Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!udel!haven!umd5!cogsci!wjb
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: future trends
Message-ID: <17.Nov.90.133530.14@cogsci.cog.jhu.edu>
Date: 17 Nov 90 18:35:30 GMT
References: <5Joqs4w163w@halcyon.uucp>
Organization: JHU Cognitive Science Center, Baltimore, MD
Lines: 23

In article <5Joqs4w163w@halcyon.uucp> peterm%halcyon.uucp@seattleu.edu writes:
>Re: Mr. McCoy's 11/16 post, good point about services like Prodigy not 
>being common carriers. But perhaps the common carrier doctrine should be 
>extended to such services. Even in the absence of doing so, it is 
>possible for state PUCs and legislatures to produce a similar result in 
>the area of intrastate provision of "information services."
>McCoy's point re: the ECPA in the context of his post, is also 
>appropriate. I'd assume there is such a "fit."

	Just to expand on this a bit.  The ECPA or Electronic Communications
Privacy Act was passed (I believe) in 1988.  It makes commercial e-mail
networks liable for disclosing the contents of private e-mail.  Government
agencies are supposed to get warrants for access as well.  This obviously
does not apply to messages posted to public forums like USENET or the
general discussion areas on Prodigy.  It may or may not apply to
non-commercial services.  There is a pending case in California against
EPSON for examining messages that were sent on an internal e-mail service.
Although, I think in that case that the California laws on privacy may be
more important.  In any case, you do have some rights already.  There used
to be an electronic copy of the ECPA, if somebody still has it they might
want to make it available.  (I have one, but I don't know where it is.)

				Bill Bogstad