Regulation of Mixes under Postal Laws?

Tim May tcmay at got.net
Sat Aug 4 11:06:04 PDT 2001


(Title changed to reflect focus.)

At 10:47 AM -0400 8/4/01, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>On Sat, Aug 04, 2001 at 01:03:59AM -0500, Aimee Farr wrote, quoting Tim.
...
>>  > mention the anonymous authorship of the Federalist Papers. Not to
>>  > mention many related issues. This is a more plausible attack on
>>  > U.S.-based remailers than is something based on IP addresses. Left as
>>  > an exercise for you.)
>>
>>  Indeed, what I was trying to get at might have been "somewhat related."
>>
>>  I agree with you in sentiment, but direct your attention to the CMRA
>>  (commercial mail drop) requirements for domestic mail agency in the United
>>  States in the USPS Domestic Mail Manual. I know you are aware of it.
>
>I'm not sure if much can be gained by comparing anonymous remailers
>to commercial mail drops. USPS is a strange and weird beast, and guards
>its territory ferociously. Activities that happen in its sphere are
>logically and legally distinct from those happening online.


A "remailer" uses the term "mail" in it because "e-mail" is the 
obvious term we have been using for about 20 years now. Obviously 
e-mail can consist of all sorts of messages, including "instant 
messaging," messages picked up at POP sites, and Web-based messaging. 
Their is no bright line between "e-mail" and "chat" and "voice 
communications" and "article posts."

I am unaware of any solid legislation (tested in the courts) 
attempting to regulate e-mail in the same way ordinary USPS and 
international mail is regulated. Certainly there are no postage 
requirements. Some yammer a bunch of years ago about the USPS 
thinking it should "handle" all e-mail and collect a 29-cent fee on 
each message...died unceremoniously, for many good practical, 
technological, and constituent-anger reasons. The "anti-spam" rules 
are close to telephone dialing and fax machine rules than they are to 
USPS junk mail rules (such as they are).

A mix is not just a remailer: it can be viewed quite legitimately as 
a _publisher_. A mix collects a bunch of submissions, pools them by 
its own rules, and then distributes the published set in various 
ways. If "e-mail" per se is ever regulated in the way Aimee thinks 
may be coming, a small matter to switch from a mix that "looks like 
mail" to one that is much more packet-based having no involvement 
with POP types of protocols. Freedom, from ZKS, already looks like 
packets, right?

In fact, message pools using Usenet have been around for about 8 
years now. Any attempt to declare remailers to be illegal mail drops 
would simply move the nexus of activity to Usenet and other Net 
locations. Restricting what people can post to Usenet or some other 
bulletin board or message site would be both tough to enforce 
technologically and counter to nearly every tenet of U.S. rights.

(Not coincidentally did I use a graphic I made up of a "Democracy 
Wall" to show how messages could be left untraceably and read 
untraceably. This in 1990, BTW.)

The point being that the U.S. tends to stay out of regulating what a 
publisher does, what his policies are, rather strongly.

It's not just a matter of "toilet plunger" and "The Court is not 
amused" ("Please don't make Mr. Happy Fun Court angry!") sorts of 
shut-downs. No judge in the land is going to order the shut down of 
"Mix Publishing" just because he thinks the site is not amusing.

(Note that neither Paladin Press nor Loompanics Press were ever shut 
down or enjoined from distributing the assassination manuals they 
used to sell. A civil suit and damages caused the titles to be 
pulled, but not a judge or regulatory body.)

If "The Progressive" is free from interference in how it chooses to 
publish H-bomb secrets, does even Aimee think a site which collects 
together submissions and publishes them is going to be regulated?

I hope Aimee takes a few hours to grok the essence of "digital 
mixes." She will then see that there is no particular binding to 
"e-mail" qua "mail" and no bright line between use of e-mail for the 
mixes and use of other channels of communication for mixes.

And no lawyer would argue that Congressional regulation/ownership of 
some aspects of paper mail delivery then grants Congressional control 
of publishing, chat rooms, postings to Usenet and Web forums, and 
machine-to-machine connections.


--Tim May

-- 
Timothy C. May         tcmay at got.net        Corralitos, California
Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon
Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go
Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns





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