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From: desj@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (David desJardins)
Newsgroups: net.mail
Subject: Re: Congress is now debating the future of Usenet
Message-ID: <15406@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Sat, 23-Aug-86 22:37:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.15406
Posted: Sat Aug 23 22:37:52 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 24-Aug-86 03:14:15 EDT
References: <1632@well.UUCP> <1013@hoptoad.uucp> <15341@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <15389@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <877@gilbbs.UUCP>
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Reply-To: desj@brahms.UUCP (David desJardins)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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In article <877@gilbbs.UUCP> mc68020@gilbbs.UUCP (Thomas J Keller) writes:
>   Mr. DesJardins  then confuses the system adminstrators of mail feed sites
>with "originators" and "addressees".  I beg to differ.  As *I* read the text
>of the bill, only **I** may authorize the intentional divulging on the 
>content of messages I send.  A release from any mail feed site would have no
>legal standing in such a question.

   I would say instead that Mr. Keller fundamentally misunderstands the
operation of Usenet mail.  There expressly is *not* a "Usenet" organization
which provides for the delivery of mail from one user to another.  Rather,
Usenet is composed of a number of *distinct entities*, each of which has
taken on a very limited role:  that of receiving mail from one machine foo,
examining the message, noting that the addressee is "bar!(random stuff),"
and forwarding the message to machine bar.  I see no moral or legal reason
why any Usenet site should have any responsibility whatsoever to the
individual who happened to originate the text of a particular message at
a site with which they have no interaction whatsoever, under either existing
or proposed law.  A site's only responsibility is and should be to the sites
to which it sends and from which it receives.

   -- David desJardins