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From: cetron@utah-cs.UUCP (Edward J Cetron)
Newsgroups: news.misc,news.sysadmin,misc.legal
Subject: Re: Snooping in peoples' email IS a violation of Federal law.
Message-ID: <4554@utah-cs.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 11-May-87 14:09:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: utah-cs.4554
Posted: Mon May 11 14:09:30 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 13-May-87 06:48:06 EDT
References: <1128@cartan.Berkeley.EDU> <1065@epimass.UUCP> <5553@eddie.MIT.EDU> <2062@hoptoad.uucp> <844@killer.UUCP>
Reply-To: cetron@utah-cs.UUCP (Edward J Cetron)
Organization: Center for Engineering Design, Univ of Utah
Lines: 29
Summary: hmmmmm, but here's the rub
Xref: mnetor news.misc:381 news.sysadmin:205 misc.legal:1686

In article <844@killer.UUCP> sysop@killer.UUCP (BBS Admin) writes:
>In article <2062@hoptoad.uucp>, gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) writes:
>> Unfortunately this is true.  I tried to get the net stirred up enough to
>The following is an act passed by the Texas Legislature.
>
....
>
>Section 33.02.  BREACH OF COMPUTER SECURITY.
> (a)  A person commits an offense if the person:
>
...
>
>     (2)  gains access to data stored or maintained by a
>computer without the effective consent of the owner or
>licensee of the data and the actor knows that there exists a

and now here is the rub...... Where is the OWNER of the data defined.  This
is the problem that I think is going to cause the most trouble.  In our view,
since all lab personnel are given lab accounts (i.e. they don't pay for them)
and since most of what they use the computers for is work-related, who really
'owns' the data in their directories?  Given current Univ. policy, any programs
or whatever created by employees using Univ. facilities are 'owned' by the U.
But graduate students aren't contracted employees, but then again they DO get
paid, but then again......

	As John Gilmore has written, the ECPA says a lot of stuff - but does
ANYONE really know what it really means....

-ed