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Declan McCullagh[SMTP:declan@well.com] wrote: This is from a bill that both the House and Senate passed (yesterday):

Whoever knowingly provides or obtains the labor or services of a person...by means of the abuse or threatened abuse of law or the legal process, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. URL: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d106:h.r.03244: I can imagine some abuses of this, in workplace situations or divorce cases...

At 01:43 PM 10/12/00 -0400, Trei, Peter wrote:

While almost any law can be abused, I think you'd need a really odd situation for normal people to be able to use this one abusively.

Blackmail was already illegal; this just makes some kinds of blackmail a Federal crime with enhanced penalties, which I'm not convinced is particularly necessary. The kind of abuse that's been in the papers that's probably what this law is designed to make a show of opposing is illegal immigrants being kept in indentured servitude by the coyotes who import them. It's mostly Asians working in the garment industry in California, but there are probably other large groups like this as well. Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639