Shareware Overload Trio 2/Shareware Overload Trio Volume 2 (Chestnut CD-ROM).ISO/dir33/sjg-ss1.zip/SJG-SS1.DOC

Internet Message Format | 1993-02-15 | 18KB

From: [e-mail] (Paco Xander Nathan)
Subject: Steve Jackson Games - Day 1
Organization: Houston Chronicle
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1993 06:45:47 GMT


[Moderator's Note: This is the first report in a series which will
continue in the Digest on a day by day basis. Issues later today will
report on days two and three; these are the reports I have now, and
as further reports reach us they will be printed.  PAT]


Steve Jackson Games/Secret Service Lawsuit -- Day One

By JOE ABERNATHY
Copyright 1993, Houston Chronicle

        AUSTIN -- Plaintiff's attorneys wrested two embarrassing
admissions from the United States Secret Service on the opening day of
a federal civil lawsuit designed to establish the bounds of
constitutional protections for electronic publishing and electronic
mail.

        In the first, Special Agent Timothy Foley of Chicago admitted
that crucial statements were erroneous in an affidavit he used to
conduct several search-and-seizure operations in a March 1990
crackdown on computer crime.

        The case, brought by Steve Jackson Games, an Austin firm, is
being tried before United States District Judge Sam Sparks. Carefully
nurtured over the course of three years by a group of electronic civil
rights activists -- at a cost of more than $200,000 -- the case has
been eagerly anticipated as a possible damper on what is seen as
computer crime hysteria among federal police.

        Plaintiffs hope to prove that the printed word exists just as
surely on the computer screen as it does on a sheet of paper. The
complaint also seeks to establish the right of computer users to
congregate electronically on bulletin board systems -- such as one
called Illuminati that was taken from Steve Jackson Games -- and to
exchange private electronic mail on such BBSs.

        "This lawsuit is just to stand up and say, at the end of the
20th Century, that publishing occurs as much on computers as on the
printed page," said Jim George, of the Austin firm George, Donaldson &
Ford, Jackson's law firm.

        That issue came into sharp focus during George's questioning
of Foley regarding the seizure of the PC on which Illuminati ran, and
another computer on which was stored the word processing document
containing a pending Steve Jackson Games book release, GURPS
Cyberpunk.

        "At the Secret Service computer crime school, were you, as the
agent in charge of this investigation, made aware of special rules for
searching a publishing company?" George asked Foley. He was referring
to the Privacy Protection Act, which states that police may not seize
a work in progress from a publisher. It does not specify what physical
form such a work must take.

        "No, sir, I was not," Foley responded.

        "Did you just miss class the day that was taught?" George
asked.

        "No, sir. The United States Secret Service does not teach its
agents about special rules regarding search and seizure at publishing
companies," Foley said.

        "Let the record clearly show that to be the case," George
said.

        Earlier, Foley admitted on the witness stand that his original
affidavit seeking a judge's approval to raid Steve Jackson Games
contained a fundamental error.

        During the March 1990 raid -- one of several dozen staged that
day around the country in an investigation that the Secret Service
called Operation Sun Devil at the time -- agents were seeking copies
of a document taken as a hacker trophy from BellSouth. Subsequently
republished in an electronic magazine called Phrack, thousands of
copies of the document were stored on bulletin board systems around
the nation.

        Neither Jackson nor his company were suspected of wrongdoing,
and no charges have ever been filed against anyone targeted in several
Austin raids. The alleged membership of Steve Jackson employee Loyd
Blankenship in the Legion of Doom hacker's group -- which was believed
responsible for the break-in -- led agents to raid the Austin game
publisher at the same time that Blankenship's Austin home was raided.

        Yet the only two paragraphs in the 42-paragraph indictment
that established a connection between Blankenship's alleged illegal
activities and Steve Jackson Games were shown to have been erroneously
arrived at, when George produced a statement by Bellcore expert Henry
Kluepfel disputing statements attributed to him in Foley's affidavit.

        "Is it true that Mr. Kluepfel logged onto (Illuminati)?"
George questioned.

        "No, sir," Foley responded.

        "But you state that in your affidavit," George said.

        "That was a misattribution," Foley said.

        "So you had no knowledge that anything was sent to my client?"

        "No sir, not directly," Foley said.

        "Indirectly?" George asked.

        "No sir."

        The Justice Department, in papers filed with the court,
contends that only traditional journalistic organizations enjoy the
protections of the Privacy Protection Act. It further contends that
users of electronic mail have no reasonable expectation of privacy.

        The trial was to resume at 8:30 a.m. It is expected to
conclude on Thursday or Friday.



From: [e-mail] (Paco Xander Nathan)
Subject: Steve Jackson Games - Day 2
Organization: Houston Chronicle
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1993 06:59:06 GMT


Steve Jackson Games/Secret Service Trial -- Day Two

By JOE ABERNATHY
Copyright 1993, Houston Chronicle

        AUSTIN -- A young woman read aloud a deeply personal
friendship letter Wednesday in a federal civil lawsuit intended to
establish the human dimension and constitutional guarantees of
electronic assembly and communication.

        Testimony indicated that the letter read by Elizabeth
Cayce-McCoy previously had been seized, printed and reviewed by the
Secret Service.

        Her correspondence was among 162 undelivered personal letters
testimony indicated were taken by the government in March 1990 during
a raid on Steve JaCkson Games, which ran an electronic bulletin board
system as a service to its customers.

        Attorneys for the Austin game publisher contend that the
seizure of the bulletin board represents a violation of the Electronic
Communications Privacy Act, which is based on Fourth Amendment
protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

        "Because you bring such joy to my friend Walter's life, and
also because I liked you when I met you, though I wish I could have
seen your lovely face a little more, I'll send you an autographed copy
of Bestiary," said McCoy, reading in part from a letter penned by
Steffan O'Sullivan, the author of the GURPS Bestiary, a fantasy
treatise on mythical creatures large and small.

        Although the correspondence entered the public record upon
McCoy's reading, the Chronicle obtained explicit permission from the
principles before excerpting from it.

        The electronic mail was contained on the game publisher's
public bulletin board system, Illuminati, which allowed game-players,
authors and others to exchange public and personal documents. After
agents seized the BBS during a raid staged as part of a nationwide
crackdown on computer crime, Secret Service analysts reviewed, printed
and deleted the 162 pieces of undelivered mail, testimony indicated.

        When the BBS computer was returned to its owner several months
later, a computer expert was able to resurrect many of the deleted
communications, including McCoy's friendship letter.

        "I never thought anyone would read my mail," she testified. "I
was very shocked and embarrassed.

        "When I told my father that the Secret Service had taken the
Steve Jackson bulletin board for some reason, he became very upset. He
thought that I had been linked to some computer crime investigation,
and that now our computers would be taken."

        O'Sullivan, who is a free-lance game writer employed by Steve
Jackson, followed McCoy to the stand, where he testified that agents
intercepted -- via the Illuminati seizure -- a critical piece of
electronic mail seeking to establish when a quarterly royalty check
would arrive.

        "That letter never arrived, and I had to borrow money to pay
the rent," he said.

        No charges were ever filed in connection with the raid on
Steve Jackson Games or the simultaneous raid of the Austin home of
Jackson employee Loyd Blankenship, whose reputed membership in the
Legion of Doom hackers' group triggered the raids.

        Plaintiffs contend that the government's search-and-seizure
policies have cast a chill over a constitutionally protected form of
public assembly carried out on bulletin boards, which serve as
community centers often used by hundreds of people. More than 300
people were denied use of Jackson's bulletin board, called Illuminati,
for several months after the raid, and documents filed with the court
claim that a broader, continuing chill has been cast over the online
community at large.

        The lawsuit against the Secret Service seeks to establish that
the Electronic Communications Privacy Act guarantees the privacy of
electronic mail. If U.S. District Court Judge Sam Sparks accepts this
contention, it would become necessary for the government to obtain
warrants for each caller to a bulletin board before seizing it.

        The Justice Department contends that users of electronic mail
do not have a reasonable expectation to privacy, because they are
voluntarily "disclosing" their mail to a third party -- the owner of
the bulletin board system.

        "We weren't going to intercept electronic mail. We were going
to access stored information," said William J. Cook, a former
assistant U.S. Attorney in Chicago who wrote the affidavit for the
search warrant used in the Steve Jackson raid.

        The Justice Department attorneys did not substantially
challenge testimony by any of the several witnesses who were denied
use of Illuminati. They did, however, seek to prevent those witnesses
from testifying -- by conceding their interests -- after Cayce's
compelling appearance led off the series of witnesses.

        Most of the Justice Department's energies were directed toward
countering damage claims made by Steve Jackson, whose testimony opened
the second day of the trial. Most of the day's testimony was devoted
to a complex give-and-take on accounting issues. Some $2 million is
being sought in damages.

        Justice sought to counter the widely repeated assertion that
Steve Jackson Games was nearly put out of business by the raid by
showing that the company was already struggling financially when the
raid was conducted. An accountant called by the plaintiffs countered
that all of Jackson's financial problems had been corrected by a
reorganization in late 1989.



From: [e-mail] (Paco Xander Nathan)
Subject: Steve Jackson Games - Day 3
Organization: Houston Chronicle
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1993 07:07:50 GMT


Steve Jackson Games/Secret Service Wrapup

By JOE ABERNATHY
Copyright 1993, Houston Chronicle

        AUSTIN -- An electronic civil rights case against the Secret
Service closed Thursday with a clear statement by federal District
Judge Sam Sparks that the Service failed to conduct a proper
investigation in a notorious computer crime crackdown, and went too
far in retaining custody of seized equipment.

        The judge's formal findings in the complex case, which will
likely set new legal precedents, won't be returned until later.

        A packed courtroom sat on the edge of the seat Thursday
morning as Sparks subjected the Secret Service agent in charge of the
investigation to a grueling dressing-down.

        The judge's rebuke apparently convinced the Department of
Justice to close its defense after calling only that one of the
several government witnesses on hand. Attorney Mark Battan entered
subdued testimony seeking to limit the award of monetary damages.

        Secret Service Special Agent Timothy Foley of Chicago, who was
in charge of three Austin computer search-and-seizures on March 1,
1990, that led to the lawsuit, stoically endured Spark's rebuke over
the Service's poor investigation and abusive computer seizure
policies. While the Service has seized dozens of computers since the
crackdown began in 1990, this is the first case to challenge the
practice.

        "The Secret Service didn't do a good job in this case. We know
no investigation took place. Nobody ever gave any concern as to whether
(legal) statutes were involved. We know there was damage," Sparks said
in weighing damages.

        The lawsuit, brought by Steve Jackson Games of Austin, said
that the seizure of three computers violated the Privacy Protection
Act, which provides First Amendment protections against seizing a
publisher's works in progress. The lawsuit further said that since one
of the computers was being used to run a bulletin board system
containing private electronic mail, the seizure violated the
Electronic Communications Privacy Act in regards to the 388 callers of
the Illuminati BBS.

        Sparks grew visibly angry when it was established that the
Austin science fiction magazine and game book publisher was never
suspected of a crime, and that agents did not do even marginal
research to establish a criminal connection between the firm and the
suspected illegal activities of an employee, or to determine that the
company was a publisher. Indeed, agents testified that they were not
even trained in the Privacy Protection Act at the special Secret
Service school on computer crime.

        "How long would it have taken you, Mr. Foley, to find out what
Steve Jackson Games did, what it was?" asked Sparks. "An hour?

        "Was there any reason why, on March 2, you could not return to
Steve Jackson Games a copy, in floppy disk form, of everything taken?

        "Did you read the article in {Business Week} magazine where it
had a picture of Steve Jackson -- a law-abiding, tax-paying citizen --
saying he was a computer crime suspect?

        "Did it ever occur to you, Mr. Foley, that seizing this
material could harm Steve Jackson economically?"

        Foley replied, "No, sir," but the judge offered his own
answer.

        "You actually did, you just had no idea anybody would actually
go out and hire a lawyer and sue you."

        More than $200,000 has been spent by the Electronic Frontier
Foundation in bringing the case to trial. The EFF was founded by
Mitchell Kapor amid a civil liberties movement sparked in large part
by the Secret Service computer crime crackdown.

        "The dressing-down of the Secret Service for their behavior is
a major vindication of what we've been saying all along, which is that
there were outrageous actions taken against Steve Jackson that hurt
his business and sent a chilling effect to everyone using bulletin
boards, and that there were larger principles at stake," said Kapor,
contacted at his Cambridge, Mass., office.

                "We're very happy with the way the case came out,"
said Shari Steele, who attended the case as counsel for the EFF. "That
session with the judge and Tim Foley is what a lawyer dreams about."

        That session seemed triggered by a riveting cross-examination
of Foley by Pete Kennedy, Jackson's attorney.

        Kennedy forced Foley to admit that the search warrant did not
meet even the Service's own standards for a search-and-seizure, and
did not establish that Jackson Games was suspected of being involved
in any illegal activity.

        "Agent Foley, it's been almost three years. Has Chris Goggans
been indicted? Has Loyd Blankenship been indicted? Has Loyd
Blankenship's computer been returned to him?"

        The purported membership of Jackson Games employee Blankenship
in the Legion of Doom hacker's group triggered the raids that day on
Jackson Games, Blankenship's home, and that of Goggans, a Houstonian
who at the time was a University of Texas student. No charges have
been filed, although the computer seized from Blankenship's home --
containing his wife's dissertation -- never has been returned.

        After the cross-examination, Sparks questioned Foley on a
number of key details before and after the raid, focusing on the holes
in the search warrant, why Jackson was not allowed to copy his work in
progress after it was seized, and why his computers were not returned
after the Secret Service analyzed them, a process completed before the
end of March.
<concluded in Part 5>

        "The examination took seven days, but you didn't give Steve
Jackson's computers back for three months. Why?" asked an incredulous
Sparks. "So here you are, with three computers, 300 floppy disks, an
owner who was asking for it back, his attorney calling you, and what I
want to know is why copies of everything couldn't be given back in
days. Not months. Days.

        "That's what makes you mad about this case."

        The Justice Department contended that Jackson Games is a
manufacturer, and that only journalistic organizations can call upon
the Privacy Protection Act. It contended that the ECPA was not
violated because electronic mail is not "intercepted" when a BBS is
seized. This argument rests on a narrow definition of interception.