RICO & Seizures (Was: Re: On the LAM--Local Area Mixes)

17 Dec 2003

      -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

In <v03102800b0e941b7b909@[207.167.93.63]>, on 01/19/98 
   at 11:13 AM, Tim May <tcmay@got.net> said:
...
RICO?
...
On the other hand, while ordinary subpoenas might be difficult to spread
across all of the machines, the clustering of many machines in one region
might be seen as a "conspiracy" to do something the Authorities don't
like, and thus be a RICO (Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations,
of course) violation. It might be the Mother of all Steve Jackson Games
Raids, but one could imagine Unhappy Authorities seizing _all_ machines.
(There are aspects of the ECPA which may mitigate against this, though. A
la the Alcor case in Riverside, CA, 10 years ago.)
Awhile back I recall reading something about about equipment confication
and that the governemnt was prohibited from conficating the equipment of a
publisher (ie the FED's can't walk in and shut down the NYT by taking
their printing presses).

Can anyone confirm that such a protection exsists? References to any
relevent court cases would be appreciated. Also any information reguarding
on what qualifications one must meet to qualify for such protection.

Perhaps we could set up a CP/Mixmaster newsletter and at least keep the
SOB's from stealing the equipment. :)

- -- 
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
William H. Geiger III  http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii
Geiger Consulting    Cooking With Warp 4.0

Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice
PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail.
OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html                        
- ---------------------------------------------------------------

Tag-O-Matic: He who laughs last uses OS/2.