[This file consists of two statements by CMU regarding their censoring of
Usenet newsgroups available to CMU students, followed by two letters to
CMU from EFF's Staff Counsel, Mike Godwin, followed by a modified CMU
notice, and finally followed in turn by a student petition against the
University's actions.]
**
** Document ID 12.662
** Thu, 3 Nov 1994 12:18:31 -0500
** Title: Illegal Bulletin Boards
**
Over the past few months a Carnegie Mellon research project has been
studying the use of sexually explicit bulletin boards. It appears
that, due to their content, the act of carrying a small number of
Netnews bulletin boards may be illegal in Pennsylvania. In the
interest of free speech, the university carries a very wide range
of bulletin boards for the community with no monitoring of their
contents; however, it is a criminal offense to knowingly disseminate
sexually explicit material to minors or obscene material to people of
any age. We have to be particularly careful because some of the users
of our bulletin board system are under the age of 18.
This issue was discussed at the Academic Council on October 26. It was
agreed that, in order to comply with the law, the university will not
carry any bulletin board whose stated purpose is to distribute sexually
explicit or obscene material, or that is known to contain a high
percentage of such material. In other aspects our policies concerning
access to bulletin boards are unchanged. We will continue to mount
all the Netnews bulletin boards that the law permits and will not
monitor their content.
Computing Services will implement this policy on Tuesday, November
8th by removing the following bulletin board trees.
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.*
alt.binaries.pictures.tasteless
alt.sex
alt.sex.*
rec.arts.erotica
The following are answers to common questions regarding the removal
of these illegal bulletin boards which we hope will help you to
understand the rationale regarding this change:
Q. Is this censorship?
A. The criteria for removing a bboard is not whether the material
is offensive, but whether making the material available to minors
violates criminal law.
Q. Who made this decision?
A. It was proposed by Bill Arms, Vice President for Computing Services,
and approved by the Academic Council.
Q. Why now?
A. A Carnegie Mellon study has identified the problem. As soon as the
problem became known, the university had a legal obligation to act.
Q. Why is rec.arts.erotica being removed?
A. The material on rec.arts.erotica is sexually explicit and cannot be
distributed to minors. There is no practical way to restrict minors
from accessing this information, short of removing the bulletin boards.
Tracy Futhey
advisor+@andrew.cmu.edu
[end]
>Approved: BBoard.Maintainer@andrew.cmu.edu
>X-Added: With Flames (restrictbb $Revision: 1.47 $)
>Return-path:
>X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 12605;andrew.cmu.edu;Robert Joseph Kuszewski
>Message-ID: <0iiFR=200iWG0Axds0@andrew.cmu.edu>
>Date: Thu, 3 Nov 1994 12:00:59 -0500 (EST)
>From: Robert Joseph Kuszewski
>X-Andrew-Message-Size: 1574+0
>Reply-To: advisor+@andrew.cmu.edu
>To: RBBs
>Subject: Sexually Explicit Bboards
>
>During the next few days, the university will be withdrawing some netnews
>bulletin board subscriptions from the public computer systems. This
>action is in response to a new university policy which is outlined below.
>
>The university's policy is to carry a very wide range of bulletin boards
>for the community, with no monitoring of the bulletin board contents.
>However, Pennsylvania laws prohibits us from carrying bulletin boards
>that are known to be used for the distribution of sexually explicit or
>obscene material. It is against the law for anybody to knowingly
>distribute sexually explicit materials to people under the age of 18,
>or obscene materials to people of any age.
>
>Issues of free speech are always important to a university. Therefore,
>the only criterion that will be used when considering the withdrawal
>of a bulletin board is that either the intended purpose for which it
>was established or its primary use (majority of the posts) makes it
>illegal for Computing Services to provide access to the bulletin board.
>Because the university does not monitor the contents of bulletin boards,
>there is always the chance that sexually explicit or obscene material
>may be posted and available. Any reported incidents of such materials
>will be handled on a case by case basis.
>
>Computing Services will implement this policy on Tuesday, November 8th by
>removing the following bulletin board trees:
>
>alt.binaries.pictures.erotica
>alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.*
>alt.binaries.pictures.tasteless
>alt.sex
>alt.sex.*
>rec.arts.erotica
>
>Bob Kuszewski
>Computing Services
eff.642.3: Mike Godwin (mnemonic) Thu 3 Nov 94 14:50
My letter to Bill Arms, a vice president in CMU's administration:
Subject: Re: College cancels sexually explicit newsgroups (fwd)
To: wya@andrew.cmu.edu
Date: Thu, 3 Nov 1994 16:48:56 -0500 (EST)
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Dear Bill,
My name is Mike Godwin, I'm a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, and I'm writing you with regard to the recent decision, which
I understand is traceable to you, to remove sexual-discussion newsgroups
from the CMU newsfeed.
I understand CMU's concern about obscenity, and thus take no issue with
the decision to remove the .binaries newsgroups. But as any First
Amendment lawyer can tell you, the discussion of sexual matters of any
sort is Constitutionally protected speech, and thus cannot be prosecuted
under any state's laws, much less Pennsylvania's.
I cannot help thinking that the decision to censor the alt.sex hierarchy
is therefore an oversight, probably the result of a non-lawyer's failure
to understand what can qualify as obscenity under Pennsylvania law. I'd be
happy to help you resolve this confusion, and I look forward to hearing
from you. I can be reached in Washington at 202-347-5400, and of course by
e-mail at mnemonic@eff.org.
--Mike Godwin
Staff Counsel
EFF
Forwarded message:
>From mnemonic Thu Nov 3 16:22:29 1994
From: Mike Godwin
Message-Id: <199411032122.QAA06144@eff.org>
Subject: Re: College cancels sexually explicit newsgroups (fwd)
To: lizard+@cmu.edu
Date: Thu, 3 Nov 1994 16:22:24 -0500 (EST)
Cc: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Length: 3853
Dear Bob,
I'm confused as to how you might have gotten the impression that the
alt.sex hierarchy might create legal problems for CMU under Pennsylvania
law. The alt.sex hierarchy, as is apparent to anyone who inspects it, is
devoted to *discussions* of sexual matters. Discussions of such matters
are Constitutionally protected, and cannot be prosecuted under any state's
laws.
In point of fact, there seems to have been no prosecution anywhere
relating to discussions on the alt.sex newsgroups. So, why are you
engaging in censorship of those groups?
I would be happy to explain the relevant law to any decisionmakers
at Carnegie-Mellon.
--Mike Godwin
Staff Counsel
EFF
ReSent-Message-ID:
ReSent-Date: Thu, 3 Nov 1994 17:14:52 -0500 (EST)
ReSent-From: "Declan B. McCullagh"
ReSent-To: mnemonic@eff.org
Approved: BBoard.Maintainer@andrew.cmu.edu
X-Added: With Flames (restrictbb $Revision: 1.47 $)
Date: Thu, 3 Nov 1994 11:30:37 -0500 (EST)
X-Andrew-Message-Size: 1342+0
To: RBBs
Subject: Sexually Explicit Bboards
Cc:
Carnegie Mellon University
INTER-OFFICE CORRESPONDENCE
To: Members of the campus community
From: William Y. Arms
Date: November 3, 1994
Subject: Sexually explicit bulletin boards.
________________________________________________________
During the next few days, the university will be withdrawing some
international bulletin boards from the public computer systems. This
implements a new policy.
The university's policy is to mount a very wide range of bulletin boards
for the community, with no monitoring of their contents. However,
Pennsylvania laws prohibit us from mounting bulletin boards that are
known to be used for the distribution of sexually explicit or obscene
material. It is against the law for anybody knowingly to distribute
sexually explicit materials to people under the age of 18, or obscene
materials to people of any age.
Issues of free speech are always important to a university. The only
criterion that will be used to withdraw a bulletin board is that the
purpose for which it was established or its primary use makes mounting
it illegal. Because the university does not monitor the bulletin
boards, there is always a chance of sexually explicit material being
posted on other bulletin boards. If reports are received of such
materials, they will be handled on a case by case basis.
ReSent-Message-ID:
ReSent-Date: Thu, 3 Nov 1994 17:13:10 -0500 (EST)
ReSent-From: "Declan B. McCullagh"
ReSent-To: mnemonic@eff.org
Date: Thu, 3 Nov 1994 14:26:16 -0500 (EST)
X-Andrew-Message-Size: 2409+0
To: Donna M Riley ,
"Peter D. Ashcroft" ,
"Declan B. McCullagh" , Phoebe.Sengers@cs.cmu.edu,
Tse-Sung Wu
Subject: Petition Against New BB Policy
Cc:
--> Please remember to remove headers so that this is clearly from you
as an individual when you send it to Mehrabian. Please distribute.
<-----
TO: Dr. Mehrabian
SUBJECT: Bulletin Board Policy Banning Sexually Explicit Material
=====================================================================
I object to the new bulletin board policy on the basis that the
development was flawed, the implementation process is intrinsically
arbitrary, and the results are therefore inappropriate for the community
you are presuming to serve.
The development process was flawed because it was closed. The campus
community was not only uninvited to the dialogue about the formation of
the policy, but also at least one offer to be part of this process was
refused. The application of the law to electronic forums is extremely
specialized, and it is clear from this decision that no one with such
specialized training was consulted.
The implementation process is similarly flawed. Judgments of the value
of the various forums was made by administrative fiat. The decision to
remove bboards should not be made by one system administrator, or even
one department. Sexually explicit material may have cultural, artistic
or academic value. Computing Services does not have the expertise to
judge the value of different forums along these three axes. Only a group
that represents the activists, artists, cultural theorists, and
electronic civil libertarians as well as the technically literate can
legitimately make decisions about the value of public forums.
The announcement was inappropriate. It~s implication that Carnegie
Mellon University has, in the past, knowingly transmitted pornography to
minors puts the entire University computer system at risk for forfeiture
under the Federal Child Pornography Law, USCS 18 Sec. 2251.
In summary, the decision, the decision-making process, and the
announcement all illustrate a most unsettling failure by the University
to make appropriate or even adequate policy.
We, by our signatures or by the knowledge of our passwords necessary to
send this to you via email, request that any decisions about the removal
of bboards be made by a body that represents the University community
and takes full advantage of local expertise. We further demand that you
support the standards of academic freedom by delaying any action until
such a body is formed and can act.
