Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!samsung!usc!apple!well!nagle
From: nagle@well.sf.ca.us (John Nagle)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Musing on Constitutionality
Message-ID: <20062@well.sf.ca.us>
Date: 28 Aug 90 04:43:44 GMT
References: <36823@ut-emx.UUCP>
Lines: 25

In article <36823@ut-emx.UUCP> petrilli@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Chris Petrilli) writes:
>	The Constitution was designed to protect speech that we (the
>people, and the government) find "unsuitable."  Speech that no one
>dislikes doesn't need protection.  I find it amusing that the SS sees
>"electronic publishing" as inferior to conventional paper printing.  If
>such things as "Phrack" had been published on paper, and distributed as
>such, the SS wouldn't have dared to attack; fear of the reaction of the
>"press" (newspapers/television) would have stopped them, even if they
>ignored its unconstitutionality.  

       Many people, including John Barlow, have enunciated the position
that "Phrack", as an electronic publication, was considered inferior to
a paper publication from a legal standpoint.  As one of the people 
involved in the trial (as a technical expert for the defense) I have to 
point out that this is not correct.  The indictment refers to "Phrack" 
as a publication, and Craig as its publisher.  The fact that "Phrack"
was distributed electronically was barely mentioned at trial.  The
case turned on the content of "Phrack", not its medium.  Craig could
have done everything he did by U.S. Mail and still been charged, although
probably under the mail fraud sections of the U.S. Code rather than the
wire fraud sections.



					John Nagle