wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (05/21/84)
The following item appeared on several ARPANET mailing lists; though it
will eventually make its way into net.micro and the like, I thought it
would be of interest to net.legal readers, so am posting this copy:
Date: Sun, 20 May 84 13:35:11 PDT
From: Matthew J. Weinstein <matt@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA>
Subject: BBS Confiscation
To: INFO-MICRO@Brl-Aos.ARPA
I think the following message retrieved from Compuserve deserves
widespread circulation; no further explanation needed:
#: 91655 Sec. 0 - Communications
Sb: Important warning!
20-May-84 00:48:44
Fm: - tom tcimpidis 70250,323
To: all
On May 16 I was served with a search warrant and my system seized because of a
message that allegedly had been left, unknown to me, on one of the public
boards. This was done by the L.A.P.D. under direction of a complaint by Pacific
telephone. All Sysop's should be warned that under present law (or at least the
present interpetation) they are now responsible for ALL information that is
left or exchanged on their system and that ANY illegal or even questionable
activities, messages or even public outpourings are their direct legal
responsibility and that they will be held directly accountable regardless of
wether or not they knew of it, used it, and regardless of any other
circumstances! Yes, it is unjust. Yes, it is legally questionable. But it, for
the moment, seems to be enforcable and is being "actively pursued" as a felony.
Tom Tcimpidis - Sysop of The MOG-UR's HBBS (366-1238). Mailing: P.O. Box 5236,
Mission Hills, CA 91345.
I would appreciate it if this message was spread to as many systems as
possible so that the word may be spread to the greatest number of Sysops. 1984
may, indeed, be here...
***End of item***wmartin@brl-tgr.UUCP (05/21/84)
Decided to put comments as a followup instead of including them with the original article posting: I find this rather odd; the same reasoning would hold AT&T and the BOCs liable to seizure of their equipment because a drug runner made long-distance calls in setting up a delivery. Why would the equipment of a publicly-accessible CBBS system be subject to seizure due to the nature of information posted upon it? Is this a case where technology has outrun the law, and, though logic shows the CBBS to be equivalent to a common carrier in this case, the current law cannot be so interpreted? Also note that the nature of the offending message is not disclosed. Since the complainant is a telco, it is probably phone phreak info of some kind. Anyone have more data on this? Will