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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!hao!woods
From: woods@hao.UCAR.EDU (Greg Woods)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: News and Privacy, etc.
Message-ID: <584@hao.UCAR.EDU>
Date: Thu, 19-Mar-87 18:54:36 EST
Article-I.D.: hao.584
Posted: Thu Mar 19 18:54:36 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Mar-87 07:07:20 EST
References: <1263@uwmacc.UUCP>
Reply-To: woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods)
Distribution: na
Organization: High Altitude Obs./NCAR, Boulder CO
Lines: 30
Keywords: news fascist paranoia
Summary: What constitutes harassment?

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.
-- 
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