🚀 go-pugleaf

lalee@vcn.bc.ca (Lawrence Lee) writes:

>Bob Daniel (rgd@inforamp.net) wrote:
>[...]
>: The other angle is this matter of foreknowledge.  Istar can't reasonably
>: be expected to monitor all web traffic, email etc. for illegal content.
>: (And don't even SUGGEST it!!!)(grin)   But they CAN be resonably sure
>: that there will always be SOME "illegal content"  in SOME of these newsgroups.

>So they can't monitor IRC, FTP, and e-mail traffic yet they can monitor 
>6000+ (rough estimate) UseNet newsgroups and somehow screen what is 
>contained within. If van.general was bombarded with illegal material for 
>a matter of months that is crossposted from banned newsgroups, would 
>van.general be up for removal/banning?

	Without any case law to base anything on I expect that they are trying
to establish a "reasonable precautions" type defence (which of course may
or may not work). For whatever reason (the name of the group, a complaint
from a user, monitoring) they have knowledge that materials that may contrevene
the child porn law are being posted to the listed news groups. As a result
they have blocked those news groups from their server. In the case of 
van.general, if the senario that you postulate was occuring and Istar (or
any other news operator) was advised of it, then yes I think they would have
no choice but to block it. That proactive effort to obey the law may be enough
to avoid being charged. I expect in a business with a lot of money at stake
(and as was pointed out elsewhere, high in profile and thus publicity value
although without elected prosecutors, I expect that is less important in 
Canada), they are a prime target. They also have a lot to lose and precautions
are sensible.
	I know a news admin that took the bull by the gun as it were, and 
bought a coffee for an RCMP computer crime officer and asked for his opinion
about who would get charged in a couple of senarios relating to news. The
answers are interesting to say the least. In the case of a news relay host
that has no local users reading news, his opinion was that it would be treated
as a common carrier, and no charges would be laid. In the case where the 
news machine allowed end users to connect and read news, his opinion was that
both the user that was reading the illegal material and the admin of the news
machine would likely be charged. 
	What is interesting (and scary) about this is that I would guess in 
most cases the prosecutor is not going to be all that computer literate and
is likely to depend on the expert (the RCMP officer, who is computer literate
in this case, your milage may vary) for advise on who should be charged. 
	It would be interesting(and probably benificial to both sides) if 
admins in other cities did a similar thing (at the very least you will get to 
meet the local computer crime person, who is always a good person to know
if you are an admin). 
	I don't think this conversation was about the child porn laws, per se
but about illegal material in general. From the reaction that a complaint of
child porn in news got (something along the lines of "if you even think it
could be, remove the group instantly") from a lawyer, I expect that as indicated
above the child porn laws are a lot more serious than the hate or obcenity
laws. But then, I'm not a lawyer so obviously if you are in this position you 
should be sure that you have competent legal advise and follow it. Sounds 
to me like that is what Istar is doing. Sensible pragmatic people I'd say.

>: This really SHOULD be argued in court, and on that basis I would like
>: to see the full feed reinstated.

	Yep it sure should. What was the name of the ISP that you are founding
and funding to be the test case again? Oh, you mean someone else should
reinstate the feed and take the risk, I see ...