EXCEPTION.--The withholding of Federal benefits of a prisoner with
- a spouse or other dependents under subsection (a) shall be adjusted by
- the court to provide adequate support to and to prevent the
- impoverishment of dependents.
-
- (d) DEFINITIONS.--As used in this section the term "Federal benefit"
- means the issuance of any payment of money, by way of grant, loan, or
- statutory entitlement, provided by an agency of the United States or by
- appropriated funds or trust funds of the United States but does not
- include a right to payment under a contract.
-
- SEC. 135. DRUG TESTING OF FEDERAL PRISONERS.
-
- (a) DRUG TESTING PROGRAM.--(1) Subchapter A of chapter 229 of title 18,
- United States Code, is amended by adding at the end thereof
- the following new section:
-
- "Section 3608. Drug testing of defendants on
- post-conviction release
-
- "(a) The Attorney General, in consultation with the
- Director of the Administrative Office of the United
- States Courts shall, as soon as is practicable
- after the effective date of this section, establish
- by regulation a program of drug testing of targeted
- classes of arrestees, individuals in jails,
- prisons, and other correctional facilities, and
- persons on conditional or supervised release before
- or after conviction, including probationers,
- parolees, and persons released on bail.
-
- "(b)(1) The Attorney General shall, not later than
- 6 months after the date of enactment of
- this section, promulgate regulations for
- drug testing programs under this section.
-
- "(2) The regulations issued pursuant to
- paragraph (1) shall be based in part on
- scientific and technical standards
- determined by the Secretary of Health
- and Human Services to ensure reliability and
- accuracy of drug test results. In
- addition to specifying acceptable methods
- and procedures for carrying out drug
- testing, the regulations may include
- guidelines or specifications concerning--
-
- "(A) the classes of persons to
- be targeted for testing;
-
- "(B) the drugs to be tested
- for;
-
- "(C) the frequency and duration
- of testing; and
-
- "(D) the effect of test results
- in decisions concerning the
- sentence, the conditions to be
- imposed on release before or
- after conviction, and the
- granting, continuation, or
- termination of such release.
-
- "(c) In each district where it is feasible to do
- so, the chief probation officer shall arrange for
- the drug testing of defendants on a post-conviction
- release pursuant to a conviction for a felony or
- other offense described in section 3563(a)(4) of
- this title.".
-
- SEC. 136. DRUG TESTING OF STATE PRISONERS.
-
- (a) IN GENERAL.--Title I of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets
- Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. 3711 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end of
- part E (42 U.S.C. 3750-3766b) the following:
-
- "DRUG TESTING PROGRAMS
-
- "SEC. 523. (a) PROGRAM REQUIRED.--No funding shall be
- provided under this part, whether by direct grant,
- cooperative agreement, or assistance in any form, to any
- State or any political subdivision or instrumentality of a
- State that has not formulated and implemented a drug testing
- program, subject to periodic review by the Attorney General,
- as specified in the regulations described in subsection (b),
- for targeted classes of arrestees, individuals in jails,
- prisons, and other correctional facilities, and persons on
- conditional or supervised release before or after conviction,
- including probationers, parolees, and persons released on
- bail.
-
- "(b) REGULATIONS.--(1) The Attorney General shall, not later
- than 6 months after the enactment of this section,
- promulgate regulations for drug testing programs
- under this section.
-
- "(2) The regulations issued pursuant to paragraph
- (1) shall incorporate the standards applicable to
- drug testing of Federal prisoners under section
- 3608 of title 18, United States Code.
-
- "(c) EFFECTIVE DATE.--This section shall take effect with
- respect to any State, subdivisions, or instrumentality
- receiving or seeking funding under this subchapter at a time
- specified by the Attorney General, but no earlier than the
- date of promulgation of the regulations required by
- subsection (b).".
-
- (b) AMENDMENT TO TABLE OF CONTENTS.--The table of contents of title I
- of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C.
- 3711 et seq.) is amended by inserting at the end of the item relating
- to part E the following:
-
- "Sec. 523. Drug testing program.".
-
- Subtitle D--Judicial Reform to Protect the Innocent and Punish the
- Guilty
-
- SEC. 151. GOOD FAITH STANDARDS FOR GATHERING EVIDENCE.
-
- (a) IN GENERAL.--Chapter 223 of title 18, United States Code, is
- amended by adding at the end thereof the following new section:
-
- "Section 3509. Admissibility of evidence obtained by search
- or seizure
-
- "(a) EVIDENCE OBTAINED BY OBJECTIVELY REASONABLE SEARCH OR
- SEIZURE.--Evidence which is obtained as a result of a search
- or seizure shall not be excluded in a proceeding in a court of
- the United States on the ground that the search or seizure
- was in violation of the fourth amendment to the Constitution
- of the United States, if the search or seizure was carried
- out in circumstances justifying an objectively reasonable
- belief that it was in conformity with the fourth amendment.
- The fact that evidence was obtained pursuant to and within
- the scope of a warrant constitutes prima facie evidence of
- the existence of such circumstances.
-
- "(b) EVIDENCE NOT EXCLUDABLE BY STATUTE OR RULE.--Evidence
- shall not be excluded in a proceeding in a court of the
- United States on the ground that it was obtained in violation
- of a statute, an administrative rule or regulation, or a rule
- of procedure unless exclusion is expressly authorized by a
- statute or by a rule prescribed by the Supreme Court pursuant
- to statutory authority.
-
- "(c) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.--This section shall not be
- constructed to require or authorize the exclusion of evidence
- in any proceeding.".
-
- (b) TECHNICAL AMENDMENT.--The table of sections at the beginning of
- chapter 223 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at
- the end the following:
-
- "3509. Admissibility of evidence obtained by search or
- seizure.".
-
- SEC. 152. STROM THURMOND HABEAS CORPUS REFORM INITIATIVE.
-
- (a) FINALITY OF DETERMINATIONS.--Section 2244 of title 28, United
- States Code, is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new
- subsections:
-
- "(d) When a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a
- State court fails to raise a claim in State proceedings at
- the time or in the manner required by State rules of
- procedure, the claim shall not be entertained in an
- application for a writ of habeas corpus unless actual
- prejudice resulted to the applicant from the alleged denial
- of Federal right asserted and--
-
- "(1) the failure to raise the claim properly or to
- have it heard in State proceedings was the result
- of State action in violation of the Constitution or
- laws of the United States;
-
- "(2) the Federal right asserted was newly
- recognized by the Supreme Court subsequent to the
- procedural default and is retroactively applicable;
- or
-
- "(3) the factual predicate of the claim could not
- have been discovered through the exercise of
- reasonable diligence prior to the procedural
- default.
-
- "(e) A one-year period of limitation shall apply to an
- application for a writ of habeas corpus by a person in
- custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court. The
- limitation period shall run from the latest of the following
- times:
-
- "(1) the time at which State remedies are
- exhausted;
-
- "(2) the time at which the impediment to filing an
- application created by State action in violation to
- the Constitution or laws of the United States is
- removed, where the applicant was prevented from
- filing by such State action;
-
- "(3) the time at which the Federal right asserted
- was initially recognized by the Supreme Court,
- where the right has been newly recognized by the
- Court and is retroactively applicable; or
-
- "(4) the time at which the factual predicate of the
- claim or claims presented could have been
- discovered through the exercise of reasonable
- diligence.".
-
- (b) APPEAL.--Section 2253 of title 28, United States Code, is amended
- to read as follows:
-
- "Section 2253. Appeal
-
- "In a habeas corpus proceeding or a proceeding under section
- 2255 of this title before a circuit or district judge, the
- final order shall be subject to review, on appeal, by the
- court of appeals for the circuit where the proceeding is had.
-
- "There shall be no right of appeal from such an order in a
- proceeding to test the validity of a warrant to remove, to
- another district or place for commitment or trial, a person
- charged with a criminal offense against the United States, or
- to test the validity of the person's detention pending
- removal proceedings.
-
- "An appeal may not be taken to the court of appeals from the
- final order in a habeas corpus proceeding where the detention
- complained of arises out of process issued by a State court,
- or from the final order in a proceeding under section 2255 of
- this title, unless a circuit justice or judge issues a
- certificate of probable cause.".
-
- (c) APPELLATE PROCEDURE.--Rule 22 of the Federal Rules of Appellate
- Procedure is amended to read as follows:
-
- "Rule 22. Habeas Corpus and Section 2255 Proceedings
-
- "(a) APPLICATION FOR AN ORIGINAL WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS.--An
- application for a writ of habeas corpus shall be made to the
- appropriate district court. If application is made to a
- circuit judge, the application will ordinarily be transferred
- to the appropriate district court. If an application is made
- to or transferred to the district court and denied, renewal
- of the application before a circuit judge is not favored; the
- proper remedy is by appeal to the court of appeals from the
- order of the district court denying the writ.
-
- "(b) NECESSITY OF CERTIFICATE OF PROBABLE CAUSE FOR
- APPEAL.--In a habeas corpus proceeding in which the detention
- complained of arises out of process issued by a State court,
- and in a motion proceeding pursuant to section 2255 of title
- 28, United States Code, an appeal by the applicant or movant
- may not proceed unless a circuit judge issues a certificate
- of probable cause. If a request for a certificate of
- probable cause is addressed to the court of appeals, it shall
- be deemed addressed to the judges thereof and shall be
- considered by a circuit judge or judges as the court deems
- appropriate. If no express request for a certificate is
- filed, the notice of appeal shall be deemed to constitute a
- request addressed to the judgements of the court of appeals.
- If an appeal is taken by a State or the government or its
- representative, a certificate of probable cause is not
- required.".
-
- (d) STATE CUSTODY.--Section 2254 of title 28, United States Code, is
- amended--
-
- (1) by amending subsection (b) to read as follows:
-
- "(b) An application for a writ of habeas corpus in
- behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the
- judgment of a State court shall not be granted
- unless it appears that the applicant has exhausted
- the remedies available in the courts of the State,
- or that there is either an absence of available
- State corrective process or the existence of
- circumstances rendering such process ineffective to
- protect the rights of the applicant. An
- application may be denied on the merits
- notwithstanding the failure of the applicant to
- exhausted the remedies available in the courts of
- the States.";
-
- (2) by redesignating subsection (d), (e), and (f) as
- subsections (e), (f), and (g), respectively;
-
- (3) by inserting after subsection (c) the following new
- subsection:
-
- "(d) An application for a writ of habeas corpus in
- behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the
- judgment of a State court shall not be granted
- with respect to any claim that has been fully and
- fairly adjudicated in State proceedings."; and
-
- (4) by amending subsection (e), as redesignated by paragraph
- (2), to read as follows:
-
- "(e) In a proceeding instituted by an application
- for a writ of habeas corpus by a person in custody
- pursuant to the judgment of a State court, a full
- and fair determination of a factual issue made in
- the case by a State court shall be presumed to be
- correct. The applicant shall have the burden of
- rebutting this presumption by clear and convincing
- evidence.".
-
- (e) FEDERAL CUSTODY.--Section 2255 of title 28, United States Code, is
- amended by striking the second paragraph and the penultimate paragraph
- thereof, and by adding at the end thereof the following new paragraphs:
-
- "When a person fails to raise a claim at the time or in the
- manner required by Federal rules of procedure, the claim
- shall not be entertained in a motion under this section
- unless actual prejudice resulted to the movant from the
- alleged denial of the right asserted and--
-
- "(1) the failure to raise the claim properly, or to
- have it heard, was the result of governmental
- action in violation of the Constitution or the laws
- of the United States;
-
- "(2) the right asserted was newly recognized by the
- Supreme Court subsequent to the procedural default
- and is retroactively applicable; or
-
- "(3) the factual predicate of the claim could not
- have been discovered through the exercise of
- reasonable diligence prior to the procedural
- default.
-
- "A two-year period of limitation shall apply to a motion
- under this section. The limitation period shall run from the
- latest of the following times;
-
- "(1) The time at which the judgment of conviction
- becomes final.
-
- "(2) The time at which the impediment to making a
- motion created by governmental action in violation
- of the Constitution or laws of the United States is
- removed, where the movant was prevented from making
- a motion by such governmental action.
-
- "(3) The time at which the right asserted was
- initially recognized by the Supreme Court, where
- the right has been newly recognized by the Court
- and is retroactively applicable.
-
- "(4) The time at which the factual predicate of the
- claim or claims presented could have been
- discovered through the exercise of reasonable
- diligence.".
-
- SEC. 153. PROSCRIPTION OF USE OF DRUG PROFITS.
-
- (a) LIST OF ASSETS.--Section 511(d) of the Controlled Substances Act
- (21 U.S.C. 881(d)) is amended by--
-
- (1) inserting "(1)" after (d)"; and
-
- (2) adding at the end thereof the following new paragraph:
-
- "(2)(A) Prior to sentencing a defendant on
- conviction in a Federal court of a felony under
- this title, the court shall compile a list of all
- assets owned by the defendant not subject to
- forfeiture.
-
- "(B) After the release of a defendant described in
- subparagraph (A), upon request of the Attorney
- General, the court shall required the defendant to
- provide proof that any asset owned by the defendant
- not listed on the list described in subparagraph
- (A) was legally obtained.".
-
- "(C) In order to prove that a defendant legally
- obtained an asset not listed on the list described
- in subparagraph (A), the defendant shall be
- required to produce documentation of the same
- nature as that required of a taxpayer by the
- Internal Revenue Service.
-
- "(D) Assets that a defendant does not prove were
- legally obtained under subparagraph (B) may be
- seized by the Attorney General through attachment
- and foreclosure proceedings, and the proceeds of
- such proceedings shall be deposited in the
- Department of Justice's Assets Forfeiture Fund and
- shall be available for transfer to the building and
- facilities account of the Federal prison system.".
-
- SEC. 154. JURISDICTION OF SPECIAL MASTERS.
-
- Notwithstanding any other law, a special master appointed to serve in a
- United States court to monitor compliance with a court order, including
- special masters who have been appointed prior to the date of enactment
- of this Act--
-
- (1) shall be appointed for a term of no more than 1 year;
-
- (2) may be reappointed for terms of 1 year;
-
- (3) shall be given a clear and narrow mandate by the court
- and shall have no authority in any area where a specific
- mandate is not granted; and
-
- (4) shall not have jurisdiction to enforce any judicial order
- with respect to the management of prisons or jails.
-
- SEC. 155. SENTENCING PATTERNS OF FEDERAL JUDGES.
-
- (a) IN GENERAL.--Chapter 49 of title 28, United States Code, is amended
- by adding at the end thereof the following new section:
-
- "Section 757 Sentencing patterns
-
- "(a) The Administrative Office of the United States Courts
- shall annually publish a cumulative report on sentencing by
- United States District Judges. The report shall be compiled
- for the purpose of enabling the reader to assess criminal
- sentencing patterns among Federal judges and post-sentencing
- treatment to determine judicial accuracy of forecasting
- future responsible and lawful behavior by those whom they
- sentence.
-
- "(b) The report shall--
-
- "(1) personally identify the judge that pronounced
- each criminal sentence;
-
- "(2) give a brief description of the crime or
- crimes perpetrated by the criminal and the prison,
- probation, parole, furlough, recidivism, and other
- history of the criminal that is reasonably
- available for compilation; and
-
- "(3) include such charts, profiles, and narratives
- as are necessary.".
-
- (b) TECHNICAL AMENDMENT.--The table of sections for chapter 49 of title
- 28, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end thereof the
- following:
-
- "757. Sentencing patterns.".
-
- TITLE II--ACHIEVING A DRUG-FREE AMERICA BY 1995
-
- SEC. 201. FINDINGS.
-
- The Congress finds that--
-
- (1) to make America drug-free by 1995 requires a concerted
- effort to hold drug users accountable for their actions,
- which sustain the drug trade and related criminal activities;
- and
-
- (2) the anti-drug policy of the 1990's must emphasize the
- principles of zero tolerance, user accountability, and
- measured user penalties.
-
- SEC. 202 PAYMENT OF TRIAL COSTS AND MANDATORY MINIMUM FINES.
-
- (a) FINE TO PAY COST OF TRIAL.--(1) A person who is convicted of a
- violation of section 404 of the Controlled Substances Act (21
- U.S.C. 844) shall pay to the Treasury of the United States
- the cost of the trial in which the person is convicted, as
- determined by the court, out of the income of such person.
-
- (2) If a person convicted of drug possession has insufficient
- income and property to pay the cost of trial as required by
- paragraph (1), the court shall determine an appropriate
- amount that should be paid in view of the person's income and
- the cost of trial.
-
- (3) The amount that a person shall be required to pay out of
- the person's income to pay the cost of trial shall not exceed
- 25 percent of the person's annual income.
-
- (b) ADDITIONAL MANDATORY FINE.--In addition to the fines authorized in
- section 404 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 844) and in
- subsection (a), a person who is convicted of section 404 of the
- Controlled Substances Act shall be assessed a mandatory fine of at
- least 10 percent of the person's income for a first offense and at
- least 25 percent of the person's income for a second or subsequent
- offense.
-
- (c) INCOME.--For the purposes of this section, a person's annual income
- shall be determined to be no less than the amount of income reported on
- the person's most recent Federal income tax filing.
-
- (d) FORFEITURE OF PROPERTY.--If a person convicted of a drug crime has
- insufficient income to pay the fines imposed under subsections (a) and
- (b), the person's property, including wages and other earnings, shall
- be subject to forfeiture through attachment, foreclosure, and
- garnishment procedures.
-
- (e) The court may order payment of trial costs and fines imposed under
- this section in a single payment or in installments, as necessary to
- realize the greatest possibility that the entire amount of costs and
- fines will be paid.
-
- SEC. 203. WITHHOLDING OF UNEARNED FEDERAL BENEFITS FROM DRUG
- TRAFFICKERS AND USERS WHO ARE NOT IN PRISON.
-
- (a) DRUG TRAFFICKERS.--Section 5301(a) of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of
- 1988 (21 U.S.C 853a(a)) is amended--
-
- (1) by amending paragraph (1) to read as follows:
-
- "(1) Any individual who is convicted of any State
- offense consisting of the distribution of
- controlled substances (as such terms are defined
- for purposes of the Controlled Substances Act) who
- is not sentenced to a prison term or who serves a
- prison term of less than the time periods specified
- in subparagraph (A), (B), or (C) of this paragraph
- shall--
-
- "(A) upon the first conviction for such
- an offense be ineligible for unearned
- Federal benefits for 5 years after such
- conviction;
-
- "(B) upon a second conviction be
- ineligible for all unearned Federal
- benefits for 10 years after such
- conviction; and
-
- "(C) upon a third or subsequent
- conviction for such an offense be
- permanently ineligible for all unearned
- Federal benefits."; and
-
- (2) in paragraph (2) by striking "there is a reasonable body
- of evidence to substantiate such declaration" and inserting
- "there is clear and convincing evidence to substantiate such
- declaration".
-
- (b) DRUG USERS.--Section 5301(b) of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 (21
- U.S.C. 853a(b)) is amended--
-
- (1) in paragraph (1) by amending subparagraphs (A) and (B) to
- read as follows:
-
- "(A) upon the first conviction for such an offense
- be ineligible for all unearned Federal benefits for
- 1 year after such conviction;
-
- "(B) upon a second and subsequent convictions be
- ineligible for all unearned Federal benefits for 5
- years after such convictions; and
-
- (2) in paragraph (2) by striking "there is a reasonable body
- of evidence to substantiate such declaration" and inserting
- "there is clear and convincing evidence to substantiate such
- declaration".
-
- (c) SUSPENSION OF PERIOD OF INELIGIBILITY.--Subsection (c) of section
- 5301 of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 (21 U.S.C. 853a(c)) is amended
- to read as follows:
-
- "(c) SUSPENSION OF PERIOD OF INELIGIBILITY.--A court may
- reduce the period of ineligibility referred to in subsection
- (b)(1)(A) to 3 months if the individual--
-
- "(1) successfully completes a supervised drug
- rehabilitation program which includes periodic,
- random drug testing after becoming ineligible
- under this section; or
-
- "(2) completes a period of community service
- satisfactory to the court and passes period and
- random drug tests administered during the 3-month
- period of suspension.".
-
- (d) DEFINITIONS.--Subsection (d) of section 5301 of the Anti-Drug Abuse
- Act of 1988 (21 U.S.C. 853a(d)) is amended to read as follows:
-
- "(d) DEFINITIONS.--As used in this section--
-
- "(1) the term 'earned Federal benefits' means
- programs and benefits that are earned through or by
- financial contributions or service, such as Social
- Security or veterans' benefits; and
-
- "(2) the term 'unearned Federal benefits' means all
- Federal benefits, including the issuance of any
- grant, contract, loan, professional license, or
- commercial license provided by an agency of the
- United States or by appropriated funds of the
- United States, but not including earned Federal
- benefits, such as Social Security and veteran's
- benefits.
-
- (e) MONITORING.--The Attorney General shall establish a system to
- monitor implementation of section 5301 of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of
- 1988 (21 U.S.C. 853a).
-
- SEC. 204. REVOCATION OF DRUG USERS' DRIVER'S LICENSES AND PILOT'S
- LICENSES.
-
-
- (a) DRIVER'S LICENSES.--(1) Chapter 1 of title 23, United States Code,
- is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new
- section:
-
- "Section 159. Revocation of the driver's licenses
- of persons convicted of drug possession
-
- "(a) Beginning on the date that is 2 calendar years
- after the date of enactment of this section, a
- request for Federal drug law enforcement assistance
- funds from the Bureau of Justice Assistance Grant
- programs by a State whose law provides for
- revocation of drivers' licenses as provided in
- subsection (c) shall receive priority over a
- request by a State whose law does not so provide.
-
- "(b) Beginning on the date that is 2 calendar years
- after the date of enactment of this section, the
- formula for determining the amount of funds to be
- distributed from the Drug Control and System
- Improvement Grant Program to State and local
- governments shall be adjusted by--
-
- "(1) reducing by 10 percent the amount of
- funds that would, except for the
- application of this paragraph, be
- allocated to States whose laws do not
- provide as stated in subsection (c); and
-
- "(2) allocated the amount of the
- reduction pro rata to the other States.
-
- "(c)(1) A State meets the requirements of this
- section if the State has enacted and is enforcing a
- law that requires in all circumstances, except as
- provided in paragraph(2)--
-
- "(A) the mandatory revocation of the
- driver's license for at least 1 year of
- any person who is convicted, after the
- enactment of such law, of--
-
- "(i) a violation of section 404
- of the Controlled Substances
- Act (21 U.S.C. 844); or
-
- "(ii) any other Federal or
- State drug offense for which a
- person serves less than 1 year's
- imprisonment; and
-
- "(B) the mandatory denial of any request
- for the issuance or reinstatement of a
- driver's license to such a person if the
- person does not have a driver's license,
- or the driver's license of the person is
- suspended, at the time the person is so
- convicted.
-
- "(2) The State law referred to in paragraph (1) may
- provide that the driver's license of a first
- offender, but not of a second or subsequent
- offender, may be reinstated on performance of 3
- months' community service and passes periodic drug
- tests administered during the period of community
- service.".
-
- "(d) For purposes of this section--
-
- "(1) The term 'driver's license' means a
- license issued by a State to any person
- that authorizes the person to operate a
- motor vehicle on the highways.
-
- "(2) The term 'drug offense' means any
- criminal offense which proscribes the
- possession, distribution, manufacture,
- cultivation, sale, transfer, or the
- attempt or conspiracy to possess,
- distribute, manufacture, cultivate, sell,
- or transfer any substance the possession
- of which is prohibited under the
- Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 801
- et seq.) and such offenses under State
- laws.
-
- "(3) The term 'convicted' includes
- adjudicated under juvenile proceedings.".
-
- (2) The table of contents for chapter 1 of title 23, United
- States Code, is amended by adding at the end thereof the
- following new item:
-
- "159. Revocation of the driver's licenses of
- persons convicted of drug offenses.".
-
- (b) PILOT'S LICENSES.--The Secretary of Transportation shall cause the
- Federal Aviation Administration to amend its regulations as necessary
- to cause the revocation of pilot's licenses on the terms and conditions
- prescribed for revocation of driver's licenses in subsection (a).
-
- SEC. 205. ACCOUNTABILITY AND PERFORMANCE OF DRUG TREATMENT FACILITIES.
-
- (a) STATEWIDE DRUG TREATMENT PLANS.--Title XIX of the Public Health
- Service Act is amended by inserting after section 1916A (42 U.S.C.
- 300x-4a) the following new section:
-
- "SEC. 1916B. STATEWIDE DRUG TREATMENT PLAN.
-
- "(a) NATURE OF PLAN.--To receive the drug abuse portion of
- its allotment for a fiscal year under section 1912A, a State
- shall develop, implement, and submit, as part of the
- application required by section 1916(a), an approved
- statewide Drug Treatment Plan, prepared according to
- regulations promulgated by the Secretary, that shall
- contain--
-
- "(1) a single, designated State agency for
- formulating and implementing the Statewide Drug
- Treatment Plan;
-
- "(2) a description of the mechanism that shall be
- used to assess the needs for drug treatment in
- localities throughout the State including the
- presentation of relevant data;
-
- "(3) a description of a statewide plan that shall
- be implemented to expand treatment capacity and
- overcome obstacles that restrict the expansion of
- treatment capacity (such as zoning ordinances), or
- an explanation of why such a plan is necessary;
-
- "(4) a description of performance-based criteria
- that shall be used to assist in the allocating of
- funds to drug treatment facilities receiving
- assistance under this subpart: [sic]
-
- "(5) a description of the drug-free patient and
- workplace programs, that must include some form of
- drug testing, to be utilized in drug treatment
- facilities and programs;
-
- "(6) a description of the mechanism that shall be
- used to make funding allocations under this
- subpart;
-
- "(7) a description of the actions that shall be
- taken to improve the referral of drug users to
- treatment facilities that offer the most
- appropriate treatment modality;
-
- "(8) a description of the program of training that
- shall be implemented for employees of treatment
- facilities receiving Federal funds, designed to
- permit such employees to stay abreast of the latest
- and most effective treatment techniques;
-
- "(9) a description of the plan that shall be
- implemented to coordinate drug treatment facilities
- with other social, health, correctional and
- vocational services in order to assist or properly
- refer those patients in need of such additional
- services; and
-
- "(10) a description of the plan that will be
- implemented to expand and improve efforts to
- contact and treat expectant women who use drugs and
- to provide appropriate follow-up care to their
- affected newborns.
-
- "(b) SUBMISSION OF PLAN.--The plan required by subsection (a)
- shall be submitted to the Secretary annually for review and
- approval. The Secretary shall have the authority to review
- and approve or disapprove such State plans, and to propose
- changes to such plans.
-
- "(c) SUBMISSION OF PROGRESS REPORTS.--Each State shall submit
- reports, in such form, and containing such information as the
- Secretary may, from time to time, require, and shall comply
- with such additional provisions as the Secretary may from
- time to time find are necessary to verify the accuracy of
- such reports but are not overly burdensome to the State.
-
- "(d) WAIVER OF PLAN REQUIREMENT.--At the discretion of the
- Secretary, the Secretary may waive any or all of the
- requirements of this section on the written request of a
- State, except that such waiver shall not be granted unless
- the State implements an alternative treatment plan that
- fulfills the objectives of this section.
-
- "(e) DEFINITION.--As used in this section, the term 'drug
- abuse portion' means the amount of a State's allotment under
- section 1912A that is required by this subpart, or by any
- other law, to be used for programs or activities relating to
- drug abuse.".
-
- (b) REGULATIONS AND EFFECTIVE DATES.--(1) The Secretary of Health and
- Human Services shall promulgate regulations to carry out
- section 1916B of the Public Health Service Act (as added by
- subsection (a)) not later than 6 months after the date of
- enactment of this section.
-
- (2)(A)Sections 1916B(a) (4) and (5) of such Act (as added by
- subsection (a)) shall become effective on October 1
- of the second fiscal year beginning after the date
- that final regulations under paragraph (1) are
- published in the Federal Register.
-
- (B) The remaining provision of such section 1916B
- shall become effective on October 1 of the first
- fiscal year beginning after the date final
- regulations under paragraph (1) are published in
- the Federal Register.
-
- SEC. 206. DRUG-FREE SCHOOLS.
-
- (a) ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION.--(1) Title XII of the Higher
- Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1001 et seq.), is amended by
- inserting at the end thereof the following new section 1213:
-
- "DRUG AND ALCOHOL ABUSE PREVENTION
-
- "SEC. 1213. (a) Notwithstanding any other law, no
- institution of higher education shall be eligible
- to receive funds or any other form of financial
- assistance under any Federal program, including
- participation in any federally funded or guaranteed
- student loan program, unless it certifies to the
- Secretary that it has adopted and has implemented a
- program to prevent the use of illicit drugs and the
- abuse of alcohol by students and employees that, at
- a minimum, includes--
-
- "(1) the annual distribution to each
- student and employee of--
-
- "(A) standards of conduct that
- clearly prohibit, at a minimum,
- the unlawful possession, use,
- or distribution of illicit
- drugs and alcohol by students
- and employees on its property
- or as a part of any of its
- activities;
-
- "(B) a description of
- applicable legal sanctions
- under local, State, or Federal
- law for the unlawful
- possession or distribution of
- illicit drugs and alcohol;
-
- "(C) a description of the
- health risks associated with
- the use of illicit drugs and
- the abuse of alcohol;
-
- "(D) a description of any drug
- or alcohol counseling,
- treatment, or rehabilitation
- programs that are available to
- employees or students; and
-
- "(E) a clear statement that the
- institution will impose
- sanctions on students and
- employees (consistent with
- local, State, and Federal
- laws), and a description of
- those sanctions, up to and
- including expulsion or
- termination of employment and
- referral for prosecution, for
- violations of the standards of
- conduct required by paragraph
- (1)(A);
-
- "(2) provisions for drug testing; and
-
- "(3) a biennial review by the institution
- of its program to--
-
- "(A) determine its
- effectiveness and implement
- changes to the program if they
- are needed; and
-
- "(B) ensure that the sanctions
- required by paragraph (1)(E)
- are consistently enforced.
-
- "(b) Each institution of higher education that
- provides the certification required by subsection
- (a) shall, upon request, make available to the
- Secretary and to the public a copy of each item
- required by subsection (a)(1) as well as the
- results of the biennial review required by
- subsection (a)(2).
-
- "(c)(1) The Secretary shall publish regulations to
- implement and enforce this section,
- including regulations that provide for--
-
- "(A) the periodic review of a
- representative sample of
- programs required by subsection
- (a); and
-
- "(B) sanctions, up to and
- including the termination of
- any form of financial
- assistance, for institutions of
- higher education that fail to
- implement their programs or to
- consistently enforce their
- sanctions.
-
- "(2) The sanctions required by subsection
- (a)(1)(E) may include the completion of
- an appropriate rehabilitation program".
-
- (2) Paragraph (1) shall take effect on October 1, 1990.
-
- (b) DRUG AND ALCOHOL ABUSE PREVENTION.--(1) Part D of the Drug-Free
- Schools and Communities Act of 1986 (20 U.S.C. 3171 et seq.)
- is amended by adding at the end thereof a new section 5145 to
- read as follows:
-
- "CERTIFICATION OF DRUG AND ALCOHOL ABUSE
- PREVENTION PROGRAMS.
-
- "SEC. 5145. (a) Notwithstanding any other law, no
- local educational agency shall be eligible to
- receive funds or any other form of financial
- assistance under any Federal program unless it
- certifies to the State educational agency that it
- has adopted and has implemented a program to
- prevent the use of illicit drugs and alcohol by
- students or employees that, at a minimum,
- includes--
-
- "(1) mandatory, age-appropriate,
- developmentally based drug and alcohol
- education and prevention programs (which
- address the legal, social, and health
- consequences of drug and alcohol use and
- which provide information about effective
- techniques for resisting peer pressure to
- use illicit drugs or alcohol) for
- students in all grades of the schools
- operated or served by the applicant, from
- early childhood level through grade 12;
-
- "(2) conveying to students that the use
- of illicit drugs and alcohol is wrong and
- harmful;
-
- "(3) standards of conduct that are
- applicable to students and employees in
- all the applicant's schools and that
- clearly prohibit, at a minimum, the
- possession, use, or distribution of
- illicit drugs and alcohol by students and
- employees on school premises or as part
- of any of its activities;
-
- "(4) a clear statement that sanctions
- (consistent with local, State, and
- Federal law), up to and including
- expulsion or termination of employment
- and referral for prosecution, will be
- imposed on students and employees who
- violate the standards of conduct required
- by paragraph (3) and a description of
- those sanctions;
-
- "(5) information about any available drug
- and alcohol counseling and rehabilitation
- programs that are available to students
- and employees;
-
- "(6) a requirement that parents,
- students, and employees be given a copy
- of the standards of conduct required by
- paragraph (3) and the statement of
- sanctions required by paragraph (4);
-
- "(7) notifying parents, students, and
- employees that compliance with the
- standards of conduct required by
- paragraph (3) is mandatory;
-
- "(8) provisions for drug testing; and
-
- "(9) a biennial review by the applicant
- of its program to--
-
- "(A) determine its
- effectiveness and implement
- changes to the program if they
- are needed; and
-
- "(B) ensure that the sanctions
- required by paragraph (4) are
- consistently enforced.
-
- "(b) Each local educational agency that provides
- the certification required by subsection (a) shall,
- upon request, make available to the Secretary, the
- State educational agency, and the public full
- information about the elements of its program
- required by subsection (a), including the results
- of its biennial review.
-
- "(c) Each State educational agency shall certify to
- the Secretary that it has adopted and has
- implemented a program to prevent the use of illicit
- drugs and the abuse of alcohol by its students and
- employees that is consistent with the program
- required by subsection (a) of this section. The
- State educational agency shall, upon request, make
- available to the Secretary and to the public full
- information about the elements of its program.
-
- "(d)(1) The Secretary shall publish regulations to
- implement and enforce the provisions of
- this section, including regulations that
- provide for--
-
- "(A) the periodic review by
- State educational agencies of a
- representative sample of
- programs required by subsection
- (a); and
-
- "(B) sanctions, up to and
- including the termination of
- any form of financial
- assistance, for local
- educational agencies that fail
- to implement their programs or
- to consistently enforce their
- sanctions.
-
- "(2) The sanctions required by subsection
- (a)(1) through (4) may included the
- completion of an appropriate
- rehabilitation program.".
-
- (2) The Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act of 1986 is
- further amended in section 5126(c)(2) by--
-
- (A) striking subparagraphs (E), (F), and (G); and
-
- (B) redesignating subparagraphs (H) through (M) as
- subparagraphs (E) through (J), respectively.
-
- (3) Paragraphs (1) and (2) shall take effect on October 1,
- 1990.
-
- SEC. 207. DRUG-FREE TRANSPORTATION.
-
- (a) SHORT TITLE.--This section may be cited as the 'Transportation
- Employee Testing Act'.
-
- (b) FINDINGS.--The Congress finds that--
-
- (1) alcohol abuse and illegal drug use pose significant
- dangers to the safety and welfare of the Nation;
-
- (2) millions of the Nation's citizens utilize transportation
- by aircraft, railroads, trucks, and buses, and depend on the
- operators of aircraft, railroads, trucks, and buses to
- perform in a safe and responsible manner;
-
- (3) the greatest efforts must be expended to eliminate the
- abuse of alcohol and the use of illegal drugs, whether on or
- off duty, by persons who are involved in the operation of
- aircraft, railroads, trucks, and buses;
-
- (4) the use of alcohol and illegal drugs has been
- demonstrated to affect significantly the performance of
- persons who use them, and has been proven to have been a
- critical factor in transportation accidents;
-
- (5) the testing of uniformed personnel of the Armed Forces
- has shown that the most effective deterrent to abuse of
- alcohol and use of illegal drugs is increased testing,
- including random testing;
-
- (6) adequate safeguards can be implemented to ensure that
- testing for abuse of alcohol or use of illegal drugs is
- performed in a manner that protects a person's right of
- privacy, ensures that no person is harassed by being treated
- differently from other persons, and ensures that no person's
- reputation or career development is unduly threatened or
- harmed; and
-
- (7) rehabilitation is a critical component of any testing
- program for abuse of alcohol or use of illegal drugs, and
- should be made available to persons, as appropriate.
-
- (C) AMENDMENT OF THE FEDERAL AVIATION ACT.--(1) Title VI of the Federal
- Aviation Act of 1958 (49 App. U.S.C. 1421 et seq.) is amended
- by adding at the end thereof the following:
-
- "ALCOHOL AND CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES TESTING
-
- "TESTING PROGRAM
-
- "SEC. 613. (a)(1) The Administrator shall, in the
- interest of aviation safety, prescribe regulations
- not later than 12 months after the date of
- enactment of this section. Such regulations shall
- establish a program that requires air carriers and
- foreign air carriers to conduct preemployment,
- reasonable suspicion, random, and post-accident
- testing of airmen, crewmembers, airport security
- screening contract personnel, and other air
- carrier employees responsible for safety-sensitive
- functions (as determined by the Administrator) for
- use, in violation of law, of alcohol or a
- controlled substances. The Administrator may also
- prescribe regulations, as the Administrator
- considers appropriate in the interest of safety,
- for the conduct of periodic recurring testing of
- such employees for such use in violation of law.
-
- "(2) The Administrator shall establish a program
- applicable to employees of the Federal Aviation
- Administration whose duties include responsibility
- for safety-sensitive functions. Such programs
- shall provide for preemployment, reasonable
- suspicion, random, an post-accident testing for
- use, in violation of law, of alcohol or a
- controlled substance. The Administrator may also
- prescribe regulations, as the Administrator
- considers appropriate in the interest of safety,
- for the conduct of periodic testing of such
- employees for such use in violation of law.
-
- "(3) In prescribing regulations under the programs
- required by this subsection, the Administrator
- shall require, as the Administrator considers
- appropriate, the suspension or revocation of any
- certificate issued to such a person, or the
- disqualification or dismissal of any such person,
- in accordance with this section, in any instance
- where a test conduct and confirmed under this
- section indicates that such person has used, in
- violation of law, alcohol or a controlled
- substance.
-
- "PROHIBITION OF SERVICE
-
- "(b)(1) No person may use, in violation of law,
- alcohol or a controlled substance after the date of
- enactment of this section and serve as an airman,
- crewmember, airport security screening contract
- personnel, air carrier employee responsible for
- safety-sensitive functions (as determined by the
- Administrator), or employee of the Federal Aviation
- Administration with responsibility for
- safety-sensitive functions.
-
- "(2) No person who is determined to have used, in
- violation of law, alcohol or a controlled substance
- after the date of enactment of this section shall
- serve as an airman, crewmember, airport security
- screening contract personnel, air carrier employee
- responsible for safety-sensitive functions (as
- determined by the Administrator), or employee of
- the Federal Aviation Administration with
- responsibility for safety-sensitive functions
- unless such person has completed a program of
- rehabilitation described in subsection (c).
-
- "(3) Any such person determined by the
- Administrator to have used, in violation of law,
- alcohol or a controlled substance after the date of
- enactment of this section who--
-
- "(A) engaged in such use while on duty;
-
- "(B) prior to such use had undertaken or
- completed a rehabilitation program
- described in subsection (c) of this
- section;
-
- "(C) following such determination refuses
- to undertake such rehabilitation program;
- or
-
- "(D) following such determination fails
- to complete such a rehabilitation
- program,
-
- shall not be permitted to perform the duties
- relating to air transportation which such person
- performed prior to the date of such determination.
-
- "PROGRAM FOR REHABILITATION
-
- "(c)(1) The Administrator shall prescribe
- regulations setting forth requirements for
- rehabilitation programs which at a minimum provide
- for the identification and opportunity for
- treatment of employees referred to in subsection
- (a)(1) in need of assistance in resolving problems
- with the use, in violation of law, of alcohol or
- controlled substances. Each air carrier or foreign
- air carrier is encouraged to make such a program
- available to all of its employees in addition to
- those employees referred to in subsection (a)(1).
- The Administrator shall determine the circumstances
- under which such employees shall be required to
- participate in such a program. Nothing in this
- subsection shall preclude any air carrier or
- foreign air carrier from establishing a program
- under this subsection in cooperation with any other
- air carrier or foreign air carrier.
-
- "(2) The Administrator shall establish and maintain
- a rehabilitation program which at a minimum
- provides for the identification and opportunity for
- treatment of those employees of the Federal
- Aviation Administration whose duties include
- responsibility for safety-sensitive functions who
- are in need of assistance in resolving problems
- with the use of alcohol or controlled substances.
-
- "PROCEDURES
-
- "(d) In establishing the program required under
- subsection (a) of this section, the Administrator
- shall development requirements which shall--
-
- "(1) promote, to the maximum extent
- practicable, individual privacy in the
- collection of specimen samples;
-
- "(2) with respect to laboratories and
- testing procedures for controlled
- substances, incorporate the Department of
- Health and Human Services scientific and
- technical guidelines dated April 11,
- 1988, and any amendments thereto,
- including mandatory guidelines which--
-
- "(A) establish comprehensive
- standards for all aspects of
- laboratory controlled
- substances testing and
- laboratory procedures to be
- applied in carrying out this
- section, including standards
- that require the use of the
- best available technology for
- ensuring full reliability and
- accuracy of controlled
- substances tests and strict
- procedures governing the chain
- of custody of specimen samples
- collected for controlled
- substances testing;
-
- "(B) establish the minimum list
- of controlled substances for
- which persons may be tested;
- and
-
- "(C) establish appropriate
- standards and procedures for
- periodic review of laboratories
- and criteria for certification
- and revocation of certification
- of laboratories to perform
- controlled substances testing
- in carrying out this section;
-
- "(3) require that all laboratories
- involved in the controlled substances
- testing of any person under this section
- shall have the capability and facility,
- at such laboratory, of performing
- screening and confirmation tests;
-
- "(4) provide that all tests that indicate
- the use, in violation of law, of alcohol
- or a controlled substance by any person
- shall be confirmed by a scientifically
- recognized method of testing capable of
- providing quantitative data regarding
- alcohol or a controlled substance;
-
- "(5) provide that each specimen sample be
- subdivided, secured, and labeled in the
- presence of the tested person and that a
- portion thereof be retained in a secure
- manner to prevent the possibility of
- tampering, so that if the person's
- confirmation test results are positive
- the person has an opportunity to have the
- retained portion assayed by a
- confirmation test done independently at a
- second certified laboratory if the person
- requests the independent test within 3
- days after being advised of the results
- of the confirmation test;
-
- "(6) ensure appropriate safeguards for
- testing to detect and quantify alcohol in
- breath and body fluid samples, including
- urine and blood, through the development
- of regulations as may be necessary and in
- consultation with the Department of
- Health and Human Services;
-
- "(7) provide for the confidentiality of
- test results and medical information
- (other than information relating to
- alcohol or a controlled substance) of
- employees, except that this paragraph
- shall not preclude the use of test
- results for the orderly imposition of
- appropriate sanctions under this section;
- and
-
- "(8) ensure that employees are selected
- for tests by nondiscriminatory and
- impartial methods, so that no employee is
- harassed by being treated differently
- from other employees in similar
- circumstances.
-
- "EFFECT ON OTHER LAWS AND REGULATIONS
-
- "(e)(1) No State or local government shall adopt or
- have in effect any law, rule, regulation,
- ordinance, standard, or order that is inconsistent
- with the regulations promulgated under this
- section, except that the regulations promulgated
- under this section shall not be construed to
- preempt provisions of State criminal law which
- impose sanctions for reckless conduct leading to
- actual loss of life, injury, or damage to property,
- whether the provisions apply specifically to
- employees of an air carrier or foreign air carrier
- or to the general public.
-
- "(2) Nothing in this section shall be construed to
- restrict the discretion of the Administrator to
- continue in force, amend, or further supplement any
- regulations issued before the date of enactment of
- this section that govern the use of alcohol and
- controlled substances by airmen, crewmembers,
- airport security screening contract personnel, air
- carrier employees responsible for safety-sensitive
- functions (as determined by the Administrator), or
- employees of the Federal Aviation Administration
- with responsibility for safety-sensitive functions.
-
- "(3) In prescribing regulations under this section,
- the Administrator shall establish requirements
- applicable to foreign air carriers that are
- consistent with the international obligations of
- the United States, and the Administrator shall
- take into consideration any applicable laws and
- regulations of foreign countries. The Secretary of
- State and the Secretary of Transportation, jointly,
- shall call on the member countries of the
- International Civil Aviation Organization to
- strengthen and enforce existing standards to
- prohibit the use, in violation of law, of alcohol
- or a controlled substance by crewmembers in
- international civil aviation.
-
- "DEFINITION
-
- "(f) For the purposes of this section, the term
- "controlled substance" means any substance under
- section 102(6) of the Controlled Substances Act
- (21 U.S.C. 802(6)) specified by the
- Administrator.".
-
- (2) The portion of the table of contents of the Federal
- Aviation Act of 1958 relating to title VI is amended by
- adding at the end thereof the following:
-
- "Sec. 613. Alcohol and controlled substances testing.
- "(a) Testing program.
- "(b) Prohibition on service.
- "(c) Program for rehabilitation.
- "(d) Procedures.
- "(e) Effect on other laws and regulations.
- "(f) Definition.".
-
- (d) AMENDMENT OF THE FEDERAL RAILROAD SAFETY ACT.--Section 202 of the
- Federal Railroad Safety Act of 1970 (45 U.S.C. 431) is amended by
- adding at the end thereof the following new subsection:
-
- "(r)(1) In the interest of safety, the Secretary shall, not
- later than 12 months after the date of enactment of this
- subsection, issue rules, regulations, standards, and orders
- relating to alcohol and drug use in railroad operations.
- Such regulations shall establish a program which--
-
- "(A) requires railroads to conduct preemployment,
- reasonable suspicion, random, and post-accident
- testing of all railroad employees responsible for
- safety-sensitive functions (as determined by the
- Secretary) for use, in violation of law, of alcohol
- or a controlled substance;
-
- "(B) requires, as the Secretary considers
- appropriate, disqualification for an established
- period of time or dismissal of any employee
- determined to have used or to have been impaired by
- alcohol while on duty; and
-
- "(C) requires, as the Secretary considers
- appropriate, disqualification for an established
- period of time or dismissal of any employee
- determined to have used a controlled substance,
- whether on duty or not on duty, except as permitted
- for medical purposes by law and any rules,
- regulations, standards, or orders issued under this
- title.
-
- The Secretary may also issue rules, regulations, standards,
- and orders, as the Secretary considers appropriate in the
- interest of safety, requiring railroads to conduct periodic
- testing of railroad employees responsible for such safety
- sensitive functions, for use of alcohol or a controlled
- substance in violation of law. Nothing in this subsection
- shall be construed to restrict the discretion of the
- Secretary to continue in force, amend, or further supplement
- any rules, regulations, standards, and orders governing the
- use of alcohol and controlled substances in railroad
- operations issued before the date of enactment of this
- subsection.
-
- "(2) In carrying out this subsection, the Secretary shall
- develop requirements which shall--
-
- "(A) promote, to the maximum extent practicable,
- individual privacy in the collection of specimen
- samples;
-
- "(B) with respect to laboratories and testing
- procedures for controlled substances, incorporate
- the Department of Health and Human Services
- scientific and technical guidelines dated April 11,
- 1988, and any amendments thereto, including
- mandatory guidelines which--
-
- "(i) establish comprehensive standards
- for all aspects of laboratory controlled
- substances testing and laboratory
- procedures to be applied in carrying out
- this subsection, including standards that
- require the use of the best available
- technology for ensuring the full
- reliability and accuracy of controlled
- substances tests and strict procedures
- governing the chain of custody of
- specimen samples collected for controlled
- substances testing;
-
- "(ii) establish the minimum list of
- controlled substances for which persons
- may be tested; and
-
- "(iii) establish appropriate standards
- and procedures for periodic review of
- laboratories and criteria for
- certification and revocation of
- certification of laboratories to perform
- controlled substances testing in carrying
- out this subsection;
-
- "(C) require that all laboratories involved in the
- controlled substances testing of any employee under
- this subsection shall have the capability and
- facility, at such laboratory, of performing
- screening and confirmation tests;
-
- "(D) provide that all tests which indicate the use,
- in violation of law, of alcohol or a controlled
- substance by any employee shall be confirmed by a
- scientifically recognized method of testing capable
- of providing quantitative data regarding alcohol or
- a controlled substance;
-
- "(E) provide that each specimen sample be
- subdivided, secured, and labeled in the presence of
- the tested person and that a portion thereof be
- retained in a secure manner to prevent the
- possibility of tampering, so that in the event the
- person's confirmation test results are positive the
- person has an opportunity to have the retained
- portion assayed by a confirmation test done
- independently at a second certified laboratory if
- the person requests the independent test within 3
- days after being advised of the results of the
- confirmation test;
-
- "(F) ensure appropriate safeguards for testing to
- detect and quantify alcohol in breath and body
- fluid samples, including urine and blood, through
- the development of regulations as may be necessary
- and in consultation with the Department of Health
- and Human Services;
-
- "(G) provides for the confidentiality of test
- results and medical information (other than
- information relating to alcohol or a controlled
- substance) of employees, except that the provisions
- of this subparagraph shall not preclude the use of
- test results for the orderly imposition of
- appropriate sanctions under this subsection; and
-
- "(H) ensure that employees are selected for tests
- by nondiscriminatory and impartial methods, so that
- no employee is harassed by being treated
- differently from other employees in similar
- circumstances.
-
- "(3) The Secretary shall issue rules, regulations, standards,
- or orders setting forth requirements for rehabilitation
- programs which at a minimum provide for the identification
- and opportunity for treatment of railroad employees
- responsible for safety-sensitive functions (as determined by
- the Secretary) in need of assistance in resolving problems
- with the use, in violation of law, of alcohol or a controlled
- substance. Each railroad is encouraged to make such a
- program available to all of its employees in addition to
- those employees responsible for safety-sensitive functions.
- The Secretary shall determine the circumstances under which
- such employees shall be required to participate in such
- program. Nothing in this paragraph shall preclude a railroad
- from establishing a program under this paragraph in
- cooperation with any other railroad.
-
- "(4) In carrying out the provisions of this subsection, the
- Secretary shall establish requirements that are consistent
- with the international obligations of the United States, and
- the Secretary shall take into consideration any applicable
- laws and regulations of foreign countries.
-
- "(5) For the purposes of this subsection, the term
- 'controlled substance' means any substance under section
- 102(6) of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802(6))
- specified by the Secretary.".
-
- (e) AMENDMENT OF THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR VEHICLE SAFETY ACT.--(1) The
- Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1986 (49 App. U.S.C.
- 2701 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end thereof the
- following new section:
-
- "SEC. 12020. ALCOHOL AND CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES
- TESTING.
-
- "(a) REGULATIONS.--The Secretary shall, in the
- interest of commercial motor vehicle safety, issue
- regulations not later than 12 months after the date
- of enactment of this section. Such regulations
- shall establish a program which requires motor
- carriers to conduct preemployment, reasonable
- suspicion, random, and post-accident testing of the
- operators of commercial motor vehicles for use, in
- violation of law, of alcohol or a controlled
- substance. The Secretary may also issue
- regulations, as the Secretary considers appropriate
- in the interest of safety, for the conduct of
- periodic testing of such operations for such use in
- violation of law.
-
- "(b) TESTING.--
-
- "(1) POST-ACCIDENT TESTING.--In issuing
- such regulations, the Secretary shall
- require that post-accident testing of the
- operator of a commercial motor vehicle be
- conducted in the case of any accident
- involving a commercial motor vehicle in
- which occurs loss of human life, or, as
- determined by the Secretary, other serious
- accidents involving bodily injury or
- significant property damage.
-
- "(2) TESTING AS PART OF MEDICAL
- EXAMINATION.--Nothing in subsection (a)
- shall preclude the Secretary from
- providing in such regulations that such
- testing be conducted as part of the
- medical examination required by subpart E
- of part 391 of title 49, Code of Federal
- Regulations, with respect to operators of
- commercial motor vehicles to whom such
- part is applicable.
-
- "(c) PROGRAM FOR REHABILITATION.--The Secretary
- shall issue regulations setting forth requirements
- for rehabilitation programs which provide for the
- identification and opportunity for treatment of
- operators of commercial motor vehicles who are
- determined to have used, in violation of law or
- Federal regulation, alcohol or a controlled
- substance. The Secretary shall determine the
- circumstances under which such operators shall be
- required to participate in such program. Nothing
- in this subsection shall preclude a motor carrier
- from establishing a program under this subsection
- in cooperation with any other motor carrier.
-
- "(d) PROCEDURES FOR TESTING.--In establishing the
- program required under subsection (a) of this
- section, the Secretary shall develop requirements
- which shall--
-
- "(1) promote, to the maximum extent
- practicable, individual privacy in the
- collection of specimen samples;
-
- "(2) with respect to laboratories and
- testing procedures for controlled
- substances, incorporate the Department of
- Health and Human Services scientific and
- technical guidelines dated April 11,
- 1988, and any subsequent amendments
- thereto, including mandatory guidelines
- which--
-
- "(A) establish comprehensive
- standards for all aspects of
- laboratory controlled
- substances testing and
- laboratory procedures to be
- applied in carrying out this
- section, including standards
- which require the use of the
- best available technology for
- ensuring the full reliability
- and accuracy of controlled
- substances tests and strict
- procedures governing the chain
- of custody of specimen samples
- collected for controlled
- substances testing;
-
- "(B) establish the minimum list
- of controlled substances for
- which individuals may be
- tested; and
-
- "(C) establish appropriate
- standards and procedures for
- periodic review of laboratories
- and criteria for certification
- and revocation of certification
- of laboratories to perform
- controlled substances testing
- in carrying out this section;
-
- "(3) require that all laboratories
- involved in the testing of any individual
- under this section shall have the
- capability and facility, at such
- laboratory, of performing screening and
- confirmation tests;
-
- "(4) provide that all tests which
- indicate the use, in violation of law or
- Federal regulation, of alcohol or a
- controlled substance by any individual
- shall be confirmed by a scientifically
- recognized method of testing capable of
- providing quantitative data regarding
- alcohol or a controlled substance;
-
- "(5) provide that each specimen sample be
- subdivided, secured, and labeled in the
- presence of the tested individual and
- that a portion thereof be retained in a
- secure manner to prevent the possibility
- of tampering, so that in the event the
- individual's confirmation test results
- are positive the individual has an
- opportunity to have the retained portion
- assayed by a confirmation test done
- independently at a second certified
- laboratory if the individual requests the
- independent test within 3 days after
- being advised of the results of the
- confirmation test;
-
- "(6) ensure appropriate safeguards for
- testing to detect and quantify alcohol in
- breath and body fluid samples, including
- urine and blood, through the development
- of regulations as may be necessary and in
- consultation with the Department of
- Health and Human Services;
-
- "(7) provide for the confidentiality of
- test results and medical information
- (other than information relating to
- alcohol or a controlled substance) of
- employees, except that the provisions of
- this paragraph shall not preclude the use
- of test results for the orderly
- imposition of appropriate sanctions under
- this section; and
-
- "(8) ensure that employees are selected
- for tests by nondiscriminatory and
- impartial methods, so that no employee is
- harassed by being treated differently
- from other employees in similar
- circumstances.
-
- "(e) EFFECT ON OTHER LAWS AND REGULATIONS.--
-
- "(1) STATE AND LOCAL LAW AND
- REGULATIONS.--No State or local
- government shall adopt or have in effect
- any law, rule, regulation, ordinance,
- standard, or order that is inconsistent
- with the regulations issued under this
- section, except that the regulations
- issued under this section shall not be
- construed to preempt provisions of State
- criminal law which impose sanctions for
- reckless conduct leading to actual loss
- of life, injury, or damage to property,
- whether the provisions apply specifically
- to commercial motor vehicle employees, or
- to the general public.
-
- "(2) OTHER REGULATIONS ISSUED BY
- SECRETARY.--Nothing in this section shall
- be construed to restrict the discretion
- of the Secretary to continue in force,
- amend, or further supplement any
- regulations governing the use of alcohol
- or controlled substances by commercial
- motor vehicle employees issued before the
- date of enactment of this section.
-
- "(3) INTERNATIONAL OBLIGATIONS.--In
- issuing regulations under this section,
- the Secretary shall only establish
- requirements that are consistent with the
- international obligations of the United
- States, and the Secretary shall take into
- consideration any applicable laws and
- regulations of foreign countries.
-
- "(f) APPLICATION OF PENALTIES.--
-
- "(1) EFFECT ON OTHER PENALTIES.--Nothing
- in this section shall be construed to
- supersede any penalty applicable to the
- operator of a commercial motor vehicle
- under this title or any other provision
- of law..
-
- "(2) DETERMINATION OF SANCTIONS.--The
- Secretary shall determine appropriate
- sanctions for commercial motor vehicle
- operators who are determined, as a result
- of tests conducted and confirmed under
- this section, to have used, in violation
- of law or Federal regulation, alcohol or
- a controlled substance but are not under
- the influence of alcohol or a controlled
- substance as provide in this title.
-
- "(g) DEFINITION.--(1) For the purposes of this section, the
- term 'controlled substance' means any substance under section
- 102(6) of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802(6))
- specified by the Secretary.".
-
- (2) The table of contents of the Commercial Motor Vehicle
- Safety Act of 1986 (Public Law 99-570; 100 Stat. 5223) is
- amended by adding at the end thereof the following:
-
- "Sec. 12020. Alcohol and controlled substances
- testing.".
-
- (3) The Secretary shall design within 9 months after the date
- of enactment of this subsection, and implement within 15
- months after the date of enactment of this subsection, a
- pilot test program for the purpose of testing the operators
- of commercial motor vehicles on a random basis to determine
- whether an operator has used, in violation of law or Federal
- regulation, alcohol or a controlled substance. The pilot
- test program shall be administered as part of the Motor
- Carrier Safety Assistance Program.
-
- (4) The Secretary shall solicit the participation of State
- which are interested in participating in such program and
- shall select four States to participate in the program.
-
- (5) The Secretary shall ensure that the states selected
- pursuant to this section are representative of varying
- geographical and population characteristics of the Nation and
- that the selection takes into consideration the historical
- geographical incidence of commercial motor vehicle accidents
- involving loss of human life.
-
- (6) The pilot program authorized by this section shall
- continue for a period of one year. The Secretary shall
- consider alternative methodologies for implementing a system
- of random testing of operators of commercial motor vehicles.
-
- (7) Not later than 30 months after the date of enactment of
- this section, the Secretary shall prepare and submit to the
- Congress a comprehensive report setting forth the results of
- the pilot program conducted under this subsection. Such
- report shall include any recommendations of the Secretary
- concerning the desirability and implementation of a system
- for the random testing of operators of commercial motor
- vehicles.
-
- (8) For the purposes of carrying out this subsection, there
- shall be available to the Secretary $5,000,000 from funds
- made available to carry out section 404 of the Surface
- Transportation Assistance Act of 1982 (49 App. U.S.C. 2304)
- for fiscal year 1990.
-
- (9) For the purposes of this subsection, the term "commercial
- motor vehicle" shall have the meaning given to such term in
- section 12019(6) of the Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Act
- of 1986 (49 App. U.S.C. 2716(6)).
-
- (f) AMENDMENT OF THE URBAN MASS TRANSPORTATION ACT.--The Urban Mass
- Transportation Act of 1964 is amended by adding at the end thereof the
- following new section:
-
- "ALCOHOL AND CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES TESTING
-
- "SEC. 26. (a) REGULATIONS.--The Secretary shall, in the
- interest of mass transportation safety, issue regulations
- within 12 months after the date of enactment of this section.
- Such regulations shall establish a program which requires
- each recipient of assistance under this Act to conduct
- preemployment, reasonable suspicion, random, and postaccident
- testing of the operators of mass transportation vehicles for
- use, in violation of law or Federal regulation, of alcohol or
- a controlled substance. The Secretary may also issue
- regulations, as the Secretary considers appropriate in the
- interest of safety, for the conduct of periodic recurring
- testing of such operators for such use in violation of law or
- Federal regulation.
-
- "(b) POSTACCIDENT TESTING.--In issuing such regulations, the
- Secretary shall require that postaccident testing of the
- operator of a mass transportation vehicle be conducted in the
- case of any accident involving a mass transportation vehicle
- in which occurs loss of human life, or, as determined by the
- Secretary, other serious accidents involving bodily injury or
- significant property damage.
-
- "(c) PROGRAM FOR REHABILITATION.--The Secretary shall issue
- regulations setting forth requirements for rehabilitation
- programs which provide for the identification and opportunity
- for treatment of operators of mass transportation vehicles
- who are determined to have used, in violation of law or
- Federal regulation, alcohol or a controlled substance. The
- Secretary shall determine the circumstances under which such
- operators shall be required to participate in such a program.
- Nothing in this subsection shall preclude a recipient from
- establishing a program under this subsection in cooperation
- with any other recipient.
-
- "(d) PROCEDURES FOR TESTING.--In establishing the program
- required under subsection (a) of this section, the Secretary
- shall develop requirements which shall--
-
- "(1) promote, to the maximum extent practicable,
- individual privacy in the collection of specimen
- samples;
-
- "(2) with respect to laboratories and testing
- procedures for controlled substances, incorporate
- the Department of Health and Human Services
- scientific and technical guidelines dated April 11,
- 1988, and any subsequent amendments thereto,
- including mandatory guidelines which--
-
- "(A) establish comprehensive standards
- for all aspects of laboratory controlled
- substances testing and laboratory
- procedures to be applied in carrying out
- this section, including standards which
- require the use of the best available
- technology for ensuring the full
- reliability and accuracy of controlled
- substances tests and strict procedures
- governing the chain of custody of
- specimen samples collected for controlled
- substances testing;
-
- "(B) establish the minimum list of
- controlled substances for which
- individuals may be tested; and
-
- "(C) establish appropriate standards and
- procedures for periodic review of
- laboratories and criteria for
- certification and revocation of
- certification of laboratories to perform
- controlled substances testing in carrying
- out this section;
-
- "(3) require that all laboratories involved in the
- testing of any individual under this section shall
- have the capability and facility, at such
- laboratory, of performing screening and
- confirmation tests;
-
- "(4) provide that all tests which indicate the use,
- in violation of law or Federal regulation, of
- alcohol or a controlled substance by any individual
- shall be confirmed by a scientifically recognized
- method of testing capable of providing quantitative
- data regarding alcohol or a controlled substance;
-
- "(5) provide that each specimen sample be
- subdivided, secured, and labeled in the presence of
- the tested individual and that a portion thereof be
- retained in a secure manner to prevent the
- possibility of tampering, so that in the event the
- individual's confirmation test results are positive
- the individual has an opportunity to have the
- retained portion assayed by a confirmation test
- done independently at a second certified laboratory
- if the individual requests the independent test
- within 3 days after being advised of the results of
- the confirmation test;
-
- "(6) ensure appropriate safeguards for testing to
- detect and quantify alcohol in breath and body
- fluid samples, including urine and blood, through
- the development of regulations as may be necessary
- and in consultation with the Department of Health
- and Human Services;
-
- "(7) provide for the confidentiality of test
- results and medical information (other than
- information relating to alcohol or a controlled
- substance) of employees, except that the provisions
- of this paragraph shall not preclude the use of
- test results for the orderly imposition of
- appropriate sanctions under this section; and
-
- "(8) ensure that employees are selected for tests
- by nondiscriminatory and impartial methods, so that
- no employee is harassed by being treated
- differently from other employees in similar
- circumstances.
-
- "(e) EFFECT ON OTHER LAWS AND REGULATIONS.--
-
- "(1) STATE AND LOCAL LAW AND REGULATIONS.--No State
- or local government shall adopt or have in effect
- any law, rule, regulation, ordinance, standard, or
- order that is inconsistent with the regulations
- issued under this section, except that the
- regulations issued under this section shall not be
- construed to preempt provisions of State criminal
- law which impose sanctions for reckless conduct
- leading to actual loss of life, injury, or damage
- to property.
-
- "(2) OTHER REGULATIONS ISSUED BY
- SECRETARY.--Nothing in this section shall be
- construed to restrict the discretion of the
- Secretary to continue in force, amend, or further
- supplement any regulations governing the use of
- alcohol or controlled substances by mass
- transportation employees issued before the date of
- enactment of this section.
-
- "(3) INTERNATIONAL OBLIGATIONS.--In issuing
- regulations under this section, the Secretary shall
- only establish requirements that are consistent
- with the international obligations of the United
- States, and the Secretary shall take into
- consideration any applicable laws and regulations
- of foreign countries.
-
- "(f) APPLICATION OF PENALTIES.--
-
- "(1) EFFECT ON OTHER PENALTIES.--Nothing in this
- section shall be construed to supersede any penalty
- applicable under this title or any other provision
- of law..
-
- "(2) DETERMINATION OF SANCTIONS.--The Secretary
- shall determine appropriate sanctions for mass
- transportation vehicle operators who are
- determined, as a result of tests conducted and
- confirmed under this section, to have used, in
- violation of law or Federal regulation, alcohol or
- a controlled substance but are not under the
- influence of alcohol or a controlled substance as
- provide in this title.
-
- "(g) DEFINITION.--(1) For the purposes of this
- section, the term 'controlled substance' means any
- substance under section 102(6) of the Controlled
- Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802(6)) specified by the
- Secretary.".
-
- SEC. 208. MONETARY AWARDS FOR CERTAIN INFORMATION RELATING TO THE
- UNLAWFUL SALE OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES.
-
- Section 524z(c)(1) of title 28, United States Code is amended--
-
- (1) by striking "Justice--" and inserting "Justice:";
-
- (2) in subparagraph (A)--
-
- (A) by striking "the" in the first place it appears
- and inserting "The"; and
-
- (B) by striking the semicolon at the end and
- inserting a period; and
-
- (3) in subparagraph (B)--
-
- (A) by striking "the" the first place it appears
- and inserting "The"; and
-
- (B) by striking the semicolon at the end and
- inserting a period; and
-
- (4) in subparagraph (C)--
-
- (A) by striking "the" the first place it appears
- and inserting "The"; and
-
- (B) by striking the semicolon at the end and
- inserting a period;
-
- (5) in subparagraph (D)--
-
- (A) by striking "the" the first place it appears
- and inserting "The"; and
-
- (B) by striking the semicolon at the end and
- inserting a period;
-
- (6) in subparagraph (E)--
-
- (A) by striking "disbursements" and inserting
- "Disbursements"; and
-
- (B) by striking the semicolon at the end and
- inserting a period;
-
- (7) in subparagraph (F)--
-
- (A) by striking "for" the first place it appears
- and inserting "For"; and
-
- (B) by striking the semicolon at the end and
- inserting a period;
-
- (8) in subparagraph (G)--
-
- (A) by striking "for" the first place it appears
- and inserting "For"; and
-
- (B) by striking the semicolon at the end and
- inserting a period;
-
- (9) in subparagraph (H)--
-
- (A) by striking "after" and inserting "After";
-
- (B) by striking "(H)" and inserting "(I)"; and
-
- (10) by inserting after subparagraph (G) the following:
-
- "(H)(i) For the payment of an award to any person
- or persons who provide information leading to the
- arrest and conviction under Federal law of any
- individual or individuals for the unlawful sale, or
- possession for sale, of a controlled substance or a
- controlled substance analogue. The aggregate
- amount of such award shall be equal to 50 percent
- of the fair market value (as of the date of
- forfeiture) of all property forfeited to the United
- States as a result of such conviction and pursuant
- to a law enforced or administered by the Department
- of Justice: _Provided_, That payment of such
- awards shall not reduce the amount of such moneys
- or property available for distribution to State and
- local law enforcement agencies.
-
- "(ii) For the payment to the State or States in
- which the Federal offense was committed by such
- individual or individuals, of an incentive award to
- encourage such State or States, at their option, to
- establish a program (including outreach) to pay
- rewards to persons who provide information leading
- to the arrest and conviction under State law of
- individuals for the unlawful sale, or possession
- for sale, of controlled substances or controlled
- substance analogues. The aggregate amount of such
- incentive award shall be equal to 5 percent of the
- fair market value (as of the date of forfeiture) of
- all property forfeited to the United States as a
- result of the convictions referred to in clause (i)
- and pursuant to a law enforced or administered by
- the Department of Justice.
-
- "(iii) For the purposes of this subparagraph--
-
- "(I) the term 'controlled substance' has
- the meaning stated in section 102(6) of
- the Controlled Substances Act;
-
- "(II) the term 'controlled substance
- analogue' has the meaning stated in
- section 102(32) of the Controlled
- Substances Act; and
-
- "(III) the term 'individual' does not
- include an individual who is convicted
- under Federal or State law for the
- unlawful sale, or possession for sale, of
- a controlled substance or a controlled
- substances analogue.".
-
- TITLE III--AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS
-
- SEC. 301. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.
-
- There are authorized to be appropriated such sums as are necessary to
- carry out this Act.
-
- SEC. 302. SEVERABILITY.
-
- If any provision of this Act or any amendment made by this Act, or the
- application of any such provision or amendment to any person or
- circumstance is held invalid, the validity of any other such provision
- or amendment, and the application of such provisions or amendment to
- other persons and circumstances, shall not be affected thereby.
-
-
- *********************************************************************
-
- Editor's Comment: Well, I hope you enjoyed the first issue. I have no
- reason to believe that there will not be many more to come. I am sorry if
- this issue is a somewhat large. We had so much information, that we just
- had to pack it in. The Rivendell BBS will be up as of May 1, 1991. We are
- not sure of the number yet, but as soon as we find out, we will post it on
- the current Rivendell BBS. (713) 481-3448. Please do not call this number
- after May 1. I would like to extend my special thanks to Homer Mandrill for
- that exclusive editorial and to the dudes at Beer*Net for the input. I hope
- all of you are as happy with the first issue as I am. I would love nothing
- more than to hear from our readers. Please write, call the BBS, or drop me
- a line on Internet. All mailing/calling info is at the top of the magazine.
- This issue came out almost two months early. I thought it would be hell to
- do, but it was smooth as it could have ever been. But, send in those
- articles and editorials. I will fit them in somewhere. Please state if you
- would like to remain anonymous, use your handle, or real name. We will give
- you the courtesy of any option you desire. Many thanks to the guys at NIA
- for the plug. Keep on Rockin JD & LM! Well, thats the show, and I'm outta
- here.
-
- The Desert Fox
-