Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!apple!rutgers!mailrus!cornell!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!drycas!synful
From: synful@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu
Newsgroups: alt.sex,news.admin
Subject: Re: Is alt.sex about to be legislated away?
Message-ID: <26@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu>
Date: 8 Oct 88 17:13:24 GMT
References: <9644@cup.portal.com> <312@misadel.oz>
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University Computer Club
Lines: 26

In article <312@misadel.oz>, jeremy@misadel.oz (Jeremy Begg) writes:
> b)  What is the definition of a "bulletin board" under the new law?  Would this
> include mailing lists?
    
    I think that the United States has a "bulletin board" defined as a
    computer system into which one may call using his computer or terminal
    and a modem.  Recently there has been a fair amount of legislation
    about "electronic mail", especially dealing with bulletin board
    systems, aka BBS's.

    About a year ago, there was a court in the Indiana state court
    involving a woman suing a BBS sysop (System Operator) for violating the
    Electronic Mail Privacy Act (or something like that).

    On a side comment on this subject, I imagine that this law would shut
    down a lot of BBS's around the country which are "sexually oriented". 
    There is even a network of gay-oriented BBS's (GayCom) and I doubt that
    anyone is going to make the distinction between "gay" and "sexual"
    interests.
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