About two years ago I helped a guy from Milpitias (just north of San Jose) deal with a BBS bust at what he described as a "light" porn BBS. The San Jose cops realized shortly that they had really goofed by not considering the ECPA and related laws in their search & seizure. The result was that they gave his system back after five weeks, and stated in a written release that this guy's activities were within the scope of the law. The BBS is called Amateur Action, and the sysop's name is Robert Thomas (408-263-1079). Robert's lawyer, Richard Williams's phone number is 408-295-6336. Last night about 8 pm, Robert (who I have yet to meet in person) called. A search warrant was being served at that very moment by the US Postal Inspectors, who (with the help of San Jose cops) were packing up his equipment and carting it out--again. Robert managed to get one of these inspectors on the phone with me. This inspector seemed to be rather knowledgeable of such things as the ECPA, 2000aa, and the Steve Jackson case. He stated he was completely unconcerned about their lack of warrants for email! He piously stated that, because it was their intent to bring the system back within a "few days" and, as a result of the short interruption of user access, and their good intent "not to look at private email," they were completely safe from the provisions of the ECPA. This postal inspector gave his name as David Dirmeyer, from Tennessee (does this sound like Bible Belt prosecution for pron?) and gave me the name of the US Attorney he was working under, one Dan Newson with a phone of 901-544-4231 in TN (though he stated that the phone # would be of no use because Dan was at a conference for a week). For what it is worth, the postal inspector said they were using the San Jose cops on the bust because they did not have the expertise themselves to move the system and make copies. According to the investigator, they did not know that they could get a court order to have a backup of the system made on the spot. It may be that Robert is the target. (In spite of not meeting him, I suspect Richard may be the kind of smart alec who attracts the attention of cops.) Robert said there was a mystery package which came today in the mail today (which his son and wife picked up and she opened). The package turned out to be real honest-to-gosh kiddy porn. Robert claims not to have ordered it, and considering that his wife picked the (unexpected) package up and opened it, I think this is the actual case. Robert was busy with system problems that afternoon and had not gotten around to doing anything about the stuff. The guy who sent it is known as "Lance White," who Robert thinks is one of his BBS members. (As is postal inspector Dirmeyer.) They had Robert pull all postal correspondence with this guy (video porn orders) from his files and took it with them. Robert thinks the postal folks may be after this guy, and his BBS just got caught in the middle. An interesting side point is that while they asked for the package which came that day when they came in, they did not have a warrant for it, and said they would have drive over to SF to get one unless he volunteered to give it up. Robert signed off that they could take it, and they did. He noted this morning that the original warrant he has was neither signed nor dated, though a judge's name was typed in. I don't know if this is something of marginal concern to those of us concerned with government abuse of people's computers and communications or a major concern. I intend to find out more, but if the ECPA is applicable, this guy had about 3500 users, over 2k pieces of protected email on his system, plus (I think) agreements with his uses for him to represent them in an ECPA related legal action--two million dollars if I am multiplying right. (My "Warning to Law Enforcement Agents" was part of his signup screens.) Question for Mike Godwin. One aspect of this case gives me the shakes. *Anyone* with a grudge (and access to this kind of stuff) can send you a package in the mail and tip off the postal inspectors. Short of the obvious (don't make enemies!) how can you protect yourself from this kind of attack? My non-lawyer thoughts: Burn it at once! Call my lawyer. Call the cops. For a while this will be a very serious problem, because *any* of us with readily available morfing tools can make (what looks like) kiddy porn out of legal porn. Keith Henson 408-972-1132 hkhenson@cup.portal.com