oyster@uwmacc.UUCP (Vicarious Oyster) (03/19/87)
^
____|
<Those(|) are not *my* keywords!>
All this talk about privacy has reminded me of something sorta related
that I've wondered about before. We all know there are people out there
who use USENET to intentionally annoy other people. USENET transmission
is done over 'phone lines. In the US at least, there are federal (and in
most cases, state) laws governing using the telephone for the purpose of
harassment. Does anybody have any comments as to the applicability of
those laws to USENET annoyance? I realize that the situation is complicated
slightly by the fact that the telephone is not used directly, but I can
just picture those laws being used by somebody being electronically
harassed.
--
- Joel Plutchak
uucp: {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!oyster | BIX: plutch
ARPA: oyster@unix.macc.wisc.edu | BITNET: plutchak@wiscmaccwoods@hao.UCAR.EDU (Greg Woods) (03/20/87)
In article <1263@uwmacc.UUCP> oyster@unix.macc.wisc.edu.UUCP (Vicarious Oyster) writes: > >Does anybody have any comments as to the applicability of >those laws to USENET annoyance? I don't think such a law would be applicable, because USENET is a *public* forum, not a private phone line, and you have to explicitly log into your machine and invoke a command to see it. I doubt if you can call someone who posts obnoxious articles (and then there's the problem of who gets to define "obnoxious") "harassing" in the sense of the phone laws. For one thing, you'd have to prove intention to harass you, which would be difficult. If you really meant UUCP (i.e. mail) as opposed to USENET (i.e. news), then it is less clear. You certainly have a much easier time demonstrating intent to harass, since the messages are clearly intended for a single recipient. UUCP differs from the phone system in that you have a recourse other than the phone company; you can contact the site adminstrator on the harasser's site (or his connecting site if he *is* the site admin). Another problem is proving "beyond a reasonable doubt" that the harassing messages really came from a particular person (particularly difficult in the case of shared accounts, but in fact what's to stop me from sneaking into my co-worker's office while he's at lunch (he seldom bothers to log out) and sending "harassing" messages? They'd have a real hard time proving *I* did it, and *he* is innocent! --Greg DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer, these are only personal opinions. -- UUCP: {hplabs, seismo, nbires, noao}!hao!woods CSNET: woods@ncar.csnet ARPA: woods%ncar@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA INTERNET: woods@hao.ucar.edu