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From the Republic, Monday April 10, 1995:

Indictment chills bulletin boards

The recent indictment of Lorne Shantz on charges of possession and distribution 
of obscene materials through a computer bulletin board has created some anger 
and some concern among other system operators in the Valley.
The anger, in some cases at least, seems to stem for afeeling of "that 
could have been me."
Those sysops contend that it's virtually impossible to keep up with
every program that is uploaded to a builletin board or to sort out all of those 
that are on CD-ROMs available from a variety of sources around the country.  The
larger the bulletin board, the greater the problem, and Shantz's was on of the 
larger ones in the Valley.
However, those arguments only raise the greater question of 
responsibility on the part of the sysops to know exactly what is on their 
boards.  And that may turn out to be the most interesting question of all, in 
this case for many BBS and Internet users not only in the Valley, but across the
nation as well.
Shantz, who had been on paid suspension from his position as an officer
with the Arizona Department of Public Safety, was fired after the indictment was
returned.  He was charged with 20 counts of production, publication, sale and 
possession of obscene itmes.
The adult secion of Wish Book bulletin board was not freely available 
but required a special form and identification to be submitted to
Shantz.  I was a subscriber to the Wish Book for about two years, but did not 
avail myself of the adult section.  Interestingly, some sysops who say they do 
not have and have never had any adult files on their bulletin boards staunchly 
defend Shantz as an honest and careful bulletin board operator.
The sysop community seems to be a fairly small one, and those who have
been around any length of time have gotten to know wach other fairly well - at 
least on an electronic basis.
When Shantz's Wish Book bulleitin board system was raided late last
year, several sysops took the adult sections of their boards offline. And at 
least one operator said he simply shut down his board rather than risk having 
something among his files that might cause him problems.
Louis Rhodes, director of the Arizona Civil Liberties Union, says he 
sees "lots of really bad things about this case."
He, too, brings up the issue of how a sysop is to know exactly what is 
among the millions of pieces of information that may be on a board. 
"And still we haven't gotten to the question of whether it is illegal 
anyway," he added.
"Many of the same things probably could be found in the adult section 
of some bookstores."
Rhodes said the ACLU may file an amicus brief relating to what it
believes are constitutional issues that may not be addressed by other parties in
the case.
"I can't think of a better example of a First Amendment concern because 
of the shill of something like this," he said.
"Any computer system could be vulnerable if they stick him with this." There is 
no question about the chill when you talk to sysops around the
Valley.  The raid on such a high profile BBS, operated by a DPS officer, 
certainly got the attention of a lot of people.  But surely no one believes it 
was the only BBS that contained materials that might be challenged by 
law-enforecment agencies.