From: IN%"minow@apple.com" 23-MAY-1996 01:57:15.69

-- The remailer operator is legally enjoined from reading messages transversing his system. (For example, the remailer is subject to data privacy laws.)

I suspect that it is rather unlikely that the court would find a remailer operator covered by those laws.

-- The message was encrypted using the intended recipient's public key. (This means that, without access to the private key, the operator has no mechanism to examine the e-mail.)

This is related to the old ISP liability question, although amplified by being not only a practical impossibility to filter but close to a physical impossibility also. (Please note the "close" part.) I am not sure if a judge could find any grounds to slap a remailer operator with contempt of court in such a case, but if it were so, Uni has pointed out that it's rather difficult to override a judge in such a matter, even based on plain facts. -Allen