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Reposted from comp.internet.net-happenings:

> Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 21:03:26
> From: John Walker <jwalker@tor.hookup.net>
> 
> Suit Over Ban On `Annoyingly' Vulgar E-Mail
> 
> Decency Act challenged by Web site owner
> 
>      Ramon G. McLeod, Chronicle Staff Writer
> 
> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/chronicle/article.cgi?file=MN9556.DTL&di
> rectory=/chronicle/archive/1997/10/20
> 
> You're a little ticked off at your congressman so you e-mail him a
> note, cursing him out with one of the ``seven dirty words.''
> 
> Bad taste, maybe. But under a little-noticed provision of the new
> Communications Decency Act, you may have also committed a felony, one
> that comes with a two-year prison sentence and $100,000 fine
> attached.
> 
> This provision, which makes it illegal to ``annoy'' someone with
> vulgar, insulting e-mail, will be the focus today of a hearing before
> a specially convened three-judge panel in U.S. District Court in San
> Francisco.
> 
> At issue will be a lawsuit challenging a section of the decency act
> that makes it illegal to electronically transmit ``any comment,
> request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication which is
> obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy or indecent, with intent to annoy,
> abuse, threaten or harass another person.''
> 
> The suit was brought by Clinton Fein, owner of a San Francisco
> company called ApolloMedia, which operates a Web site called
> annoy.com.
> 
> Although the lawsuit targets the ban on annoying, Fein and his
> attorneys are not challenging the language in the law making it
> illegal to harass, abuse or threaten someone else.
> 
> ``In a nutshell, the way this law reads now if I was to send you an
> e-mail telling you to f--- off, and you were annoyed by it, I could
> potentially be committing a felony,'' he said.
> 
> ``I thought we had free speech in this country.''
> 
> Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down provisions of
> the Communications Decency Act intended to restrict access to
> pornography on the Internet.
> 
> But the section making it illegal to annoy people was not part of
> that case.
> 
> As part of his irritation over the law Fein set up annoy.com.
> 
> The site is true to its name, particularly an area that allows
> anonymous mailings of controversial electronic ``postcards'' to
> anyone with an e-mail address.
> 
> These cards are not for the faint of heart.
> 
> Besides space on the cards for personalized messages, many also carry
> profanities and nudity mingled with political themes and carry
> messages that attack conservative and liberal philosophies and
> personalities alike.
> 
> For example, one of the cards, headlined ``baby killer,'' clearly is
> targeted at pro-choice advocates and contains an illustration of a
> hand holding a bloody scalpel.
> 
> Another has a mock nude picture of U.S. Representative Charles Canady
> that ridicules his support of a ban on late-term abortions.
> 
> ``Controversial speech is supposed to be annoying,'' said Todd
> Lappin, an associate editor at Wired magazine who has been active in
> First Amendment issues involving the Internet.
> 
> ``Annoy.com is what it says it is, but that doesn't make it dangerous
> or threatening.''
> 
> The messages on these cards are ugly, but whether they are also
> illegal will be the question before a panel consisting of U.S.
> District Court judges Maxine Chesney and Susan Illston and Ninth
> Appellate Court Judge Michael Hawkins.
> 
> The unusual combination of district and appellate judges is part of
> the process being used in challenges to the decency act.
> 
> U.S. Justice Department lawyers arguing the government side of the
> case declined comment.
> 
> But Fein's attorneys were hardly reticent.
> 
> ``Harassing or threatening someone is not the issue,'' said William
> Bennet Taylor, one of Fein's lawyers. ``Those things are illegal. But
> there is a great deal of difference between threatening to kill
> someone and sending a note to a politician that uses blunt
> language,'' he said.
> 
> Yet even Fein's attorneys grudgingly admit that the line between
> annoying someone and harassing them is a fine one.
> 
> ``It's really a line between content and conduct,'' said Michael
> Traynor, an attorney who will represent Fein at today's hearing.
> 
> ``One angry phone call to an ex- spouse may be simple free speech,''
> he said. ``Dozens of calls in the middle of the night and day after
> day could be considered threatening.''
> 
> ---------------
> 
> Also in this issue:
> 
> - Information warfare: A real threat
>     The threats aren't science fiction. There are well-documented cases
>     of hackers and attackers getting into vital portions of the nation's
>     infrastructure:
> - Suit Over Ban On `Annoyingly' Vulgar E-Mail
>     You're a little ticked off at your congressman so you e-mail him a
>     note, cursing him out with one of the ``seven dirty words.''
>     Bad taste, maybe. But under a little-noticed provision of the new
>     Communications Decency Act, you may have also committed a felony, one
>     that comes with a two-year prison sentence and $100,000 fine
>     attached.
> - Who Knows Why but They Don't Say When
>     Looking for a date on the Internet?
>     Identifying the date on which a document or page was created, posted
>     to the Web or last updated is an important factor in evaluating the
>     quality of its information. The sad fact is that so many of the sites
>     out there give us no way to do that.
> - Online medicine holds potential for abuse
>     Recent examples of people buying medical products online and getting
>     hurt and at least one physician "treating" patients via the Internet
>     raise new concerns that the unregulated electronic world poses health
>     risks.
> - Legal profession tries online marketing
>     Notorious paper pushers, lawyers have stubbornly resisted technology
>     for years. But divorce specialists from Portland, Ore., to dealmakers
>     on Wall Street are giving in.
> - New Lists and Journals
>     1) ChipNet Readings
>     2) Job Help Gazette
>     3) Children's Writing Update
>     4) Aware Person News
>     5) Insight to Religions
>     6) Windows 95 Professional
>     7) Elephant Gazette
>     8) Digital Libraries
>     9) Blood
>    10) Humanist Discussion Group
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> 


--
####    |\^/|     Colin R. Leech     ag414 or crleech@freenet.carleton.ca
#### _|\|   |/|_  Civil engineer by training, transport planner by choice.
#### >         <  Opinions are my own. You may consider them shareware.
####  >_./|\._<   "If you can't return a favour, pass it on." - A.L. Brown