-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 10:24 AM 5/21/96 -0800, jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com> wrote:
At 06:28 PM 5/20/96 -0500, Jim Choate wrote:
Forwarded message:
Date: Mon, 20 May 1996 15:02:08 -0700 From: Hal <hfinney@shell.portal.com> Subject: An alternative to remailer shutdowns
was apparently sent through my remailer. According to 18 USC 875(c), "Whoever transmits in interstate commerce any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another, shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both." I may not be able to continue operating either of my remailers (alumni.caltech.edu and shell.portal.com) for much longer due to this kind of abuse.
There should be a section in there dealing with 'knowingly'. If not then we should immediately bring charges against any and all newspapers who have ever printer a ransom letter, or perhaps even the Unibomber Manifesto since there is clear evidence of 'threat to injure the person of another'.
But even "knowingly" needs to be carefully defined. A remailer operator today KNOWS that his system COULD be used for illegal activities; he merely doesn't know that they are, currently. I think that the definition should be so narrow that it is impossible for a third party (or the government itself) to incriminate the remailer operator by having his system forward arguably illegal or copyright-violating material.
Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com
Can the same sort of standards as per the U.S. CDA be applied? The first draft of the CDA would have held ISP's responsible for, e.g., porn transmitted using their services. Isn't this the same sort of thing - that is, that remailer operators provide a service, and they cannot be held responsible for people who abuse that service? I think that this line of thought is reasonable. David -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMaNZlxguzHDTdpL5AQGkIgQAkfTaXyFp32yX1CiKK/7xlfvojYK+oG2U BWS5w2gMWeorRB1jPJW3Aec3cAlUQCoYg7TOd+Z8EgHWqHxR30cDUBd56oq1wlmf 0X3d2rjnM64Bcq8gonFXPxeSU+C3O0qobdj58BUpo+o2ueNo0sPGLK79KKAHuhWW oBBXV6jGTWc= =AXOt -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----