From caf-talk Caf Jun 22 13:44:20 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Some leads on Canadian Library Policy
Message-ID: <199206221743.AA15174@eff.org>
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1992 09:43:59 GMT
I'd love to find a book like "Canadian Library Assoication's
Intellectual Freedom Manual" or "CLA Selection Handbook"; but so far
haven't. Here, however, is a list of books by the CLA that may talk
about intellectual freedom and thus be useful for those who want
computer media to be treated like traditional media.
- Carl
===================
Out on the shelves : gay and lesbian fiction, a selection guide /
compiled by the Gay Interest Group of the Canadian Library Association.
:Ottawa: : The Association, c1982.
17 p. ; 21 cm.
ISBN 0888021682
1. Homosexuality in literature--Bibliography. I. Canadian
Library Association. Gay Interest Group.
ocm09-049389
Dick, Judith.
Not in our schools?!!! : school book censorship in Canada : a
discussion guide / Judith Dick. Ottawa, Ont. : Canadian Library
Association, 1982.
97 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.
Bibliography: p. 88-96.
ISBN 0888021623
1. Textbooks--Canada--Censorship. I. Canadian Library
Association. II. Title.
ocm08-818921
Policies and guidelines developed for community and technical
college libraries / compiled by Frances Davidson-Arnott. Ottawa :
CTCL/CACUL, Canadian Library Association, c1983.
277 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.
Some policy documents are in English and French.
Includes bibliographies and index.
ISBN 0888021712
1. Libraries, University and college--Canada--Administration.
2. Junior college libraries--Canada--Administration. 3. Libraries,
Technical college--Canada--Administration. 4. Libraries, Community
college--Canada--Administration. I. Davidson-Arnott, Frances. II.
Canadian Library Association. Community and Technical College Libraries
Section.
ocm10-117135
Canadian Library Association.
CLA handbook and directory of members. Ottawa : Canadian Library
Association, :198-:-
v. ; 28 cm.
Annual
Description based on: 1983/84.
Continues: Canadian Library Association. CLA directory.
ISSN 0822-3297
1. Canadian Library Association.--Directories. 2. Librarians--
Canada--Directories. 3. Libraries--Canada--Directories. I. Canadian
Library Association. Handbook and directory of members. II. Title.
Other: 1. Canadian Library Association.--Directories. 2.
Libraries--Canada--Directories. 3. Librarians--Canada--Directories.
NLC-F: 1. Association canadienne de bibliotheques--
Repertoires. 2. Bibliothecaires--Canada--Repertoires. 3.
Bibliotheques--Canada. Repertoires.
ocm11-050689
Canadian library journal. v. 26- Jan./Feb. 1969- Ottawa, Canadian
Library Association.
v. ill. 25-28 cm.
Continues: Canadian library 0316-604X
Indexed in its entirety by: Library literature 0024-2373
Indexed selectively by: Electronics and communications abstracts
journal (Riverdale) 0361-3313
Indexed selectively by: ISMEC bulletin 0306-0039
Indexed selectively by: Safety science abstracts journal 0160-1342
Indexed selectively by: America, history and life 0002-7065 1969-
Indexed selectively by: Pollution abstracts with indexes 0032-3624
Indexed selectively by: Historical abstracts. Part B. Twentieth
century abstracts 0363-2725 1969-
Indexed selectively by: Canadian periodical index (1964) 0008-4719
Indexed selectively by: Library & information science abstracts
0024-2179
Indexed selectively by: Computer & control abstracts 0036-8113
Dec. 1981-
Indexed selectively by: Electrical & electronics abstracts
0036-8105 Dec. 1981- *** MORE
--
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
=kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
From caf-talk Caf Jun 22 14:00:38 1992
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: blunden@ccu.umanitoba.ca
Subject: Case against banning newsgroups
Message-ID: <1992Jun22.171810.16977@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1992 17:18:10 GMT
As many of you are aware, the University of Manitoba recently decided
to institute a ban on a number of newsgroups. This decision generated
a great deal of discussion in various newsgroups. In the most recent
issue of the University Bulletin, the director of computer services is
quoted as saying
... the university has no control over what is posted from
other institutions. "It's not possible to filter material
on the basis of content." But Miller said the decision to
ban files containing pornography and sexual bondage from the
university's computer network could be reversed if anyone can
present good reasons for doing so. "We deleted them because
we felt they didn't support the mission of the university and
we felt they were objectionable," he explained. "If anyone
can make the case they want them back in support of research
or teaching, we'll listen."
I would be interested in compelling arguments for making this case.
I don't want to subject the network to a rehash of all the discussion of
the past month, but if someone could send me some cogent and well-reasoned
arguments, or point me in the direction of such arguments, I would be
grateful. I would particularly be interested in hearing from institutions
where newsgroup bans were overturned. I have the abstract of the talk
given by John McCarthy at the University of Waterloo, but is there anything
else on paper? Institute policies would also be useful.
From caf-talk Caf Jun 22 14:26:29 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: [comp.admin.policy] COMPUTER ETHICS CURRICULUM KIT
Message-ID: <9206221823.AA06996@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1992 08:23:49 GMT
From caf-talk Caf Jun 22 14:26:29 1992
Newsgroups: comp.admin.policy
Subject: COMPUTER ETHICS CURRICULUM KIT
Message-ID: <10360@bgsuvax.bgsu.edu>
Date: 22 Jun 92 17:25:02 GMT
TEACHING SOCIAL AND ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF COMPUTING:
A "STARTER KIT"
The Research Center on Computing and Society at Southern
Connecticut State University and Educational Media Resources, Inc.
(a not-for-profit organization specializing in educational
programming) have assembled a "Starter Kit" for teachers who wish
to introduce social and ethical implications of computing into
their computer science or computer engineering classes. The "Kit"
can also help computer science departments fulfill national
accreditation requirements (CSAC/CSAB).
The "Starter Kit" includes three video tapes and two monographs:
VIDEO TAPES: No. 1--Teaching Computing and Human Values (45 min.)
No. 2--What Is Computer Ethics (45 min.)
No. 3--Examples and Cases in Computer Ethics (45 min.)
MONOGRAPHS: No. 1--Teaching Computer Ethics (110 pages)
No. 2--Computing and Social Responsibility:
A Collection of Course Syllabi (142 pages)
Further information is available from the Research Center on
Computing and Society at Southern Connecticut State University:
E-Mail: RCCS@SCSU.CTSTATEU.EDU
Phone: (203) 397-4423 (Center and answering machine)
FAX: (203) 397-4681
Walter Maner
--
InterNet maner@andy.bgsu.edu (129.1.1.2) | BGSU, Comp Science Dept
Relays maner%bgsu.edu@relay.cs.net | Bowling Green, OH 43403
maner%bgsu.edu@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk | 419/372-2337 Secretary
BITNet MANER@BGSUOPIE | 419/372-8061 Fax
From caf-talk Caf Jun 22 19:16:50 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: [comp.society.privacy] Columnist quotes private email
Message-ID: <9206222314.AA08323@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1992 13:14:04 GMT
From caf-talk Caf Jun 22 19:16:50 1992
Newsgroups: comp.society.privacy
Subject: Columnist quotes private email
Message-ID:
Date: 18 Jun 92 21:00:16 GMT
Jeffrey Hart, a conservative columnist extensively quoted the private
email of several Dartmouth administrators concerning their successful
effort to get a local business to withdraw advertising from the
Dartmouth Review, a conservative student newspaper, unaffiliated with
Dartmouth.
He didn't say how he got the messages. Maybe the administrators
released it. Maybe a Review staffer cracked the system. Hart's son is,
I think, one of the Review's founders. Stealing private email would be
on a par, morally, with some other staffer actions, such as harassing a
faculty member who refused to talk to them, until he completely blew up.
This newsgroup has pretty-well established that even sysadmins shouldn't
read private email. What about columnists? Of course, reporters always
read anything they can get their hands on. There was a question a few
years back of whether a reporter had the right to read material on your
desk if you left him in your office. The reporters' consensus was yes.
(This isn't new. Shortly before the American Revolution, Benj. Franklin
got into hot water for reading private mail on a (soon-to-be-former)
friend's desk in England and publishing what he saw. It concerned how
England should treat the colonies.)
--
Prof. Wm. Randolph Franklin, wrf@ecse.rpi.edu, (518) 276-6077; Fax: -6261
ECSE Dept., 6026 JEC, Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst, Troy NY, 12180 USA
======= LOST MAIL: Mail sent to me between F5-29-92 and M6-1-92 might ========
======= have been lost in a disk crash. Please resend it. Sorry. ========
From caf-talk Caf Jun 22 20:28:33 1992
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,misc.legal,alt.activism,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.politics.correct,alt.discrimination
From: kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: [UPI] Supreme Court strikes down 'hate crime' statutes
Message-ID: <1992Jun23.001708.6788@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1992 00:17:08 GMT
Copyright 1992 by UPI. Reposted with permission from the ClariNet
Electronic Newspaper newsgroup clari.news.law.supreme, et al. For more
info on ClariNet, write to info@clarinet.com or phone 1-800-USE-NETS.
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- The Supreme Court Monday said ``hate crime''
statutes that outlaw cross-burning and other expressive action if they
are aimed at angering minorities violate the First Amendment's freedom
of speech protection.
The court, by a 9-0 vote, struck down a 1989 St. Paul, Minn., law
that made it a misdemeanor to engage in bias-motivated disorderly
conduct by speech or action that might arouse ``anger, alarm or
resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or
gender.''
It also implicates similar laws in dozens of towns, and a type of
legislation that has split the civil rights community.
The case involved a 17-year-old white male prosecuted under the act
for burning a cross in the yard of a black family.
The teen's lawyers said while burning a cross in someone's yard may
violate trespassing and even assault laws, the hate-crimes ordinance is
unconstitutional because it targets motivation -- not action.
A district court agreed, but the Minnesota supreme court said the
statute could be ``narrowly interpreted'' to cover only those actions
not protected by the First Amendment.
Minnesota's highest court said burning a cross in public symbolized
``virulent notions of racial supremacy,'' and that the statute could be
narrowed to outlaw only ``expressive conduct that amounts to 'fighting
words,''' or conduct ``directed to inciting or producing immminent
lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.''
The Supreme Court Monday said even such a narrowing construction does
not allow the law to pass constitutional muster. ``We conclude that,
even as narrowly construed by the Minnesota Supreme Court, the ordinance
is facially unconstitutional,'' Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the
high court. ``Although the phrase in the ordinance, 'arouse anger, alarm
or resentment in others,' has been limited by the Minnesota Supreme
Court's construction to reach only those symbols or displays that amount
to 'fighting words,' the remaining unmodified terms make clear that the
ordinance applies only to 'fighting words' that insult, or provoke
violence 'on the basis of race, color creed, religion or gender.'''
Scalia noted that under the St. Paul law, those who used fighting
words against others -- homosexuals, for example -- could not be
prosecuted because sexual orientation was not listed as a triggering
factor.
``The First Amendment does not permit St. Paul to impose special
prohibitions on those speakers who express views on disfavored subjects,
'' he wrote.
Hate-crime laws have become more common in towns nationwide in recent
years in response to growing attacks on racial groups, homosexuals and
women, but their application has split the civil rights community.
Some like the American Civil Liberties Union claim they are not
acceptable because they base their prosecution on the emotional impact a
person's speech or action will have on an individual -- rather than on
the action itself.
But others, like the NAACP, claim cross-burning and similar acts
aimed at inciting anger or fear amount to terrorism that is not
protected by the Constitution.
Monday's action is a clear defeat for laws aimed at curbing speech
that is not ``politically correct.''
Attorneys for the youth, who was listed by the initials R.A.V.,
argued that while it may be society's responsibility to confront
``virulent notions of racial supremacy...it is a violation of the First
Amendment freedom of speech clause to attempt to prohibit the expression
of racial or ethnic supremacy.''
``These 'notions' may take the form of a Nazi swastika, a Confederate
flag, a white sheet and hood, or a burning cross,'' R.A.V.'s attorney
wrote.
Minnesota had argued the law is needed in the face of a growing
number of ``hate crimes'' aimed at minorities, gays and women.
``Let there be no mistake about our belief that burning a cross in
someone's front yard is reprehensible,'' wrote Scalia. ``But St. Paul
has sufficient means at its disposal to prevent such behavior without
adding the First Amendment to the fire.''
R.A.V. and five other young white males discussed causing ``skinhead
trouble'' and then burned the cross on the lawn of the only black family
in the neighborhood.
``When symbolic conduct is designed solely to threaten, terrorize or
injure others, it is not protected by the First Amendment,'' the state
said.
Technically, the St. Paul statute could have been unterpreted to
outlaw a person from burning a cross or even flying a Confederate flag
in his own front yard on the grounds that it could arouse ``alarm'' in
neighbors or those driving by.
Scalia said the law ``creates the possibility that the city is
seeking to handicap the expression of particular ideas.''
Four justices, Byron White, Harry Blackmun, Sandra Day O'Connor and
John Paul Stevens, said in a concurring opinion that while they agreed
the St. Paul law was unconstitutional, Scalia went too far.
``The majority holds tha the First Amendment protects those narrow
categories of expression long held to be undeserving of First Amendment
protection,'' wrote White. ``At least to the extent that lawmakers may
not regulate some fighting words more strictly than others because of
their content.''
``The decision is mischievous at best and will surely confuse the
lower courts,'' wrote White.
Scalia's opinion was joined in its entirety by Chief Justice William
Rehnquist and justices Anthony Kennedy, David Souter and Clarence
Thomas.
------
90-7675 R.A.V. vs. Minnesota
--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@cs.uiuc.edu -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
From caf-talk Caf Jun 22 21:27:17 1992
From: rstevew@deeptht.santa-cruz.ca.us (Richard Steven Walz)
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,alt.sex,alt.config,alt.sex.bondage,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
Subject: Re: Farlay Mowat and Free Speech (was: Congratulations...)
Message-ID: <1992Jun13.095935.809@deeptht.santa-cruz.ca.us>
Date: 13 Jun 92 09:59:35 GMT
In article <1992Jun4.225125.19301@dragon.acadiau.ca> alan@dragon.acadiau.ca (Alan McKay) writes:
>rdippold@cancun.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) writes:
>
>>"Whoops, you didn't do as I demanded. You've FORCED me to shoot the
>>hostages." Your (or the government's) distaste for free speech
>>doesn't excuse depriving others of it.
>
>Here we go again! A holier than thou American telling the world that
>America has all the answers and that the American system is the be all
>and end all.
>
>Sorry guy. If you want to talk about censorship, how about talking
>about the renouned Canadian write Farlay Mowat being refused entry into
>the "good-ol'" US of A because of a book he wrote entitled "Sea of
>Slaughter". Of course, I guess that probably didn't get much media
>down there since the government didn't want y'all to know that they
>reserve the exclusive right to censor whomever they want, whenever they
>want. Thats probably why your laws are so liberal down there; to fool
>you all into thinking you have something that you really don't.
>
>Of course I realise that I'm just blowing wind past deaf ears since
>you've been so brain-washed into thinking America is the best place in
>the Universe that you've lost the ability of self criticism.
>
>Fortunately we in Canada haven't lost that ability, and our
>constitutional crisis right now is living proof of that. We are
>constantly trying to make things better, while you rest on the laurels
>of something that happened over 200 years ago. I think its probably
>about time you started to take a look at what you have today, and not
>what you had back then.
>Alan W. McKay | (902)542-2201.158 | Wolfville, N.S. Canada
>alan@acadiau.ca | Acadia University | SUB Box 6008, B0P 1Z1
-------
Well, you could have said anything, even published his stuff on this
net, and you are enjoying it here. Sure we have a bunch of old women
(of both sexes) in the State Department, but they'll be "first against
the wall when the revolution comes" as people often say. I am happy
that you could find something bad to say about the US here on this net
and that you are not censored. We need criticism too, but only the
administration and congress, if they participated, and our crop of
prudes. But subtracting them still leaves a lot of us of both ends of
the political spectrum, and even off it entirely, who won't stand for
free speech being abridged in any way, if they know about it or if it
affects them. No one here meant to be one sided in dealing with
Canadians, and if your with us, then we're with you.
- Steve Walz
From caf-talk Caf Jun 22 23:11:44 1992
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,soc.culture.canada,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,talk.politics.misc
From: kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Making it a crime to "dehumanize" in speech.
Message-ID: <1992Jun23.030214.25898@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1992 03:02:14 GMT
A UPI story today about banning "dehumanizing" speech shows how
slippery the slope is.
In the U.S., people like U. of Michigan law professor Catherine A.
MacKinnon and author Andrea Dworkin are advocating laws making speech
a crime (or grounds for a lawsuit) if it "dehumanizes". The Canadian
Supreme Court recently adopted MacKinnon and Dworkin's position,
saying "Explicit sex which is degrading or dehumanizing may be undue
[and thus banned] if the risk of harm is substantial." According to
the current _Ms._ magazine: "[T]he guidelines are now clear:
degradation, bondage, child pornography, and violence are out;"
According a UPI story today, a sheriff in Florida wants Ice-T's song
"Cop Killer" banned because, according to the sheriff it could pave
the way to a violent attack by "dehumanizing" police officers in the
eyes of potential assailants.
I think that this shows that if the government is given authority to
ban "dehumanizing speech", that authority will not just be used to
protect supposedly weak women. The government will also use the
authority to silence dissidenters.
- Carl
--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@cs.uiuc.edu -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
From caf-talk Caf Jun 23 02:25:24 1992
From: lazlo@triton.unm.edu (Lazlo Nibble)
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,soc.culture.canada,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Making it a crime to "dehumanize" in speech.
Message-ID: <1jqlj_f@lynx.unm.edu>
Date: 23 Jun 92 05:58:13 GMT
kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes:
> In the U.S., people like U. of Michigan law professor Catherine A.
> MacKinnon and author Andrea Dworkin are advocating laws making speech a
> crime (or grounds for a lawsuit) if it "dehumanizes".
>
> According a UPI story today, a sheriff in Florida wants Ice-T's song
> "Cop Killer" banned because, according to the sheriff it could pave the
> way to a violent attack by "dehumanizing" police officers in the eyes of
> potential assailants.
I think it would be frighteningly ironic (although just as unjust as in
any other case) if radical feminist literature were targeted by these
sorts of laws. As a male, I've felt pretty "dehumanized" by some of the
positions taken by the Dworkinites.
--
Lazlo (lazlo@triton.unm.edu)
From caf-talk Caf Jun 23 09:05:34 1992
From: smith@gramian.harvard.edu (Steven Smith)
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,soc.culture.canada,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Making it a crime to "dehumanize" in speech.
Message-ID:
Date: 23 Jun 92 13:42:05 GMT
In article <1992Jun23.030214.25898@m.cs.uiuc.edu> kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes:
> A UPI story today about banning "dehumanizing" speech shows how
> slippery the slope is.
>
> In the U.S., people like U. of Michigan law professor Catherine A.
> MacKinnon and author Andrea Dworkin are advocating laws making speech
> a crime (or grounds for a lawsuit) if it "dehumanizes". The Canadian
> Supreme Court recently adopted MacKinnon and Dworkin's position,
> saying "Explicit sex which is degrading or dehumanizing may be undue
> [and thus banned] if the risk of harm is substantial." According to
> the current _Ms._ magazine: "[T]he guidelines are now clear:
> degradation, bondage, child pornography, and violence are out;"
Don't worry. Such laws clearly violate the First Amendment. In
yesterday's Supreme Court decision on St. Paul's hate speech law,
Justice Scalia wrote in the majority opinion that St. Paul cannot
``impose special prohibitions on those speakers who express views on
disfavored subjects.'' The decision was unanimous, although the court
split 5-4 on its justification.
Just don't suggest to the Canadians that the MacKinnon-Dworkin
position violates civil liberties -- many of them will jump up and
down and tell you not to impose ``the American view'' on them.
Steven Smith
From caf-talk Caf Jun 23 10:55:28 1992
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,misc.legal,alt.activism,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.politics.correct,alt.discrimination
From: sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com (Fred Welden)
Subject: Re: [UPI] Supreme Court strikes down 'hate crime' statutes
Message-ID:
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1992 13:48:29 GMT
In article <1992Jun23.001708.6788@m.cs.uiuc.edu>, kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes:
[UPI text regarding the Supreme Court decision deleted]
This all reminds me of a question I've been meaning to ask.
The First Amendment is written suspiciously differently from the next eight.
It says "Congress shall make no law. . . ." while the others say things like
"the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
"No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house. . . ."
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons . . . shall not be
violated. . . ."
"No person shall be held to answer. . . ."
"the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial. . . ."
"the right of trial by jury shall be preserved. . . ."
"Excessive bail shall not be required. . . ."
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be con-
strued. . . ."
And the Tenth Amendment contains the clincher,
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or
to the people."
Now here's my question--why is it that the First Amendment forbids *Congress* to
make a certain kind of law, while the remainder of the Bill of Rights contains
one general guarantee after another, without regard to *who* is infringing,
violating, construing, and so on? Did the framers intend that the States could
pass laws respecting the establishment of religion, abridging the freedom of
speech, et cetera? I can't find anywhere that this power is prohibited to the
States by the Constitution, so under the Tenth Amendment, they seem to have it.
Don't get me wrong--I don't think the States *should* have that power. I just
wonder why the First Amendment was written the way it was.
Any Constitutional historians out there have an answer?
Speaking of freedoms, my employer has decided to restrict news access to a few
"work-related" groups and it seems likely that I will no longer have access to
alt.society.civil-liberty (or alt.anything, for that matter). Please reply to
this post via e-mail.
'Bye, until I get an account elsewhere.
--
--Fred, or another blind 8th-century BC | sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com
Hellenic poet of the same name. |
From caf-talk Caf Jun 23 11:17:32 1992
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,soc.culture.canada,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,talk.politics.misc
From: cmort@NCoast.ORG (Christopher Morton)
Subject: Re: Making it a crime to "dehumanize" in speech.
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1992 14:15:32 GMT
Message-ID: <1992Jun23.141532.373@NCoast.ORG>
As quoted from by smith@gramian.harvard.edu (Steven Smith):
> In article <1992Jun23.030214.25898@m.cs.uiuc.edu> kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes:
>
> > A UPI story today about banning "dehumanizing" speech shows how
> > slippery the slope is.
> >
> > In the U.S., people like U. of Michigan law professor Catherine A.
> > MacKinnon and author Andrea Dworkin are advocating laws making speech
> > a crime (or grounds for a lawsuit) if it "dehumanizes". The Canadian
> > Supreme Court recently adopted MacKinnon and Dworkin's position,
> > saying "Explicit sex which is degrading or dehumanizing may be undue
> > [and thus banned] if the risk of harm is substantial." According to
> > the current _Ms._ magazine: "[T]he guidelines are now clear:
> > degradation, bondage, child pornography, and violence are out;"
>
> Don't worry. Such laws clearly violate the First Amendment. In
> yesterday's Supreme Court decision on St. Paul's hate speech law,
> Justice Scalia wrote in the majority opinion that St. Paul cannot
> ``impose special prohibitions on those speakers who express views on
> disfavored subjects.'' The decision was unanimous, although the court
> split 5-4 on its justification.
Ah! Somebody else caught this too. It's interesting that so many people are
busy wailing and gashing themselves over the inability to make things already
illegal, MORE illegal, that they've failed to notice that Scalia has in fact
cut the legs right out from under most obscenity prosecutions. I think the
other justices that concurred in the decision, but dissented on the reasons,
KNEW that, but didn't want to draw attention to it explicitly.
> Just don't suggest to the Canadians that the MacKinnon-Dworkin
> position violates civil liberties -- many of them will jump up and
> down and tell you not to impose ``the American view'' on them.
They and the Dworks deserve each other.... :)
--
------------------------------------------------------------------
"Well whose opinions did you THINK these were...?"
------------------------------------------------------------------
From caf-talk Caf Jun 23 11:45:35 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: has8wwa@cabell.vcu.edu (William W. Arnold)
Subject: Re: [UPI] Supreme Court strikes down 'hate crime' statutes
Message-ID: <9206231540.AA16731@cabell.vcu.edu>
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1992 15:40:54 GMT
Fred Welden writes ---
>In article <1992Jun23.001708.6788@m.cs.uiuc.edu>, kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes:
...
>Now here's my question--why is it that the First Amendment forbids
>*Congress* to make a certain kind of law, while the remainder of the
>Bill of Rights contains one general guarantee after another, without
>regard to *who* is infringing, violating, construing, and so on? Did
>the framers intend that the States could pass laws respecting the
>establishment of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, et cetera?
>I can't find anywhere that this power is prohibited to the States by
>the Constitution, so under the Tenth Amendment, they seem to have it.
Until the 14th (?) amendment (my copy of the constitution is at home,
that's the number that springs to mind.) none of the bill of rights
applied to the states.
/------------------------------\ /----------------------------------\
| William W. Arnold | Is the universe an accident, |
| has8wwa@cabell.vcu.edu | a mistake, or did someone |
| warnold@nomad.urich.edu | do it to us on purpose? |
| someone.else@someplace.else | --ME-- |
\------------------------------/ \----------------------------------/
From caf-talk Caf Jun 23 13:22:34 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: nbc2134@dsacg2.dsac.dla.mil (Robert F Solon)
Subject: Re: [UPI] Supreme Court strikes down 'hate crime' statutes
Message-ID: <9206231716.AA14175@dsacg2.dsac.dla.mil>
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1992 09:16:42 GMT
In reply to the mail from ...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>In article <1992Jun23.001708.6788@m.cs.uiuc.edu>, kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes:
>[UPI text regarding the Supreme Court decision deleted]
>
>This all reminds me of a question I've been meaning to ask.
>
>The First Amendment is written suspiciously differently from the next eight.
>It says "Congress shall make no law. . . ." while the others say things like
>
>"the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
>
>"No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house. . . ."
>
>"The right of the people to be secure in their persons . . . shall not be
>violated. . . ."
>
>"No person shall be held to answer. . . ."
>
>"the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial. . . ."
>
>"the right of trial by jury shall be preserved. . . ."
>
>"Excessive bail shall not be required. . . ."
>
>"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be con-
>strued. . . ."
>
>And the Tenth Amendment contains the clincher,
>
> "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
>prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or
>to the people."
>
>
>Now here's my question--why is it that the First Amendment forbids *Congress* to
>make a certain kind of law, while the remainder of the Bill of Rights contains
>one general guarantee after another, without regard to *who* is infringing,
>violating, construing, and so on? Did the framers intend that the States could
>pass laws respecting the establishment of religion, abridging the freedom of
>speech, et cetera? I can't find anywhere that this power is prohibited to the
>States by the Constitution, so under the Tenth Amendment, they seem to have it.
>
>Don't get me wrong--I don't think the States *should* have that power. I just
>wonder why the First Amendment was written the way it was.
>
>Any Constitutional historians out there have an answer?
>
>Speaking of freedoms, my employer has decided to restrict news access to a few
>"work-related" groups and it seems likely that I will no longer have access to
>alt.society.civil-liberty (or alt.anything, for that matter). Please reply to
>this post via e-mail.
>
>'Bye, until I get an account elsewhere.
>
Fred,
Although I'm not a Consititutional historian per se, I believe I have the
answer to your question. When the Framers were drafting the bill of Rights,
they made the assumption that _only_ Congress would actually have the
authority to impose restrictions on rights. They assumed that neither the
Executive nor the Judiciary would presume to take on a legislative power. Of
course, with _Marbury v. Madison_, CJ Marshall created judicial review, thus
placing the Judiciary at the apex of the three formal branches of the Federal
Government; in actuality, it's my understanding that the Framers intended that
_Congress_ be the premier branch.
The other amendments seem to be prohibit action by all agents of the Federal
Government, since most of those functions can/could be performed by various
combinations of the Executive and the Judiciary.
Of course, the big hole in the Bill of Rights was that the States are not
prohibited from doing such things as proscribed in the Bill of Rights. Not
until the Fourteenth Amendment was passed were the provisions of the Bill of
rights applicable to the States. Of course, perhaps no one thought to use the
Supremacy Clause (Article VII) to apply the Bill of Rights to the States
directly. Oh well.
Hope this helps.
Cheers!
Bob
Bob Solon, DITSO-CO-B
Administrative Information Branch -- APCAPS
"We Code, You Explode!!"
From caf-talk Caf Jun 23 13:36:30 1992
From: pschleck@odin.unomaha.edu (Paul W Schleck KD3FU)
Newsgroups: news.admin,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
Subject: Re: Posting priviledges in educational establishments
Message-ID:
Date: 23 Jun 92 16:52:37 GMT
sd345@city.ac.uk (COLLIER M P) writes:
>I have just installed News here at City (no small feet [sic]).
>Before it goes live, I would like some ideas for ways of
>preventing young, hot-headed, undergraduates from flooding the
>Net. I realise that I can prevent selected machines from posting,
>what about selected users?
(I've cross-posted this to alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk and directed
followups there, as I have an hunch about where this is going).
Well, your impression of students as "hot-headed" who need to be kept
from "flooding the net" certainly deserves further comment, but I will
address the technical questions first.
>Have people in other establishments bothered to do this. For
>example is it worth it if users can just telnet into the NNTP port
>anyway? I'd be interested in any comments/suggestions.
Usenet is a sieve. There are several ways in, including running your
own copy of inews, telnetting directly to the 119 port, and E-mailing
to a news/mail gateways (ucbvax.berkeley.edu is the most well-known).
To keep students from posting to news, you would have to deny them
E-mail, compilers, and telnet connects to most sockets.
Of course, the overriding question is, "Why?" Most academic
institutions in the U.S. have very open access policies for students.
Sure, there are some net-vandals running around, but they get dealt with
sooner-or-later. Just because some punks are ripping pages out of
library books, for example, doesn't mean all students should be shut out
of the campus library. It would seem to me that a little user
education, and instilling a sense of responsibility in students (who have
at least shown enough responsibility to get into and stay in college)
would be a lot more effective, and probably a lot less work.
Why shouldn't students have access to such a valuable research tools as
Usenet? You have indicated in your signature that you are a programmer
at a city college in the UK, obviously a fairly skillful one to have set
up a news feed. Perhaps that you have forgotten that one of the primary
purposes of existence for a college is to serve students and their
academic needs (in addition to faculty and their research). Having put
so much work into getting news running, you are understandable concerned
about having your "baby" misused, but that's the risk you take. A
campus computing center exists to serve faculty and students, the latter
of whom have paid tuition and contracted with the insitution to have
those services provided to them. Your elitism and prejudice do not make
for good customer service. An individual whose salary is paid, in part,
by those customers should be a little more concerned about such things.
I would assume that your college has a good Code of Conduct and related
Use/Misuse Polices for campus computing resources? If not, maybe now is
the time to develop some. I would recommend the Academic Freedom Archive
at ftp.eff.org. Carl Kadie, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu, will probably be posting
more information about the archives, as well as more good counter-
arguments for an open access policy to news.
Paul W. Schleck
pschleck@unomaha.edu
From caf-talk Caf Jun 23 13:50:43 1992
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,misc.legal,alt.activism,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.politics.correct,alt.discrimination
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: [UPI] Supreme Court strikes down 'hate crime' statutes
Message-ID: <1992Jun23.175033.4640@eff.org>
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1992 17:50:33 GMT
In article sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com (Fred Welden) writes:
>Now here's my question--why is it that the First Amendment forbids *Congress* to
>make a certain kind of law, while the remainder of the Bill of Rights contains
>one general guarantee after another, without regard to *who* is infringing,
>violating, construing, and so on?
The Bill of Rights, prior to the passage of the 14th Amendment, was always
understood to be a limitation on federal action. To that extent, the
reference to Congress in the First Amendment is gratuitous, except that it
allows an otherwise passive prohibition to be cast as an active one.
>Did the framers intend that the States could
>pass laws respecting the establishment of religion, abridging the freedom of
>speech, et cetera? I can't find anywhere that this power is prohibited to the
>States by the Constitution, so under the Tenth Amendment, they seem to have it.
Once the 14th Amendment was passed, most of the provisions of the Bill
of Rights were understood to be "incorporated" and applied against the
states as well. How does the Supreme Court know which provisions apply and
which don't? The test is whether the provision is "fundamental" to "our
concept of well-ordered liberty." Such things as right to counsel qualify
under this test, while things like the right to jury trial in a civil
matter involving more than $25 do not.
--Mike
--
Mike Godwin, |"The one thing that can solve most of our
mnemonic@eff.org | problems is dancing."
(617) 864-0665 |
EFF, Cambridge | --James Brown
From caf-talk Caf Jun 23 15:56:49 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: STEVEMC%WRQ@mcimail.com (Stephen McCandless)
Subject: Please add my name to your mailing list
Message-ID: <15920623182051_0004381282NA1EM@mcimail.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1992 18:20:00 GMT
From caf-talk Caf Jun 23 16:03:42 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: [news.admin] Re: Posting priviledges in educational establishments
Message-ID: <9206232000.AA15294@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1992 10:00:31 GMT
From caf-talk Caf Jun 23 16:03:42 1992
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Posting priviledges in educational establishments
Message-ID: <1992Jun23.180036.7223@henson.cc.wwu.edu>
Date: 23 Jun 92 18:00:36 GMT
I have a related question. Someone at our site has seen fit to
block some of the newsgroups. If someone still wants to read them
from here, what are the simplest ways to get around this?
Jim Del Vecchio
From caf-talk Caf Jun 23 16:23:19 1992
From: jones@pyrite.cs.uiowa.edu (Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,3193382879)
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,soc.culture.canada,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Making it a crime to "dehumanize" in speech.
Message-ID: <13127@ns-mx.uiowa.edu>
Date: 23 Jun 92 19:45:51 GMT
In article <1992Jun23.030214.25898@m.cs.uiuc.edu> kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes:
>
> In the U.S., people like U. of Michigan law professor Catherine A.
> MacKinnon and author Andrea Dworkin are advocating laws making speech
> a crime (or grounds for a lawsuit) if it "dehumanizes".
Dworkin and MacKinnon only seem to want to outlaw speech that dehumanizes
women, typically by holding authors of pornography responsible for crimes
purportedly inspired by their work.
I wonder if this would be a denial of equal protection under the law. For
example, consider the fact that this provides a form of recourse for rape
victims that nobody proposes to make available to the survivors of murder
victims.
For example, there was a film that came out last summer, named something
like "The Boyz on the Hood", about the gang culture, where many showings of
the movie were accompanied by violence that was clearly inspired by the
movie, yet nobody proposed holding the filmmaker liable for damages.
As an even more extreme example, in the killings of November 1, 1991 here
at the University of Iowa, the graduate student who committed the murders
and then committed suicide left letters that made it very clear that the
crime was premeditated and that the Dirty Harry movies had played a great
part in inspiring the crimes. My suspicion is that the Rambo movies, may
also have played a part, and it's ironic that the author who invented Rambo
did so while on the faculty here at Iowa.
I feel that any attempt to hold authors accountable for crimes inspired by
their works sets a precident that could have a sweeping effect on large
bodies of literature! While I admit that much of the literature involved,
from the vast bulk of pornography to Dirty Harry and Rambo, is generally
a bit repulsive, I think it would be a grave injustice to hold the authors
of such works in any way responsible for what the readers (or viewers) of
such works take it in their minds to do.
Doug Jones
jones@cs.uiowa.edu
From caf-talk Caf Jun 23 17:22:14 1992
Newsgroups: misc.legal,alt.activism,alt.censorship,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.discrimination,alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.politics.correct
From: greeny@top.cis.syr.edu (J. S. Greenfield)
Subject: Re: [UPI] Supreme Court strikes down 'hate crime' statutes
Message-ID: <1992Jun23.132234.3774@newstand.syr.edu>
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 92 13:22:34 EDT
In article sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com (Fred Welden) writes:
>
>This all reminds me of a question I've been meaning to ask.
>
>The First Amendment is written suspiciously differently from the next eight.
>It says "Congress shall make no law. . . ." while the others say things like
>
>"the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
[...]
>
>And the Tenth Amendment contains the clincher,
>
> "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
>prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or
>to the people."
>
>
>Now here's my question--why is it that the First Amendment forbids *Congress* to
>make a certain kind of law, while the remainder of the Bill of Rights contains
>one general guarantee after another, without regard to *who* is infringing,
>violating, construing, and so on? Did the framers intend that the States could
>pass laws respecting the establishment of religion, abridging the freedom of
>speech, et cetera? I can't find anywhere that this power is prohibited to the
>States by the Constitution, so under the Tenth Amendment, they seem to have it.
>
>Don't get me wrong--I don't think the States *should* have that power. I just
>wonder why the First Amendment was written the way it was.
>
>Any Constitutional historians out there have an answer?
I won't presume to call myself a "Constitutional historian," however, I will
answer your question as best I can.
You are close to correct. In fact, the entire Bill of Rights was consistently
interpreted to apply only to the federal government until the 14th amendment
came into play. The due process clause of the that amendment (and occasionally
the equal protection clause) have been consistently interpreted to apply
the original Bill of Rights to the states.
This is why you will often hear references to rights under the 1st and 14th
amendments (for example).
This does not necessarily mean that the states had the power to infringe
all of the rights granted by Amendments 1-8. It just means that they
were not explicitly prohibited from infringing such rights. (The SC has
certainly always had much room to find implicit prohibitions in the 9th
and 10th amendments, though they were and are not often used...)
--
J. S. Greenfield greeny@top.cis.syr.edu
(I like to put 'greeny' here,
but my d*mn system wants a
*real* name!) "What's the difference between an orange?"
From caf-talk Caf Jun 23 18:44:06 1992
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,soc.culture.canada,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,talk.politics.misc,soc.women
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: Making it a crime to "dehumanize" in speech.
Message-ID: <1992Jun23.224356.12042@eff.org>
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1992 22:43:56 GMT
jones@pyrite.cs.uiowa.edu (Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,3193382879) writes:
[...]
>Dworkin and MacKinnon only seem to want to outlaw speech that dehumanizes
>women, typically by holding authors of pornography responsible for crimes
>purportedly inspired by their work.
>I wonder if this would be a denial of equal protection under the law. For
>example, consider the fact that this provides a form of recourse for rape
>victims that nobody proposes to make available to the survivors of murder
>victims.
[...]
Unequal protection would be justified if you believe that women are
weak. For example, I believe my home state Illinois used to have
woman-labor laws. These laws restricted people from some jobs on the
basis of sex. The laws were justified by the belief that women are
weak and need unequal protection on the jobs. Illinois, now, however,
has equal rights in its constitution, so such laws are illegal.
- Carl
--
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
=kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
From caf-talk Caf Jun 23 21:45:44 1992
From: titmas@chdasic.sps.mot.com (Eric Titmas)
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,misc.legal,alt.activism,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.politics.correct,alt.discrimination
Subject: Re: [UPI] Supreme Court strikes down 'hate crime' statutes
Message-ID: <1992Jun24.005148.21990@newsgate.sps.mot.com>
Date: 24 Jun 92 00:51:48 GMT
In article <1992Jun23.175033.4640@eff.org>, mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
|> Once the 14th Amendment was passed, most of the provisions of the Bill
|> of Rights were understood to be "incorporated" and applied against the
|> states as well. How does the Supreme Court know which provisions apply and
|> which don't? The test is whether the provision is "fundamental" to "our
|> concept of well-ordered liberty." Such things as right to counsel qualify
|> under this test, while things like the right to jury trial in a civil
|> matter involving more than $25 do not.
It seems to me that the test is whether the provision is fundamental to
the intellectual class (of which judges are a member). This explains
why free speech and free press freedoms are taken as absolutes but
property freedoms (5th amendment takings clause) are reduced to barely
more than inkblots on the constitution. I find the takings clause to be
the most important freedom and wish we had a court that would enforce it
(I think Thomas and Scalia would but the rest are losers).
--
Eric Titmas Motorola ASIC titmas@chdasic.sps.mot.com
...the most important change which extensive government control produces
is a psychological change, an alteration in the character of the people.
Friedrich A. Von Hayak
From caf-talk Caf Jun 23 21:59:44 1992
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,misc.legal,alt.activism,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.politics.correct,alt.discrimination
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: [UPI] Supreme Court strikes down 'hate crime' statutes
Message-ID: <1992Jun24.015934.14633@eff.org>
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1992 01:59:34 GMT
In article <1992Jun24.005148.21990@newsgate.sps.mot.com> titmas@chdasic.sps.mot.com (Eric Titmas) writes:
>It seems to me that the test is whether the provision is fundamental to
>the intellectual class (of which judges are a member). This explains
>why free speech and free press freedoms are taken as absolutes but
>property freedoms (5th amendment takings clause) are reduced to barely
>more than inkblots on the constitution.
I'm not sure I follow you. The 5th Amendment's "takings" clause has long
been held to be "incorporated" by the 14th Amendment and applicable
against the states.
--Mike
--
Mike Godwin, |"The one thing that can solve most of our
mnemonic@eff.org | problems is dancing."
(617) 864-0665 |
EFF, Cambridge | --James Brown
From caf-talk Caf Jun 24 10:42:25 1992
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,talk.politics.misc
From: Chuck.Lavazzi@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Chuck Lavazzi)
Subject: Re: Making it a crime to "dehumanize" in speech.
Message-ID: <1992Jun24.142956.2618@samba.oit.unc.edu>
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1992 14:29:56 GMT
In article <1jqlj_f@lynx.unm.edu> lazlo@triton.unm.edu (Lazlo Nibble) writes:
>kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes:
>
>> In the U.S., people like U. of Michigan law professor Catherine A.
>> MacKinnon and author Andrea Dworkin are advocating laws making speech a
>> crime (or grounds for a lawsuit) if it "dehumanizes".
>>
>> According a UPI story today, a sheriff in Florida wants Ice-T's song
>> "Cop Killer" banned because, according to the sheriff it could pave the
>> way to a violent attack by "dehumanizing" police officers in the eyes of
>> potential assailants.
>
>I think it would be frighteningly ironic (although just as unjust as in
>any other case) if radical feminist literature were targeted by these
>sorts of laws. As a male, I've felt pretty "dehumanized" by some of the
>positions taken by the Dworkinites.
>
I'd suggest that it might be time for a test case, except that in the
current Statist political climate here I'm afraid it might succeed! >:-/>
But it would by amusing to see Dowrkin's work banned using her own repressive
laws. If you're a fan of black comedy, that is....
>--
>Lazlo (lazlo@triton.unm.edu)
Chuck
No .sig, no frills, no foolin'
--
The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Campus Office for Information
Technology, or the Experimental Bulletin Board Service.
internet: bbs.oit.unc.edu or 152.2.22.80
From caf-talk Caf Jun 24 13:29:44 1992
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,misc.legal,alt.activism,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.politics.correct,alt.discrimination,soc.motss
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: How to access the Supreme Court's 'hate crime' decision
Message-ID: <1992Jun24.172937.24773@eff.org>
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1992 17:29:37 GMT
All these documents are available on-line. Access information follows.
=================
law/rav-v-st-paul.1
=================
The Supreme Court's _R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul_ decision about hate crimes.
The Court overturned St. Paul's Bias-Motivated Crime Ordinance, which
prohibits the display of a symbol which one knows or has reason to
know "arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others on the basis of
race, color, creed, religion or gender."
Included: summary, majority opinion, 3 concurring opinions.
=================
law/court-decisions
=================
How to access Supreme Court decisions by anonymous ftp and WAIS. Also
an index of available Supreme Court decisions.
=================
law/cohen-v-california.1
=================
Definition of "fighting words"; why no right not to be offended
The definition of fighting words from _Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire_
and then _Cohen v. California_. Also, says quotes the Supreme Court
saying that there is no universal right to not hear offensive
expression.
=================
law/README
=================
CAF Law Archive
[part of the Computers and Academic Freedom (CAF) Archive
[part of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Archive]]
This is an on-line collection of law related to computers and academic
freedom. It includes both case law and legislation.
The archive is accessible via anonymous ftp and email. Ftp to
ftp.eff.org (192.88.144.4). It is in directory "pub/academic/law".
For email access, send email to archive-server@eff.org. Include the
line:
send acad-freedom/law
where is a list of the files that you want. File README is
a detailed description of the items in the directory.
For more information or to make contributions, contact Carl Kadie
(kadie@eff.org).
=================
caf
=================
A description to the comp-academic-freedom-talk mailing list. It is a
free-forum for the discussion of questions such as: How should general
principles of academic freedom (such as freedom of expression, freedom
to read, due process, and privacy) be applied to university computers
and networks? How are these principles actually being applied? How can
the principles of academic freedom as applied to computers and
networks be defended?
=================
=================
These documents are available by anonymous ftp (the preferred method)
and by email. To get the files via ftp, do an anonymous ftp to
ftp.eff.org (192.88.144.4), and get file(s):
pub/academic/law/rav-v-st-paul.1
pub/academic/law/court-decisions
pub/academic/law/cohen-v-california.1
pub/academic/law/README
pub/academic/caf
To get the files by email, send email to archive-server@eff.org.
Include the line(s) (be sure to include the space before the file
name):
send acad-freedom/law rav-v-st-paul.1
send acad-freedom/law court-decisions
send acad-freedom/law cohen-v-california.1
send acad-freedom/law README
send acad-freedom caf
--
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
=kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
From caf-talk Caf Jun 24 15:50:56 1992
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,misc.legal,alt.activism,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.politics.correct,alt.discrimination
From: sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com (Fred Welden)
Subject: Re: [UPI] Supreme Court strikes down 'hate crime' statutes
Message-ID:
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1992 18:21:04 GMT
I asked why the First Amendment uses the language "Congress shall
make no law. . . ." while the remainder of the Bill of Rights uses
language like "the right to [something] shall not be violated."
It seemed to me that this language implied that the States were
permitted to pass laws regarding the establishment of religion,
abridging freedom of speech and the press, and so on.
Thanks to all who replied via e-mail to give me their interpretations.
These fell into two large groups:
1) Explanations that the guarantees of the Bill of Rights were extended
to apply to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment.
2) Various (some indignant) explanations of how the Supreme Court
came to have the power to interpret the Constitutionality of
State laws.
I don't think either of these addresses the question I posed, so I
sat down to draft the First Amendment in terms like the following
nine, to see what might be wrong with it.
The original text:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech,
or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
The 'corrected' text:
"The right of the people to establish or freely exercise religion; to
freely speak or publish their opinions; peaceably to assemble, and to
petition the Government for a redress of grievances, shall not be
abridged."
How do they differ?
The original version:
1) allows that someone else (such as States and municipalities) may pass
such laws all they want to.
2) allows that these freedoms may be abridged by other means than the
passage of laws, without violating the Constitution.
3) Fails to guarantee these freedoms to entities other than the people.
(For example, if the State of North Carolina tried to establish a
religion.)
4) Does not call the establishment and practice of religion, and the
speaking and publishing of opinions, rights. It calls them freedoms
instead. Peacable assembly and petition ARE called rights in the
latter portion of the amendment.
Being of a suspicious bent, I wonder if one of these differences
represents a reason that actually obtained at the time the amendment
was written.
Likely candidates:
1) A State already had an existing law respecting the establishment of
religion or the free exercise thereof. Had there been such a law, the
authors of this amendment might well have specified that *Congress*
could make no such law in this one amendment only, so as to gain that
State's support for ratification. If this is the case, then I think
the authors bowed to expedience, and their intent was something like
the 'corrected' text, which would make me happy.
2) The authors wanted courts to be able to issue injunctions forbidding
specific religious practices, or specific speeches or publications.
This would not involve Congress making a law.
3) I don't think 3 above has much to offer to speculation.
4) This is, I think, the most interesting area for speculation. Perhaps
the intent of the authors was deliberately NOT to recognize a right to
every religious practice, or every form or content of speech or press.
Rather, these things are identified as freedoms--things that people
are generally free to do, but not guaranteed. They are further such
important freedoms that Congress is forbidden to curtail them by law,
but further than this the authors were unwilling to go.
Certainly the authors would have been able to imagine religious
practices, and speeches and publications, which they felt could be
legitimately suppressed by law. For example, human sacrifice, slander,
libel, and fraud. Reading over the remainder of the Bill of Rights,
I find no other thing specifically identified as a "right" which the
authors would have identified as subject to such abuse. I think
history has shown that it is these supposed rights to religious
practice, free speech, and free press, that have caused the greatest
controversy, and the greatest care in balancing the conflict of
one individual's rights against another's.
If this is the case, I'm a bit unhappier. Frankly, I think a right
to every religious practice is a pretty dangerous thing to promise
people, but I think speech and press ought to be truly free.
Does anyone else care to speculate, or am I just talking to myself
out here?
--
--Fred, or another blind 8th-century BC | sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com
Hellenic poet of the same name. |
From caf-talk Caf Jun 24 16:14:00 1992
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,misc.legal,alt.activism,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.politics.correct,alt.discrimination
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: [UPI] Supreme Court strikes down 'hate crime' statutes
Message-ID: <1992Jun24.201355.29640@eff.org>
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1992 20:13:55 GMT
In article sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com (Fred Welden) writes:
>
>I don't think either of these addresses the question I posed, so I
>sat down to draft the First Amendment in terms like the following
>nine, to see what might be wrong with it.
>
>The original text:
>
>"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
>prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech,
>or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
>petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
>
>The 'corrected' text:
>
>"The right of the people to establish or freely exercise religion; to
>freely speak or publish their opinions; peaceably to assemble, and to
>petition the Government for a redress of grievances, shall not be
>abridged."
Prior to the 14th Amendment, Fred, the First Amendment would have been
understood to limit *only federal action*, even if it had been worded as
you suggest.
--Mike
--
Mike Godwin, |"The one thing that can solve most of our
mnemonic@eff.org | problems is dancing."
(617) 864-0665 |
EFF, Cambridge | --James Brown
From caf-talk Caf Jun 24 20:33:48 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
Subject: U.S. Censorship of alt.sex.bondage (10/17/91)
Message-ID: <1992Jun24.163018.8184@uoft02.utoledo.edu>
From: sbrack@jupiter.cse.utoledo.edu (Steven S. Brack)
Date: 24 Jun 92 16:30:18 EST
In the hopes that prior experience in the US may shed light, or at least start
discussion, let me tell you what happened at Ohio State when alt.sex.bondage
was discovered.
Quoting email recieved from Michael R Conners , Thu, 17 Oct 91 14:17:38 EDT:
=====
From: Michael R Conners
Message-Id: <9110171817.AA14260@bottom.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: Re: WBNS 9-25-91
To: bluemoon.rn.com!sbrack (Steven S. Brack)
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 91 14:17:38 EDT
In-Reply-To: <6k1X02w164w@bluemoon.rn.com>; from "Steven S. Brack" at Oct 16, 91 11:51 pm
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
It appears as though a freshman found out that she could get access to
alt.sex.bondage on the net. Being young, zealous, and misguided, she
notified the worst possible organization- a Television station.
That evening (if I remember correctly) was a very slow news night, and
as a result, the story was one of the bigger ones that night. It was on in
the first 10 minutes of the newscast, which is plenty of time for a high
% of the audience to watch it before they decide to tune out/eat a twinkie/
have sex with their plant/get disgusted.
The story made a big deal out of something that I don't think was that
big of a deal- perhaps to some, probably not to most. The ideas that 10TV
put forth were a) This disgusting thing was (and is) available SOMEHOW on
the O.S.U. computer network, b) Maybe some younger folks would see it, and
become ruined by the words that they see & read (I think that going to the
UDF and seeing the magazines that are there is more of a threat than this is.)
c) YOUR TAX DOLLARS ARE BEING USED TO SUPPORT THIS TYPE OF THING
The reporter interviewed the director of ACS, and made him out to be
unaware/ignorant about the newsgroup. It's a big system, and is difficult
to police and keep track of - no matter how many people you have (even
though the budgets were cut). I run a small network, and it's difficult to
keep a hold of it.
To sum up: Much ado about nothing.
The best thing with irresponsible/sensationalistic reporters is to either
ignore them or tell them a bigger lie to get them to chase that.
Onward & upward
mc
=====
I take full responsibility for this posting. Mr. Conners has no involvement in posting it to the TNet.
The upshot of all this was the loss of a.s.b, as well as other alt.sex.*
newsgroups from OSUUs ACS computer systems. Some have reportedly been
reinstated. Others, however, have not.
- Steve Brack
From caf-talk Caf Jun 24 20:55:56 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.org.eff.talk,comp.admin.policy,alt.censorship,soc.college,soc.culture.canada
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Abstract of CAF-News 02.27
Message-ID: <1992Jun25.005546.4645@eff.org>
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1992 00:55:46 GMT
This is an abstract for the most recent "Computers and Academic
Freedom News" (CAF-News). Information about CAF-News follows the
abstract. The full CAF-News is available via anonymous ftp or by
email. For ftp access, do an anonymous ftp to ftp.eff.org
(192.88.144.4). Get file "pub/academic/news/cafv02n27".
The full CAF-News is also available via email. Send email to
archive-server@eff.org. Include the line:
send caf-news cafv02n27
--- begin abstract ---
[Week ending June 7, 1992
[Issues #23, #24, and #25 are in production. - Carl]
========================== KEY ================================
The words after the numbers are a short PARAPHRASES of the articles, or
QUOTES from them, NOT AN OBJECTIVE SUMMARY and not necessarily my opinion.
===============================================================
Notes 1-3 are about anonymous sexual harassment at universities
1. At Vanderbilt University, a group of students used a computer
system to harass other students. The students were all using a system
devised at Vanderbilt to allow students to share ideas in a rapid-fire
anonymous exchange. One badly harassed female student filed a
complaint with Vanderbilt and the U.S. Department of Education (DOE).
The designer of the system has apologized to the student. DOE action
is pending.
2. Students commonly harass others via interactive messages. The
author provides a program with which his students can identify their
harassers. When the specific perpetrator is unknown, the harassed
student can sue the institution rather than the perpetrator. But
anonymity may be the only condition under which some students will
contribute ideas to class discussions. Sometimes their fears of
humiliation or reprisal are warranted. What to do?
3. Many students are afraid to ask questions for fear of looking
foolish, either in the eyes of their peers or their instructors. Some
means of posting anonymously is a good thing, but completely anonymous
accounts are not. Anonymous mail is hard to reply to, but anonymous
postings to a news group can work. With Plato/NOVANET, the University
of Illinois has had long experience with large scale newsgroups, and
has sound policies on anonymity that we could learn from.
<12951@ns-mx.uiowa.edu>
Notes 4-8 deal with aspects of censorship in Canada relative to newsgroups.
4.Canadian authorities want to know where some alt.sex.bondage
postings originated. Better than gathering hearsay over the net, they
should really make sure a law has been violated and that the violation
occurred in their jurisdiction. "This is new ground you are treading
on, so you better make damn sure you do it right." The wizvax
anonymous posting service is really just pseudonymous and isn't
secure. Posters can be traced, if necessary, so there is some
accountability.
5. Newsgroup sources feeding Canadian sites may want to stop supplying
alt.sex.*, rec.arts.erotica, and others that may violate Canadian law.
Individuals posting to such groups probably have nothing to fear; it's
the party taking the material into Canada who may be liable. Posting
with a distribution of "USA" may help in the event you were
prosecuted. Laws on this subject are ill-formed at present, but will
evolve in the next decade.
<1992Jun07.183019.15970@pavnet.pcn.org>
6. "Most all the material in alt.sex.*, etc is perfectly legal in
Canada. Most Netnews transfers are initiated by the information
requester, not by the provider. In other words, it is mostly Canadians
who transfer Netnews articles into their nation." Setting one's
newsgroup distribution option to USA doesn't solve the problem that
some postings violate the community standards of many US cities. This
is no solution. (Includes annotated references.)
<1992Jun8.033130.14724@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
7. In December 1988 the University of Waterloo banned the newsgroup
rec.humor.funny. Later, other newsgroups were banned. Dr. Johnny Wong,
Associate Provost for Computing at UW, announced that he would restore
all banned newsgroups. This decision came about after a university
review committee concluded that "a University administration should
not make non-financial decisions about what people can and can't read
on campus."
<1992Jun5.015001.11933@eff.org>
8. The Canadian Broadcasting Company contacted Stephanie Gilgut, owner
of wizvax. Through a distortion of her comments, they made it sound as
though she agreed that the material that passed through her anonymous
posting service was obscene and that it included a how-to manual for
violent acts against others, when in fact she had explicitly denied
that. (Contains quotes from both Gilgut and the CBC stories.)
<1992May30.221527.5614@blaze.cs.jhu.edu>
Note 9 is about traditional civil liberties and new technology.
9. "All but one of the six leading candidates for California's 14th
Congressional District have formally committed to protect traditional
constitutional liberties against technological threats." Several have
signed a formal statement to this effect (names and copy of statement
included). This may "be the first time that major-party congressional
candidates have ever committed to explicit action to protect
technology-related civil liberties."
Notes 10-12 are about the email privacy policy at the U. of Illinois.
10. This is the text of the "interim e-mail advisory" from University
of Illinois, effectively a new computer privacy policy. "Over the past
year, the campus administration has received a number of inquiries
about access to files maintained on electronic media. Essentially, the
questions focused on the privacy of such communications and the
conditions under which someone may look at another person's files."
<1992Jun2.011050.15719@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
11. Just as paper mail does, e-mail forms part of the "official
record" of a university's business. University employees are sometimes
advised to keep private documents separate from those of official
business. The same recommendation may be useful for electronic
documents as well.
<1992Jun2.120432.9595@scott.skidmore.edu>
12. Secure encryption of mail files may be a way to keep your mail
from being read without your permission and cooperation. Will judges
order individuals to decode their mail and other files so they can be
searched for evidence? There may be parallels with reporters who
destroy their materials to protect their sources. "And what about
student's files and email? Are they protected against bludgeoning in
the name of finding scraps of information? Can you say 'chilling
effect'"?
<1992Jun3.223032.20875@ms.uky.edu>
- Mark]
--- end abstract ---
CAF-News is a weekly digest of notes from CAF-talk.
CAF-News is available as newsgroup alt.comp.acad-freedom.news or via
email. If you read newsgroups but your site doesn't get
alt.comp.acad-freedom.news, (politely) ask your sys admin to
subscribe. For info on email delivery, send email to
archive-server@eff.org. Include the line
send acad-freedom caf
Back issues of CAF-News are available via anonymous ftp or via email.
Ftp to ftp.eff.org. The directory is pub/academic/news. For
information about email access to the archive, send an email note to
archive-server@eff.org. Include the lines:
send acad-freedom README
help
index
Disclaimer: This CAF-News abstract was compiled by a guest editor or a
regular editor (Paul Joslin, Elizabeth M. Reid, Adam C. Gross, Mark C.
Sheehan or Carl M. Kadie). It is not an EFF publication. The views an
editor expresses and editorial decisions he or she makes are his or
her own.
--
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
=kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
From caf-talk Caf Jun 24 21:54:36 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: [alt.sex.bondage] The Globe and Mail is doing a story about U of Manitoba
Message-ID: <9206250154.AA05198@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1992 15:54:23 GMT
From caf-talk Caf Jun 24 21:54:36 1992
From: colin@eecg.toronto.edu (Colin Plumb)
Subject: The Globe and Mail is doing a story about U of Manitoba
Message-ID: <1992Jun24.175542.11768@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>
Date: 24 Jun 92 21:55:42 GMT
I just spoke to Peter Moon of the Globe and Mail. He was asked to do
a story on this U of Manitoba thing, and someone showed him some
material from a.s.b. and he pulled my name out of it. He seems like
an intelligent and interested fellow. He said he was impressed with
the seriousness of much of what he read, and not impressed with the
quality of the writing in the stories. Oh, well.
He also said that he'd talked to people from a women's group at Manitoba
(he mentioned names, but I didn't note them down) who complained about
geeky types putting up pornographic GIF backdrops on their workstations,
clustering around terminals giggling at stories, and tying up the printer
printing out pictures. I agreed that it was rude, but suggested that
if the university has a mechanism for preventing people from hanging
up centrefolds in their offices, it applies, and for similar reasons.
There's no need to invent new rules.
Anyway, we scheduled a talk where I'll say something for later this
evening, and I'm going to root around ftp.eff.org for background
material. He expressed great interest in that, and I hope I can help him
produce an accurate report.
I also realize I'm ignoring several posted warnings about the press, saying
that thy're trained to disarm people and seem sympathetic to get embarassing
details, etc. Most of the reason I'm posting this is to express my current
good feelings before later experiences colour them so that however it turns
out, other people will have an accurate example to learn from.
Also, if anyone would like to follow this up-to-the-minute, you can mail me
and I can incorporate your comments into my talk(s?) to Peter Moon. If
you're just averagely curious, please don't flood my mailbox; I'll post
something, too.
Anyway, here's hoping!
--
-Colin
From caf-talk Caf Jun 24 22:51:57 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: sct@po.cwru.edu (Stephen Trier)
Subject: Re: Anonymous postings (was: [] More S/H)
Message-ID: <9206250251.AA04855@nextsun.INS.CWRU.Edu>
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1992 02:51:44 GMT
Douglas Jones, jones@pyrite.cs.uiowa.edu, writes:
> A better scheme might be to allow anonymous postings to moderated
> newsgroups. Then, I could establish a local newsgroup for my class and
> act as moderator. I would want to guarantee to my students that their
> postings were actually anonymous, that is, that no personal identifying
> information was available to me, the newsgroup moderator (keep in mind
> that I have access to lots of log files on the machines in question!).
A mechanism like this was implemented for the Cleveland Free-Net (CFN).
The news system (C News) has been patched to support anonymous newsgroups
as a class of moderated groups, and all identifying information is removed
from the header of an article before it is mailed to the moderator.
An anonymous newsgroup, like any other newsgroup on the system, is installed
at SIGop request. The Law, Medical, Gay and Lesbian, and Environmental
SIGs of CFN come to mind as users of anonymous newsgroups.
Log files of identities aren't an issue, because they are not kept. In
addition, all system log files can be read only by the system administrators.
They cannot be read by the moderators or users, providing a strong guarantee
of anonymity.
The system seems to be quite effective, especially in the medical areas.
As far as I know, anonymous newsgroups have not been used in educational
areas of CFN. It is a fascinating idea, though.
Stephen
Disclaimer of opinion: These are MY opinions, not CWRU's. Don't blame them.
--
Stephen Trier I never think of the future.
sct@po.cwru.edu It comes soon enough.
- Albert Einstein, 1930
From caf-talk Caf Jun 25 00:27:47 1992
Newsgroups: alt.sex.bondage,alt.censorship,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: colin@eecg.toronto.edu (Colin Plumb)
Subject: Re: The Globe and Mail is doing a story about U of Manitoba
Message-ID: <1992Jun24.234120.21003@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>
Date: 25 Jun 92 03:41:20 GMT
Well, now we've had the talk let me say how it went...
He explicitly asked, quite carefully, whether and how much he could
quote me. We exchanged embarassing stories and horror stories
about police records. (He has access to a lot, and the detail
scares the $#!+ out of him.) That provacy thing was peripheral
to the main issue, which was really about censorship and what the
moral issues are around usenet and attempting to limit it.
Someone at the University of Maitoba women's centre (I didn't make a note
of her name, but sigh) forwarded by FAX some nasty stories from
alt.sex.bondage and a GIF of some woman sorta being mock-hanged with
a rope under her chin and a grimace on her face. Bound hands in front,
breasts exposed, rope tied at one side to a block & tackle, chains in
the background. Not too arousing, for me anyway.
And reported complaints that people had been leaving porn .GIFs in the
root windows of public workstations (7 out of 20 was counted once),
which some women who came in later felt kind of threatened (sex object
perception) by.
We talked a lot about how much is available at corner stores, and I went
on at length on the difficulty of complete removal of access without
just cutting off-site communications.
I sent mail to STella, and she called in the middle of the interview and
I communicated a few words back and forth, but he'll talk to her on Firday.
I felt that, as a male, I was in a weak position arguing with feminists.
STella's sufficiently in-yer-face that she should provide a nice contrast.
A woman at the Globe and Mail who read some of a.s.b said she didn't
see where his story was. If you're doing censorship, though, it is, as
we know from debates on the net, quite an issue to be discussed.
One thing I need: a good explanation of why usenet is not a bulletin
board. I talked about the central control of a bulletin board vs. the
raving anarchy we have here. But can someone give a clear
distinction? I basically said that people on usenet make the
distinction, but it's not *that* inaccurate, rather like calling a
newspaper a book.
I explained the anrachy, how I thought it was the best and worst
feature of usenet at the same time. He was kind of impressed at the
democracy of it. He asked me to give an example of how to create
alt.sex.kinky which I explained, talking about the control message,
individual sysadmins' decisions on whether to carry it, and so on, and
emphasized that the big point was the traffic.
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica was created to provide an easier conduit
for traffic that was annoying other groups. alt.sex.kinky, if created,
might get some spill from alt.sex and a.s.b, but it probably wouldn't
be a lot of use or inspire new traffic.
He was kind of amazed at the arbitron reports that put alt.sex on top for
popularity. I pointed out $.04/reader/month as why it's not a horrible
waste of resources. Okay, that's calling UUNET and not storage or admin
charges (which is what a University pays; Internet is a fixed cost), but
I talked about them, too, I just don't have any figures. I left him with
a full listing and the summary report showing collection methodology.
He asked how a random high school student could get access to usenet, and
I said it was possible, but you need information to get at the information
in a way that makes it difficult. Without an account on a friendly system,
it also requires at least a good modem, a large hard drive, and an IBM
PC that can spend quite a while doing news things.
It appears that the science editor of the Globe and Mail, Stephen Strauss
(I think I got it right) wants to get on usenet. (I had to explain at
some length the difference between the Internet and usenet, but I think
he got it in the end.) They're arranging it through Canada Remote Systems;
I suggested he also talk to uunet.ca. (I kept ftp'ing to places and fetching
phone numbers of uunet.ca and the EFF. He was suitably impressed.)
I told him the story of rec.humor.funny at U of Waterloo, and the evil
Johnny Wong and alt.* there. He'd be interested in other *canadian*
experiences. He knows about the U of W thing, saw the recent posting
(someone gave him a tour of netnews earlier today) about Ottawa, the U
of Manitoba cutoff, and the recent U of T policy decision (thanks, guys!),
but if any other Canadian university (lots of U.S. stuff from ftp.eff.org)
has decided pro or con netnews or parts thereof, he'd like to hear about it.
I explained the big problems with alt.binaries.pictures.erotica was the volume
of the thing, and many sites don't carry it for that reason. After a bit,
the idea of kilobytes vs. articles got through.
Um... the story is a research thing, not something that's going to get printed
in the next day or two, so there's lots of time to collect info; I'll be
sending him more bits (he already said I drowned him - damn, I need a faxmodem
so I can send him reams of paper without having to print things out here)
as I think them up.
He explained his opinions in some detail, and at first, showing me the material
he'd received already, and they were generally quite reasonable.
He was interested in my comment that there was nothing bad about having
the stories and GIFs around, but leaving them in root windows after logout,
tying up the printer with them, and gathering in groups giggling about them
was rude, and probably rude enough to be worth coltrolling. But it was
that act that was undesirable, and rules shoud try not to forbid more than
is necessary in the interests of enforcability.
He told me of some time he spent at Canada Customs mail processing, and the
amount of stuff (there are five biggies they look for, guns, drugs, porn,
and I don't know what else) they find in the mail. They keep track of known
return addresses for porn distributors and, in his experience, seemed to be
pretty darn good at figuring out the contents of packages from outside
inspection.
Anyway, I strongly recommended the recent Economist article on networks to
him, and just now left him a message about _Caught_Looking_ (does
anyone know the author/editor/ISBN and the like?). So far, it looks good.
If anyone seriously wants to talk to him, I have his phone number, but I won't
post it in the interest of politeness. You can get it by calling DA for
Toronto, asking for the Globe and Mail, and asking for Peter Moon, but
I'll make you go to the work.
--
-Colin
From caf-talk Caf Jun 25 00:48:40 1992
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,misc.legal,alt.activism,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.politics.correct,alt.discrimination
From: heal@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Loren Heal)
Subject: Re: [UPI] Supreme Court strikes down 'hate crime' statutes
Message-ID:
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1992 02:44:21 GMT
sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com (Fred Welden) writes:
>"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
>prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech,
>or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
>petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
>The 'corrected' text:
>"The right of the people to establish or freely exercise religion; to
>freely speak or publish their opinions; peaceably to assemble, and to
>petition the Government for a redress of grievances, shall not be
>abridged."
>How do they differ?
>4) This is, I think, the most interesting area for speculation. Perhaps
>the intent of the authors was deliberately NOT to recognize a right to
>every religious practice, or every form or content of speech or press.
>Rather, these things are identified as freedoms--things that people
>are generally free to do, but not guaranteed. They are further such
>important freedoms that Congress is forbidden to curtail them by law,
>but further than this the authors were unwilling to go.
Oooooh, this is good. The press should be free, but not free to slander.
Speech should be free, but 'don't yell "fire" in a crowded ...'.
What if they weren't being that careful? In these days of word processors
and erasable ink, we take for granted the ability to make as many revisions
of a document as we want. How careful were they?
--
Peter Norton asked an IBM executive if he had tried to install OS/2 on his
computer. The executive said: "I don't have a computer, I have a secretary."
Loren E. Heal: leheal@uiuc.edu {att,iuvax,uunet}!uiucuxc!uiuc.edu!leheal
From caf-talk Caf Jun 25 01:16:36 1992
From: mojo@polari.online.com
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,misc.legal,alt.activism,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.politics.correct,alt.discrimination
Subject: Re: [UPI] Supreme Court strikes down 'hate crime' statutes
Message-ID: <1992Jun25.035547.20832@polari>
Date: 25 Jun 92 03:55:47 GMT
In article sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com (Fred Welden) writes:
>
>In article <1992Jun23.001708.6788@m.cs.uiuc.edu>, kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes:
>[UPI text regarding the Supreme Court decision deleted]
>
>This all reminds me of a question I've been meaning to ask.
>
>The First Amendment is written suspiciously differently from the next eight.
>It says "Congress shall make no law. . . ." while the others say things like
>
>"the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
>
>"No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house. . . ."
>
>"The right of the people to be secure in their persons . . . shall not be
>violated. . . ."
>
>"No person shall be held to answer. . . ."
>
>"the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial. . . ."
>
>"the right of trial by jury shall be preserved. . . ."
>
>"Excessive bail shall not be required. . . ."
>
>"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be con-
>strued. . . ."
>
>And the Tenth Amendment contains the clincher,
>
> "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
>prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or
>to the people."
>
>
>Now here's my question--why is it that the First Amendment forbids *Congress* to
>make a certain kind of law, while the remainder of the Bill of Rights contains
>one general guarantee after another, without regard to *who* is infringing,
>violating, construing, and so on? Did the framers intend that the States could
>pass laws respecting the establishment of religion, abridging the freedom of
>speech, et cetera? I can't find anywhere that this power is prohibited to the
>States by the Constitution, so under the Tenth Amendment, they seem to have it.
The states regularly pass laws which attempt to take up the 'slack' in
delegated powers. Those who oppose such laws take the issue to the Supreme
Court. The Supreme Court serves as final arbiter in deciding whether a
State was within the limits of its authority for any law passed by the State.
State laws which go unchallenged delegate the power of that law to the state by
default.
When a state law is passed with unanimous approval of the people, this
works out nicely. But of course we have issues like abortion and censorship that
pop up..
>
>Don't get me wrong--I don't think the States *should* have that power. I just
>wonder why the First Amendment was written the way it was.
I am still amazed at the foresight and intellect posessed by the framers
of the Constitution. There like has been seen rarely since.
>
>Any Constitutional historians out there have an answer?
>
>Speaking of freedoms, my employer has decided to restrict news access to a few
>"work-related" groups and it seems likely that I will no longer have access to
>alt.society.civil-liberty (or alt.anything, for that matter). Please reply to
>this post via e-mail.
Will mail you a copy.
>
>'Bye, until I get an account elsewhere.
>
>
>--
>--Fred, or another blind 8th-century BC | sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com
> Hellenic poet of the same name. |
From caf-talk Caf Jun 25 06:39:33 1992
From: titmas@chdasic.sps.mot.com (Eric Titmas)
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,misc.legal,alt.activism,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.politics.correct,alt.discrimination
Subject: Re: [UPI] Supreme Court strikes down 'hate crime' statutes
Message-ID: <1992Jun24.170441.12692@newsgate.sps.mot.com>
Date: 24 Jun 92 17:04:41 GMT
In article <1992Jun24.015934.14633@eff.org>, mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
|> In article <1992Jun24.005148.21990@newsgate.sps.mot.com> titmas@chdasic.sps.mot.com (Eric Titmas) writes:
|>
|> >It seems to me that the test is whether the provision is fundamental to
|> >the intellectual class (of which judges are a member). This explains
|> >why free speech and free press freedoms are taken as absolutes but
|> >property freedoms (5th amendment takings clause) are reduced to barely
|> >more than inkblots on the constitution.
|>
|> I'm not sure I follow you. The 5th Amendment's "takings" clause has long
|> been held to be "incorporated" by the 14th Amendment and applicable
|> against the states.
The rights that the judges regard as fundamental they use a "strict scrutiny"
test. The rights that aren't important to the judges they use a "rational
basis" test. Souter in his confirmation testimony said the differing levels
of scrutiny seemed to be unjustified and that he would explore giving all
rights the same level of scrutiny (the only thing this weasel said that I
liked).
So if you're correct that the 5th amendment has been incorporated it still
doesn't mean a whole heckuva lot. Rational basis tests are trivially met
since the concept is 'can a lawyer rationalize a reason for the statute'.
Epstein in "Takings" explores the changes in the law that would result from
applying a stict scrutiny test to the takings clause.
--
Eric Titmas Motorola ASIC titmas@chdasic.sps.mot.com
...the most important change which extensive government control produces
is a psychological change, an alteration in the character of the people.
Friedrich A. Von Hayak
From caf-talk Caf Jun 25 06:46:03 1992
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,soc.culture.canada,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,talk.politics.misc
From: jamie@cs.sfu.ca (Jamie Andrews)
Subject: Re: Making it a crime to "dehumanize" in speech.
Message-ID: <1992Jun24.224706.15631@cs.sfu.ca>
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1992 22:47:06 GMT
In article smith@gramian.harvard.edu (Steven Smith) writes:
>Just don't suggest to the Canadians that the MacKinnon-Dworkin
>position violates civil liberties -- many of them will jump up and
>down and tell you not to impose ``the American view'' on them.
Uh, as you know I'm not a great fan of Absolute Freedom of
Speech but I think the Dworkin/MacKinnon laws are very
dangerous. I have no problem in people saying that they violate
civil liberties.
What gets me is when Americans start arguing for Absolute
Freedom of Speech in Canada on the basis of "First Amendment
rights". Like, duh.
--Jamie. ,
jamie@cs.sfu.ca (-:=
"Cool... clear... Usenet" ` (not)
From caf-talk Caf Jun 25 10:44:30 1992
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,misc.legal,alt.activism,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.politics.correct,alt.discrimination
From: sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com (Fred Welden)
Subject: Re: [UPI] Supreme Court strikes down 'hate crime' statutes
Message-ID:
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1992 13:27:45 GMT
In article , heal@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Loren Heal) writes:
|sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com (Fred Welden) writes:
|
|>"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
|>prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech,
|>or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
|>petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
|
|>The 'corrected' text:
|
|>"The right of the people to establish or freely exercise religion; to
|>freely speak or publish their opinions; peaceably to assemble, and to
|>petition the Government for a redress of grievances, shall not be
|>abridged."
|
|>How do they differ?
|
|>4) This is, I think, the most interesting area for speculation. Perhaps
|>the intent of the authors was deliberately NOT to recognize a right to
|>every religious practice, or every form or content of speech or press.
|>Rather, these things are identified as freedoms--things that people
|>are generally free to do, but not guaranteed. They are further such
|>important freedoms that Congress is forbidden to curtail them by law,
|>but further than this the authors were unwilling to go.
|
|Oooooh, this is good. The press should be free, but not free to slander.
|Speech should be free, but 'don't yell "fire" in a crowded ...'.
It's libel, not slander, when you print it. I'm not sure what your
exclamation means. This is exactly how the amendment is interpreted
now, isn't it?
|What if they weren't being that careful? In these days of word processors
|and erasable ink, we take for granted the ability to make as many revisions
|of a document as we want. How careful were they?
This is part of the question I was asking. Is it significant that
the wording of the First Amendment differs from the rest of the Bill
of Rights? I'm sure the wording of all the amendments was debated,
and the authors of the Constitution were careful, articulate, and
lettered men. Did they see "Congress shall make no law" as
significantly different from "the right of the people shall not be
abridged?" I've pointed out a few ways in which it actually is
liable to a different interpretation, and I'm interested in information
and opinions on their intent.
--
--Fred, or another blind 8th-century BC | sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com
Hellenic poet of the same name. |
From caf-talk Caf Jun 25 11:45:02 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: [news.admin] Re: Posting priviledges in educational establishments.
Message-ID: <9206251543.AA03035@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1992 05:43:58 GMT
From caf-talk Caf Jun 25 11:45:02 1992
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Posting priviledges in educational establishments.
Message-ID: <3169.9206250826@pyr.swan.ac.uk>
Date: 25 Jun 92 08:26:49 GMT
You _CAN'T_ really stop your undergraduates posting or reading news - I
already know of lots of city university students who have been reading
and posting news for a long time - they just used other free sites rather
than the local systems.
It's not that hard to put a message at the top of Pnews saying
Access to news is a priviledge not a right. Please think before you post
anything that might be misconstrued, or might insult or upset another
person. If you are unsure then please please read news.announce.newusers
first.
As it happens since you are in the uk there should be no problem about
dealing with abuses of that policy under the nice catchall bringing
the university into dispute clause that so many UK universities have,
and in some cases abuse freely to silence complaints about such things
as academic standards.
Alan
From caf-talk Caf Jun 25 14:41:21 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: markh@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Mark William Hopkins)
Subject: Re: Fundamentals of a Legal System
Message-ID: <1992Jun25.182646.13296@uwm.edu>
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1992 18:26:46 GMT
In article <920614170756.20204464@DARWIN.NTU.EDU.AU> NEELY_MP@DARWIN.NTU.EDU.AU (Mark P. Neely, Northern Territory University) writes:
>[Justice] Kennedy discussed several truisms as he saw them surrounding the upholding of
>the rule of law, one of which was that personal rights must be guaranteed
>by the Government
>
>He notes that it is dangerous for any one person or generation to compile an
>exhaustive list of human rights. But nevertheless, the basics are as follows:
...
>(c) There must be freedom from classification based on race, creed,
>colour, sex, national origin and religion
This means that when I apply for a driver's license I cannot be obliged to
"declare my race", right???
It means that if such requirement had been held as an obstacle to obtaining a
license, the Motor Vehicle Department would be liable for damages, no?
From caf-talk Caf Jun 25 22:07:28 1992
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,misc.legal,alt.activism,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.politics.correct,alt.discrimination
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: [UPI] Supreme Court strikes down 'hate crime' statutes
Message-ID: <1992Jun26.020718.27534@eff.org>
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1992 02:07:18 GMT
In article <1992Jun24.170441.12692@newsgate.sps.mot.com> titmas@chdasic.sps.mot.com (Eric Titmas) writes:
>So if you're correct that the 5th amendment has been incorporated it still
>doesn't mean a whole heckuva lot.
It does to the typical criminal defendant. It even does to those whose
property is taken via a state's eminent domain powers.
>Epstein in "Takings" explores the changes in the law that would result from
>applying a stict scrutiny test to the takings clause.
While I think TAKINGS is worth reading, I wouldn't consider it an
introduction to the doctrine of incorporation of the Bill of Rights.
--Mike
P.S. I think your .sig should read "Hayek", not "Hayak".
--
Mike Godwin, |"The one thing that can solve most of our
mnemonic@eff.org | problems is dancing."
(617) 864-0665 |
EFF, Cambridge | --James Brown
From caf-talk Caf Jun 26 01:01:06 1992
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,misc.legal,alt.activism,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.politics.correct,alt.discrimination
From: heal@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Loren Heal)
Subject: Re: [UPI] Supreme Court strikes down 'hate crime' statutes
Message-ID:
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1992 00:24:25 GMT
sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com (Fred Welden) writes:
>|Oooooh, this is good. The press should be free, but not free to slander.
>|Speech should be free, but 'don't yell "fire" in a crowded ...'.
>It's libel, not slander, when you print it. I'm not sure what your
>exclamation means. This is exactly how the amendment is interpreted
>now, isn't it?
I was agreeing with you. Note followup.
--
Peter Norton asked an IBM executive if he had tried to install OS/2 on his
computer. The executive said: "I don't have a computer, I have a secretary."
Loren E. Heal: leheal@uiuc.edu {att,iuvax,uunet}!uiucuxc!uiuc.edu!leheal
From caf-talk Caf Jun 26 05:23:35 1992
From: rstevew@deeptht.santa-cruz.ca.us (Richard Steven Walz)
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,alt.config,alt.sex.bondage,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.sex
Subject: Re: Farlay Mowat and Free Speech (was: Congratulations...)
Message-ID: <1992Jun23.070946.7339@deeptht.santa-cruz.ca.us>
Date: 23 Jun 92 07:09:46 GMT
In article <2A3585C5.715@telly.on.ca> evan@telly.on.ca (Evan Leibovitch) writes:
>In article
> Thomas Omar Smith writes:
>
>>>Fortunately we in Canada haven't lost that ability, and our
>>>constitutional crisis right now is living proof of that. We are
>>>constantly trying to make things better, while you rest on the laurels
>>>of something that happened over 200 years ago. I think its probably
>>>about time you started to take a look at what you have today, and not
>>>what you had back then.
>>
>>This from a country where the French and English are still fighting.
>
>Perspective, please.
>
>In Canada, the French and English are *arguing*, using heated words,
>nasty personal insults, stupid cultural restrictions, and power-juggling
>amongst the provinces.
>
>In the US, the Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics are *fighting*, using Uzis,
>shotguns, knives, and good ol' kicks to the head.
>
>In Canada, a total of *one* person has died during my lifetime because
>of French/English "fighting", and the government declared a state of
>national emergency, and called out the army during that incident.
>
>On the other hand, Tom Brokaw said in an NBC special last week that your
>odds of survival were better on the front lines during WWII than on the
>streets of many US inner cities in 1992.
>
>To deal with the current Canadian state of unrest, the country's been in
>a mild state of panic. The national and provincial governments are
>working non-stop at reaching an agreement, and there will likely be at
>least one public referendum on the matter.
>
>What's the plan in the US to take care of *its* unrest? Perot?
> evan@telly.on.ca / uunet!utzoo!telly!evan / (416) 452-0504
--------
No, we'll just wire up Tom Brokaw's balls and "invite" him to make up
a different statistic. The little snot wasn't in World War II, and the
comparison can't fairly be made anyway. It would depend on who you are
and where and when in the inner city.
As for a plan, Americans have a bunch of different ones. They always
have. Usually killing each other is the way we decide which plan to
use.
- Steve Walz
From caf-talk Caf Jun 26 10:15:53 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.org.eff.talk,comp.admin.policy,alt.censorship,soc.college,soc.culture.canada
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Abstract of CAF-News 02.26
Message-ID: <1992Jun26.141543.4528@eff.org>
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1992 14:15:43 GMT
This is an abstract for the most recent "Computers and Academic
Freedom News" (CAF-News). Information about CAF-News follows the
abstract. The full CAF-News is available via anonymous ftp or by
email. For ftp access, do an anonymous ftp to ftp.eff.org
(192.88.144.4). Get file "pub/academic/news/cafv02n26".
The full CAF-News is also available via email. Send email to
archive-server@eff.org. Include the line:
send caf-news cafv02n26
--- begin abstract ---
[Week ending May 31st, 1992
========================== KEY ================================
The words after the numbers are a short PARAPHRASES of the
articles, or QUOTES from them, NOT AN OBJECTIVE SUMMARY and not
necessarily my opinion.
===============================================================
All the articles in this issue discuss censorship of the
alt.sex.bondage newsgroup in the light of recent events in Canada.
1. "The following is a transcription of a report broadcast on CBC
Radio's news program "The World at Six," aired 27 May 92 and monitored
on 9755 KHz at 2300 UTC. All spelling and punctuation has been added,
and may be incorrect."
2. In a telephone conversation, an Inspector of the Winnepeg police
gave it as his opinion that if material from the alt.sex.bondage
newsgroups were distributed to the Canadian public, the distributor
could be charged, as could the originator.
<1992May28.010057.18609@cs.sfu.ca>
3. If we are to ensure that alt.sex.bondage is safe from the censors -
in Canada or elsewhere - we must make an effort to exclude depictions
of non-consensual sex from the newsgroup.
<1992May29.174945.20946@cs.sfu.ca>
4. "I am not about to argue for Absolute Freedom of Speech because I
don't believe in it. I have another principle, that I have no problem
accepting, that is *just* as virtuous and *just* as well-thought-out
as yours: Consensuality."
<8185@wizvax.methuen.ma.us>
5. If we encourage self-censorship of alt.sex.bondage, and advocate
creating `alt.sex.nonconsensual' as both a forum for that genre of
writing and as a target for the Canadian censors, then we allow them a
foot in the door. We must stand by our right to write about what we
choose.
<15492@autodesk.COM>
6. "The net _is_ consensual. Already. You don't have to read
something if you don't want to. And nothing you read here is going to
kill you, or make you do anything you don't want to do."
<1992May30.033230.1556@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca>
7. "Cutting off any newsgroup on the basis of content is wrong... Once
you do that you have opened the door for banning all posters who
offend you. I strongly believe that universities should not be in the
business of censorship whatever the motives."
<1992May30.033323.23965@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
8. In a letter to the administrators at the University of Manitoba I
said, among other things, that "there are those who feel very strongly
that a University should never tell its people what they can't read."
<1992May31.080939.25516@clarinet.com>
- Elizabeth]
--- end abstract ---
CAF-News is a weekly digest of notes from CAF-talk.
CAF-News is available as newsgroup alt.comp.acad-freedom.news or via
email. If you read newsgroups but your site doesn't get
alt.comp.acad-freedom.news, (politely) ask your sys admin to
subscribe. For info on email delivery, send email to
archive-server@eff.org. Include the line
send acad-freedom caf
Back issues of CAF-News are available via anonymous ftp or via email.
Ftp to ftp.eff.org. The directory is pub/academic/news. For
information about email access to the archive, send an email note to
archive-server@eff.org. Include the lines:
send acad-freedom README
help
index
Disclaimer: This CAF-News abstract was compiled by a guest editor or a
regular editor (Paul Joslin, Elizabeth M. Reid, Adam C. Gross, Mark C.
Sheehan or Carl M. Kadie). It is not an EFF publication. The views an
editor expresses and editorial decisions he or she makes are his or
her own.
--
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
=kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
From caf-talk Caf Jun 26 11:29:05 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: [misc.legal.computing] Email Archives Discoverable?
Message-ID: <9206261528.AA04108@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1992 05:28:51 GMT
From caf-talk Caf Jun 26 11:29:05 1992
From: ledger@rat.cica.indiana.edu (Ledger Heavilon)
Subject: Email Archives Discoverable?
Message-ID:
Date: 26 Jun 92 13:53:01 GMT
I seem to recall a discussion here awhile back regarding an
institution (university?) being ordered to search its backups,
specifically email, for evidence of some wrongdoing. Does anyone have
any pointers to that case for me? Also, have there been any cases to
date where a court has held that, say, a company's email archives or
backups must be searched for particualr information as part of the
discovery phase of a civil suit?
--
Ledger Heavilon N9OTK ledger@cica.indiana.edu
UCS LAN Group CIS: 73427,534
Indiana University 317/541-8119
From caf-talk Caf Jun 26 12:09:49 1992
Newsgroups: misc.legal.computing,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: Email Archives Discoverable?
Message-ID: <1992Jun26.154811.13501@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1992 15:48:11 GMT
ledger@rat.cica.indiana.edu (Ledger Heavilon) writes:
>I seem to recall a discussion here awhile back regarding an
>institution (university?) being ordered to search its backups,
>specifically email, for evidence of some wrongdoing. Does anyone have
>any pointers to that case for me?
[...]
Here is information and pointers.
- Carl, Computers and Academic Freedom Archivists
======== ftp.eff.org:pub/academic/law/search.berkeley ===========
From caf-talk Caf May 23 00:00:00 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.security.misc
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: NARCS ON THE NET!
Message-ID: <1992May23.162904.25110@eff.org>
Date: Sat, 23 May 1992 16:29:04 GMT
fxjwk@acad3.alaska.edu (Jo Knox) writes:
>To the second point: I doubt if the Educational Records act can be applied
>to individuals' accounts, because it has to do with University records, which
>are not usually on individuals' accounts. (If University records are
>accessible from an account which is cracked, this might be different.)
parghi@cs.uiuc.edu (Amit Parghi) writes:
>Actually, there was a recent civil suit at UC Berkeley which involved
>exactly this issue. Though I don't remember all the details, the University
>was required to turn over all "university records" pertaining to a student
>who had been discipilined for (I believe) a computer security offence. If
>I recall correctly, the University claimed that any file on any of their
>machines that mentioned the student would constitute a "university record"
>and, since there were so many files involved, actually searching for and
>examining relevant files would constitute an undue burden.
[...]
There was no civil suit. The student's lawyer only wanted copies of
the admin email that related to the student (for a disciplinary
hearing.) In my opinion, this was the student's right under the Family
Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). In my opinion, UC
Berkeley's claim (that student-controlled files are University
records) was just a legal trick to try to get out of turning over
*any* material.
The FERPA is very, very unclear on what is and is not a university
"maintained record". But if the claim of the Berkeley lawyer is true,
it is illegal for me to read my own email archive at the U. of
Illinois. Why? Because my email contains tons of personally
identifiable information about fellow students and I am not a
university employee with a need to know.
I'm enclosing references and a correction. First the correction:
- Carl
>From caf-talk Caf Jan 22 00:00:00 1992
>Date: Wed, 22 Jan 92 14:45:45 -0800
>From: dean2@garnet.berkeley.edu (Dean Pentcheff)
>Message-Id: <9201222245.AA21751@garnet.berkeley.edu>
>Subject: UC Searches Summary 4.
Wednesday January 22, 1992
UC computer search summary number 4.
- Dean Pentcheff (dean2@garnet.berkeley.edu)
====================================================
One final detail for clarification.
In my previous summary I said:
> The key question here is the interpretation of "university maintained
> records." The simple interpretation of the California State Buckley
> Amendment is that a student is entitled access to conventional
> administrative or faculty records of their university progress. In
> this case, the student's lawyers chose to push an interpretation that
> made university maintained records encompass any record about the
> student that exists on university maintained systems.
This turns out not to be quite the case. It was the University itself
that chose to interpret the Buckley amendment in this manner. In the
University lawyers' opinion, the Buckley amendment forces an
interpretation that any file with the student's name in it constitutes
a university-maintained record on a student. This interpretation was
_not_ pushed by the student's lawyers, but rather by the University
itself.
-Dean
--
Dean Pentcheff (Internet: dean2@garnet.berkeley.edu)
Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley CA 94720
Work Phone: (510) 643-9048 Home Phone: (510) 839-1790 Fax: (510) 643-6264
ANNOTATED REFERENCES
(All these documents are available on-line. Access information follows.)
=================
news/january_1992
=================
Includes summary #3 of the UC Berkeley case.
=================
books/van_tol,_joan_e.records
=================
College and university student records : a legal compendium /
edited by Joan E. Van Tol. Washington, D.C. : National Association of
College and University Attorneys, c1989.
iii, 257 p. ; 28 x 22 cm.
1. Universities and colleges--Law and legislation--United States.
2. Personnel records in education--Law and legislation--United
States. I. Van Tol, Joan E. II. National Association of College and
University Attorneys (U.S.)
ocm20-290250
Review: Everything that is known about student records and the law,
especially the Family Educational Rights and Privcy Act (FERPA,
Buckley Amendment). The only stuff that it is missing is stuff that
hasn't been decided yet.
Score: 10 of 10
Excerpts cover provisions on directory information.
=================
=================
These documents are available by anonymous ftp (the preferred method)
and by email. To get the files via ftp, do an anonymous ftp to
ftp.eff.org (192.88.144.4), and get file(s):
pub/academic/news/january_1992
pub/academic/books/van_tol,_joan_e.records
To get the files my email, send email to archive-server@eff.org.
Include the line(s) (be sure to include the space before the file
name):
send acad-freedom/news january_1992
send acad-freedom/books van_tol,_joan_e.records
--
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
=kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
MORE (MORE GENERAL) ANNOTATED REFERENCES
(All these documents are available on-line. Access information follows.)
=================
caf
=================
A description to the comp-academic-freedom-talk mailing list. It is a
free-forum for the discussion of questions such as: How should general
principles of academic freedom (such as freedom of expression, freedom
to read, due process, and privacy) be applied to university computers
and networks? How are these principles actually being applied? How can
the principles of academic freedom as applied to computers and
networks be defended?
=================
law/README
=================
CAF Law Archive
[part of the Computers and Academic Freedom (CAF) Archive
[part of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Archive]]
This is an on-line collection of law related to computers and academic
freedom. It includes both case law and legislation.
The archive is accessible via anonymous ftp and email. Ftp to
ftp.eff.org (192.88.144.4). It is in directory "pub/academic/law".
For email access, send email to archive-server@eff.org. Include the
line:
send acad-freedom/law
where is a list of the files that you want. File README is
a detailed description of the items in the directory.
For more information or to make contributions, contact Carl Kadie
(kadie@eff.org).
=================
=================
These documents are available by anonymous ftp (the preferred method)
and by email. To get the files via ftp, do an anonymous ftp to
ftp.eff.org (192.88.144.4), and get file(s):
pub/academic/caf
pub/academic/law/README
To get the files by email, send email to archive-server@eff.org.
Include the line(s) (be sure to include the space before the file
name):
send acad-freedom caf
send acad-freedom/law README
--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@cs.uiuc.edu -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
From caf-talk Caf Jun 26 14:30:09 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
Message-ID:
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1992 13:28:33 -0400
From: "Anil N. Balchandani"
Subject: AutoCAD HELP
Hi there,
I'm drawing a schemantic on Autocad and have noticed a portion of the
sketch `untouchable'. I can`t move or erase this. The surrounding
stuff is allright only, this portion is `dead`. When I
Hi there,
I'm drawing a schemantic on Autocad and have noticed a portion of the
sketch `untouchable'. I can`t move or erase this. The surrounding
stuff is allright only, this portion is `dead`. When I tried:-
- moving a piece that included this `dead` piece it moved along also.
- copied it as a block it did not go along, but upon reinserting it I
could not mend other parts of the block individually.
- restarting, but to no avail
Pls reply soon...to this account.
Best Regards,
Anil N Balchandani.
(362-6839) || (ab29@andrew) || (samy@ece.cmu.edu)
From caf-talk Caf Jun 26 14:38:53 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: [misc.legal.computing] Re: Email Archives Discoverable?
Message-ID: <9206261838.AA05536@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1992 08:38:47 GMT
From caf-talk Caf Jun 26 14:38:53 1992
Newsgroups: misc.legal.computing
Subject: Re: Email Archives Discoverable?
Message-ID:
Date: 26 Jun 92 16:12:53 GMT
In article ledger@rat.cica.indiana.edu (Ledger Heavilon) writes:
>I seem to recall a discussion here awhile back regarding an
>institution (university?) being ordered to search its backups,
>specifically email, for evidence of some wrongdoing. Does anyone have
>any pointers to that case for me? Also, have there been any cases to
>date where a court has held that, say, a company's email archives or
>backups must be searched for particualr information as part of the
>discovery phase of a civil suit?
>--
>Ledger Heavilon N9OTK ledger@cica.indiana.edu
>UCS LAN Group CIS: 73427,534
>Indiana University 317/541-8119
This happened during the recent academic year at the University of
California at Berkeley. It arose out of civil discovery in a lawsuit
by a (former?) student against the university. The order covered
any mail using the plaintiff's name. The perusal was announced by
e-mail throughout the campus. (Since I didn't save the e-mail, I
can't give any more specifics.)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Steven Alexander
CS grad student & stevena@cs.berkeley.edu
non-practicing lawyer extraordinaire
{I'm really good at not practicing}
temporarily in the real world at: sra20@anagram.zeus.amdahl.com
(but preferring the Berkeley address)
From caf-talk Caf Jun 26 15:31:42 1992
From: rstevew@deeptht.santa-cruz.ca.us (Richard Steven Walz)
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,alt.config,alt.sex.bondage,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.sex
Subject: Re: Farlay Mowat and Free Speech (was: Congratulations...)
Message-ID: <1992Jun24.005343.15862@deeptht.santa-cruz.ca.us>
Date: 24 Jun 92 00:53:43 GMT
In article <1992Jun11.054253.23374@ms.uky.edu> sean@ms.uky.edu (Sean Casey) writes:
>(this is going to be fun)
>
>Evan Leibovitch writes:
>:In the US, the Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics are *fighting*, using Uzis,
>:shotguns, knives, and good ol' kicks to the head.
>
>Is that a foreigner's impression of the U.S.? Don't come here, because
>we all have Uzis and cowboy boots with little painted skulls on them,
>because it's a war zone?
>
>Get real. Yeah, there are criminals. And problems. But there are
>freedoms too. And there are wild differences of opinions. And despite
>what a lot of people think, most of us here in the US can have
>differences of opinion without pointing guns at each other.
>
>Most of the fighting done here is in the courts, through the system. A
>system that has shown great flexibility. Flexibility that allows it to
>eventually overcome shortcomings. Flexibility that, as we realize our
>past mistakes, allows us to correct them.
>
>:On the other hand, Tom Brokaw said in an NBC special last week that your
>:odds of survival were better on the front lines during WWII than on the
>:streets of many US inner cities in 1992.
>
>Sad, but true. But then most of us don't live in the streets of the
>inner cities. I'm 30 years old. Always lived in cities of 200,000+.
>Never dodged a bullet. Never been mugged. I took martial arts for 2
>years for fun. Never used it on the street. And I've lived in both
>middle and lower class sections of town. Real ratholes some of it.
>
>How do you explain the difference, eh? Compare and contrast Canadian
>inner cities with U.S. inner cities. Not casualty figures, but
>populations, income level, customs, idealogy. Give reasons. Attempt to
>explain the phenomenon. I suspect that things are different because
>the constituencies are different. Let's find out.
>
>:What's the plan in the US to take care of *its* unrest? Perot?
>
>Unrest is our birthright. We were created from unrest and it will be a
>fundamental part of our change process for a long long time. We tend
>to go in cycles. We go through times of great change, then we sit back
>a while. Eventually, change is needed again and unrest grows.
>
>I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. Maybe in a perfect
>government with perfect planning, things would always be kept as the
>people need them. But I've never heard of it being pulled off. Too
>many people want different things for them to be perfectly
>represented. Ideas and people change through time, and it isn't always
>clear how the government should reflect those changes.
>
>Our founding fathers recognized this. We have the freedom to protest,
>to speak out against our own goverment, even the _responsibility_ to
>overthrow it should it fail us.
>
>The unrest you speak of is change embodied, a necessary force, the
>principles of our founding in operation. Indeed, it is a scary thing;
>angry Americans have always been frightening, yet it is a wondrous
>thing too. Our government, the most ponderous, the most powerful in
>the world, *will* change. We'll make it happen.
>
>Put an end to unrest? Only when the government is perfect.
>sean@s.ms.uky.edu
-----------
And let me just add that I think our "founding fathers" might well be
a bit pissed at us for putting them on such a high pedestal and asking
what they would have wanted all the time or what they would have meant
when clearly they crafted a government that could be changed to give
us something entirely different if we wanted. They wanted US to decide
and not to dig them up and ask them all the time.
- Steve Walz
From caf-talk Caf Jun 26 15:31:44 1992
From: rstevew@deeptht.santa-cruz.ca.us (Richard Steven Walz)
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,alt.sex,alt.config,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
Subject: Re: Farlay Mowat and Free Speech (was: Congratulations...)
Message-ID: <1992Jun24.014056.16672@deeptht.santa-cruz.ca.us>
Date: 24 Jun 92 01:40:56 GMT
In article <1992Jun12.051910.11882@tronsbox.xei.com> mephron@tronsbox.xei.com (Mephron) writes:
>In article <2A358004.61D@telly.on.ca> evan@telly.on.ca (Evan Leibovitch) writes:
>>The criticism is that the U.S. Government, while claiming to serve the
>>ethical ideals of freedom of speech, denies such freedoms to a foreigner
>>only because his views were seen to be incorrect.
>>
>>Certainly there is no cry that the US does not have the right to refuse
>>entry to a foreigner for any reason it sees fit. It's just that in this
>>specific case, these actions are ethically inconsistent with a proclaimed
>>desire to absolutely protect people's freedom of speech.
>
>One of the wonderful things (NOT!) about the USA is the INS - Immigration
>and Naturalization Service. THEY decide if someone can come in. If Mr.
>Mowat was coming across the border for some kind of presentation in the US,
>The INS requires some form of confirmation of artistic merit for his visit.
>(Bloody hell to determine what Artistic Merit is from THEIR guidelines.)
>
>The only reason I know about this is a friend who was working against this for
>musicians from other countries, whose "Artistic Merit" was defined by record
>sales in their native countries....some of which have no records of such things,
>or don't have records but a tremendous following in their home country.
>
>Mr. Mowat probably pissed someone off at INS. They're touchy.
>>
>>Using tools such as Voice of America, the US has had no ethical quarrel
>>inflicting its views on freedom of speech upon others who may not hold
>>the same views. Yet its government apparently would deny an outsider the
>>opportunity to express an unpopular viewpoint within the US, when given
>>the power to do so.
>
>Of course not. It lacks "Artistic Merit".
>
>>--
>> Evan Leibovitch, Sound Software Ltd., located in beautiful Brampton, Ontario
>> evan@telly.on.ca / uunet!utzoo!telly!evan / (416) 452-0504
>> Dan Quayle is to politics as Ted Baxter is to broadcasting.
>
>I LIKE THAT! Can I steal it?
>Geoffrey M. Depew mephron@tronsbox.xei.com
--------
The silly thing is that if Mowat had simply presented himself at the
border and said that he was coming into the US to shop and visit some
friends for a few weeks, nobody would have even stopped the car!!!!!!
The border with Canada is like a bed of flowers with no fence, and if
you don't smell like drugs, they don't fucking even care. They don't
keep a list of undesireables at every highway and go through it to
filter out some guy named Mowat. There's too much traffic!!!!!
- Steve Walz
From caf-talk Caf Jun 26 15:31:45 1992
From: rstevew@deeptht.santa-cruz.ca.us (Richard Steven Walz)
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,alt.sex,alt.config,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
Subject: Re: Farlay Mowat and Free Speech (was: Congratulations...)
Message-ID: <1992Jun24.015803.16987@deeptht.santa-cruz.ca.us>
Date: 24 Jun 92 01:58:03 GMT
In article rdippold@cancun.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) writes:
>mephron@tronsbox.xei.com (Mephron) writes:
>>One of the wonderful things (NOT!) about the USA is the INS - Immigration
>>and Naturalization Service. THEY decide if someone can come in. If Mr.
>>Mowat was coming across the border for some kind of presentation in the US,
>>The INS requires some form of confirmation of artistic merit for his visit.
>>(Bloody hell to determine what Artistic Merit is from THEIR guidelines.)
>
>It's just another one of the "benefits" of our large government.
>People beg the government to do more and grow more, then get surprised
>with shit like this...
>--
>Gosh, that takes me back... or forward. That's the trouble with time
>travel, you never can tell.
------
Actually, according to the stupid prejudices of the current president
and the butt kissing attitude of his department of state, the INS is
given guidelines for who they let in, IF SOMEONE IS STUPID ENOUGH TO
ASK THEM! If Mowat had gone to your typical "checkpoint Charlie" and
said, I grew up in (wherever), and I want to visit friends and shop
for a couple weeks in the states, no one would have given a flying
fuck. They aren't going to search through a huge list of potentially
undesireables, which is after the list of wanted felons, to bother
with him if they have even slight traffic. They will just say,
okey-dokey, and wave him through. That's how I have gotten in and out
of Canada and back here, even though I smelled like cannabis and was
carrying a bayonet!!!! I think I've been to Canada about eight times
and I was never stopped except to be asked where I was born. Once they
checked my ID. Big whopee!
- Steve Walz
From caf-talk Caf Jun 26 15:31:48 1992
From: rstevew@deeptht.santa-cruz.ca.us (Richard Steven Walz)
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,alt.config,alt.sex.bondage,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.sex
Subject: Re: Farlay Mowat and Free Speech (was: Congratulations...)
Message-ID: <1992Jun24.042438.18881@deeptht.santa-cruz.ca.us>
Date: 24 Jun 92 04:24:38 GMT
In article <1992Jun19.063815.10006@ecst.csuchico.edu> tyu@ecst.csuchico.edu (shit fetish) writes:
>>What I was is surprised that someone would paint the US as being in a
>>terrorist state. It's not. I should know, I live here. I have friends
>>that have lived in war zones a large part of their lives. The US is
>>not a war zone. The average person does not live in fear.
>>
>It depends on what you mean by U.S. I bet you live in a nice
>white suburban neighborhood, but a large percent of iner-city
>americans do live in fear day to day and drive by shooting
>is very common, worse than Middle East.
>Did you know more people were murdered in New York city
>then American military men during the period of Gulf war?
-------
Give us a break. You make it sound like "a large percent of iner-city
americans do live in fear..." etc. means that a large percent of
americans live in fear in the inner city, which is nowhere near true.
The inner city areas which are dangerous are quite small and isolated
from surrounding access. You almost have to search for them. And the
Middle East is relatively safe depending upon who you are compared to
many places in any inner city, and maybe even some suburbs as far as
crime goes. They cut off your hands, you know.
And during what period in New York City, and which precinct? That's a
big place. And we lost so few in Iraq and Saudi that one plane crash
about covered it too. Let's ban planes. You're a joke.
- Steve Walz
From caf-talk Caf Jun 26 16:53:17 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: O'Hara_Walter@tysons.bah.pc.niaid.nih.gov (O'Hara Walter)
Subject: request
Message-ID: <2a4b83e7@Tysons.BAH.pc.niaid.nih.gov>
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1992 21:53:59 GMT
SUBSCRIBE
I would like to contribute to the EFF list.. thanks.
From caf-talk Caf Jun 26 17:05:45 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,misc.legal,alt.censorship
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Airport speech
Message-ID: <1992Jun26.210538.12664@eff.org>
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1992 21:05:38 GMT
The Court ruled that neither by tradition nor purpose can the airport
terminals be decribed as public fora. The Port Authority airports are
thus nonpublic fora, and thus "reasonable" restrictions, such as a ban
on solicitation, are Constitutional. A ban on literature distribution,
however, is unreasonable.
The Supreme Court orders, summaries, and opinions for this case are
available by anonymous ftp (the preferred method) and by email. To get
the files via ftp, do an anonymous ftp to ftp.eff.org (192.88.144.4),
and get file(s):
pub/academic/law/iskcon-v-lee
To get the files by email, send email to archive-server@eff.org.
Include the line(s) (be sure to include the space before the file
name):
send acad-freedom/law iskcon-v-lee
--
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
=kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
From caf-talk Caf Jun 26 18:09:14 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,misc.legal,alt.censorship,comp.org.eff.talk
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Airport speech
Message-ID: <1992Jun26.220906.13620@eff.org>
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1992 22:09:06 GMT
I found the majority's (Rehnquist, White, O'Connor, Scalia, Thomas)
reasoning very disturbing. The gist of what they said what that even
if publicly-owned ship terminals are public forums, airplane terminals
are not because they haven't been around long enough to be
"traditional". This reasoning doesn't bode well for computer rights.
A minority (Kennedy, Souter, Blackmun, Stevens) advocates a much
better (in my opinion) functional approach.
[Think about this when voting for President and senators.]
I'm enclosing 1) highlights from the minority opinions (which mention
new technology) 2) everything from the minority's opinion on the
public forum question 3) information on how to get the full opinion
and related information.
- Carl
(From Kennedy:)
"I believe that the Court's public forum analysis in this case is
inconsistent with the values underlying the speech and press clauses
of the First Amendment."
"[The majority] analysis is flawed at its very beginning. It leaves
the government with almost unlimited authority to restrict speech on
its property by doing nothing more than articulating a
non-speech-related purpose for the area, and it leaves almost no scope
for the development of new public forums absent the rare approval of
the government."
"In my view the policies underlying the doctrine cannot be given effect
unless we recognize that open, public spaces and thorough-fares which
are suitable for discourse may be public forums, whatever their
historical pedigree and without concern for a precise classification
of the property. [...] Without this recognition our forum doctrine
retains no relevance in times of fast-changing technology and
increasing insularity."
"In my view, our public forum doctrine must recognize this reality,
and allow the creation of public forums which do not fit within the
narrow tradition of streets, sidewalks, and parks. We have allowed
flexibility in our doctrine to meet changing technologies in other
areas of constitutional interpretation, see, e.g., Katz v. United
States, 389 U. S. 347 (1967), and I believe we must do the same with
the First Amendment."
"Under the proper circumstances I would accord public forum status to
other forms of property, regardless of its ancient or contemporary
origins and whether or not it fits within a narrow historic tradition.
If the objective, physical characteristics of the property at issue
and the actual public access and uses which have been permitted by the
government indicate that expressive activity would be appropriate and
compatible with those uses, the property is a public forum. The most
important considerations in this analysis are whether the property
shares physical similarities with more traditional public forums,
whether the government has permitted or acquiesced in broad public
access to the property, and whether expressive activity would tend to
interfere in a significant way with the uses to which the government
has as a factual matter dedicated the property."
(These are the long excerpts:)
========= Excerpt from ftp.cwru.edu:hermes/ascii/91-155.ZC.filt =============
Justice Kennedy, with whom Justice Blackmun, Justice
Stevens, and Justice Souter join as to Part I, concurring in the
judgment.
While I concur in the judgment affirming in this case, my
analysis differs in substantial respects from that of the
Court. In my view the airport corridors and shopping areas
outside of the passenger security zones, areas operated by
the Port Authority, are public forums, and speech in those
places is entitled to protection against all government
regulation inconsistent with public forum principles. The
Port Authority's blanket prohibition on the distribution or
sale of literature cannot meet those stringent standards,
and I agree it is invalid under the First and Fourteenth
Amendments. The Port Authority's rule disallowing in-
person solicitation of money for immediate payment,
however, is in my view a narrow and valid regulation of the
time, place, and manner of protected speech in this forum,
or else is a valid regulation of the nonspeech element of
expressive conduct. I would sustain the Port Authority's
ban on solicitation and receipt of funds.
I
An earlier opinion expressed my concern that -[i]f our
public forum jurisprudence is to retain vitality, we must
recognize that certain objective characteristics of Govern-
ment property and its customary use by the public may
control- the status of the property. United States v.
Kokinda, 497 U. S. 720, 737 (1990) (Kennedy, J., concur-
ring in judgment). The case before us does not heed that
principle. Our public forum doctrine ought not to be a
jurisprudence of categories rather than ideas or convert
what was once an analysis protective of expression into one
which grants the government authority to restrict speech by
fiat. I believe that the Court's public forum analysis in this
case is inconsistent with the values underlying the speech
and press clauses of the First Amendment.
Our public forum analysis has its origins in Justice
Roberts' rather sweeping dictum in Hague v. Committee for
Industrial Organization, 307 U. S. 496, 515 (1939); see also
ante, at 6. The doctrine was not stated with much precision
or elaboration, though, until our more recent decisions in
Perry Education Assn. v. Perry Local Educators' Assn., 460
U. S. 37 (1983), and Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense &
Educational Fund, Inc., 473 U. S. 788 (1985). These cases
describe a three part analysis to designate government-
owned property as either a traditional public forum, a
designated public forum, or a nonpublic forum. Perry,
supra, at 45-46; ante, at 5. The Court today holds that
traditional public forums are limited to public property
which have as -`a principal purpose . . . the free exchange
of ideas'-; ante, at 6 (quoting Cornelius, supra, at 800),
ante, at 1 (opinion of O'Connor, J.); and that this purpose
must be evidenced by a long-standing historical practice of
permitting speech. Ante, at 7; ante, at 1-2 (opinion of
O'Connor, J.). The Court also holds that designated
forums consist of property which the government intends to
open for public discourse. Ante, at 6, citing Cornelius,
supra, at 802; ante, at 2 (opinion of O'Connor, J.). All
other types of property are, in the Court's view, nonpublic
forums (in other words, not public forums), and govern-
ment-imposed restrictions of speech in these places will be
upheld so long as reasonable and viewpoint-neutral. Under
this categorical view the application of public-forum
analysis to airport terminals seems easy. Airports are of
course public spaces of recent vintage, and so there can be
no time-honored tradition associated with airports of
permitting free speech. Ante, at 7. And because govern-
ments have often attempted to restrict speech within
airports, it follows a fortiori under the Court's analysis that
they cannot be so-called -designated- forums. Ibid. So, the
Court concludes, airports must be nonpublic forums, subject
to minimal First Amendment protection.
This analysis is flawed at its very beginning. It leaves
the government with almost unlimited authority to restrict
speech on its property by doing nothing more than articu-
lating a non-speech-related purpose for the area, and it
leaves almost no scope for the development of new public
forums absent the rare approval of the government. The
Court's error lies in its conclusion that the public-forum
status of public property depends on the government's
defined purpose for the property, or on an explicit decision
by the government to dedicate the property to expressive
activity. In my view, the inquiry must be an objective one,
based on the actual, physical characteristics and uses of the
property. The fact that in our public-forum cases we
discuss and analyze these precise characteristics tends to
support my position. Perry, supra, at 46-48; Cornelius,
supra, at 804-806; Kokinda, supra, at 727-729 (plurality
opinion).
The First Amendment is a limitation on government, not
a grant of power. Its design is to prevent the government
from controlling speech. Yet under the Court's view the
authority of the government to control speech on its
property is paramount, for in almost all cases the critical
step in the Court's analysis is a classification of the
property that turns on the government's own definition or
decision, unconstrained by an independent duty to respect
the speech its citizens can voice there. The Court acknowl-
edges as much, by reintroducing today into our First
Amendment law a strict doctrinal line between the propri-
etary and regulatory functions of government which I
thought had been abandoned long ago. Ante, at 4-5;
compare Davis v. Massachusetts, 167 U. S. 43 (1897); with
Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization, supra, at
515; Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147 (1939); Grayned v.
City of Rockford, 408 U. S. 104, 115-116 (1972).
The Court's approach is contrary to the underlying
purposes of the public forum doctrine. The liberties
protected by our doctrine derive from the Assembly, as well
as the Speech and Press Clauses of the First Amendment,
and are essential to a functioning democracy. See Kalven,
The Concept of the Public Forum: Cox v. Louisiana, 1965
S. Ct. Rev. 1, 14, 19. Public places are of necessity the
locus for discussion of public issues, as well as protest
against arbitrary government action. At the heart of our
jurisprudence lies the principle that in a free nation citizens
must have the right to gather and speak with other persons
in public places. The recognition that certain government-
owned property is a public forum provides open notice to
citizens that their freedoms may be exercised there without
fear of a censorial government, adding tangible reinforce-
ment to the idea that we are a free people.
A fundamental tenet of our Constitution is that the
government is subject to constraints which private persons
are not. The public forum doctrine vindicates that principle
by recognizing limits on the government's control over
speech activities on property suitable for free expression.
The doctrine focuses on the physical characteristics of the
property because government ownership is the source of its
purported authority to regulate speech. The right of speech
protected by the doctrine, however, comes not from a
Supreme Court dictum but from the constitutional recogni-
tion that the government cannot impose silence on a free
people.
The Court's analysis rests on an inaccurate view of
history. The notion that traditional public forums are
property which have public discourse as their principal
purpose is a most doubtful fiction. The types of property
that we have recognized as the quintessential public forums
are streets, parks, and sidewalks. Cornelius, 473 U. S., at
802; Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U. S. 474, 480-481 (1988). It
would seem apparent that the principal purpose of streets
and sidewalks, like airports, is to facilitate transportation,
not public discourse, and we have recognized as much.
Schneider v. State, supra, at 160. Similarly, the purpose for
the creation of public parks may be as much for beauty and
open space as for discourse. Thus under the Court's
analysis, even the quintessential public forums would
appear to lack the necessary elements of what the Court
defines as a public forum.
The effect of the Court's narrow view of the first category
of public forums is compounded by its description of the
second purported category, the so-called -designated- forum.
The requirements for such a designation are so stringent
that I cannot be certain whether the category has any
content left at all. In any event, it seems evident that
under the Court's analysis today few if any types of
property other than those already recognized as public
forums will be accorded that status.
The Court's answer to these objections appears to be a
recourse to history as justifying its recognition of streets,
parks, and sidewalks, but apparently no other types of
government property, as traditional public forums. Ante, at
7-8. The Court ignores the fact that the purpose of the
public forum doctrine is to give effect to the broad command
of the First Amendment to protect speech from governmen-
tal interference. The jurisprudence is rooted in historic
practice, but it is not tied to a narrow textual command
limiting the recognition of new forums. In my view the
policies underlying the doctrine cannot be given effect
unless we recognize that open, public spaces and thorough-
fares which are suitable for discourse may be public forums,
whatever their historical pedigree and without concern for
a precise classification of the property. There is support in
our precedents for such a view. See Lehman v. City of
Shaker Heights, 418 U. S. 298, 303 (1974) (plurality
opinion); Hague, 307 U. S., at 515 (speaking of -streets and
public places- as forums). Without this recognition our
forum doctrine retains no relevance in times of fast-chang-
ing technology and increasing insularity. In a country
where most citizens travel by automobile, and parks all too
often become locales for crime rather than social inter-
course, our failure to recognize the possibility that new
types of government property may be appropriate forums
for speech will lead to a serious curtailment of our expres-
sive activity.
One of the places left in our mobile society that is
suitable for discourse is a metropolitan airport. It is of
particular importance to recognize that such spaces are
public forums because in these days an airport is one of the
few government-owned spaces where many persons have
extensive contact with other members of the public. Given
that private spaces of similar character are not subject to
the dictates of the First Amendment, see Hudgens v. NLRB,
424 U. S. 507 (1976), it is critical that we preserve these
areas for protected speech. In my view, our public forum
doctrine must recognize this reality, and allow the creation
of public forums which do not fit within the narrow tradi-
tion of streets, sidewalks, and parks. We have allowed
flexibility in our doctrine to meet changing technologies in
other areas of constitutional interpretation, see, e.g., Katz
v. United States, 389 U. S. 347 (1967), and I believe we
must do the same with the First Amendment.
I agree with the Court that government property of a type
which by history and tradition has been available for speech
activity must continue to be recognized as a public forum.
Ante, at 7. In my view, however, constitutional protection
is not confined to these properties alone. Under the proper
circumstances I would accord public forum status to other
forms of property, regardless of its ancient or contemporary
origins and whether or not it fits within a narrow historic
tradition. If the objective, physical characteristics of the
property at issue and the actual public access and uses
which have been permitted by the government indicate that
expressive activity would be appropriate and compatible
with those uses, the property is a public forum. The most
important considerations in this analysis are whether the
property shares physical similarities with more traditional
public forums, whether the government has permitted or
acquiesced in broad public access to the property, and
whether expressive activity would tend to interfere in a
significant way with the uses to which the government has
as a factual matter dedicated the property. In conducting
the last inquiry, courts must consider the consistency of
those uses with expressive activities in general, rather than
the specific sort of speech at issue in the case before it;
otherwise the analysis would be one not of classification but
rather of case-by-case balancing, and would provide little
guidance to the State regarding its discretion to regulate
speech. Courts must also consider the availability of
reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions in under-
taking this compatibility analysis. The possibility of some
theoretical inconsistency between expressive activities and
the property's uses should not bar a finding of a public
forum, if those inconsistencies can be avoided through
simple and permitted regulations.
The second category of the Court's jurisprudence, the so-
called designated forum, provides little, if any, additional
protection for speech. Where government property does not
satisfy the criteria of a public forum, the government
retains the power to dedicate the property for speech,
whether for all expressive activity or for limited purposes
only. See ante, at 5; Perry, 460 U. S., at 45-46; Southeast-
ern Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad, 420 U. S. 546 (1975). I do
not quarrel with the fact that speech must often be restrict-
ed on property of this kind to retain the purpose for which
it has been designated. And I recognize that when property
has been designated for a particular expressive use, the
government may choose to eliminate that designation. But
this increases the need to protect speech in other places,
where discourse may occur free of such restrictions. In
some sense the government always retains authority to
close a public forum, by selling the property, changing its
physical character, or changing its principal use. Otherwise
the State would be prohibited from closing a park, or
eliminating a street or sidewalk, which no one has under-
stood the public forum doctrine to require. The difference
is that when property is a protected public forum the State
may not by fiat assert broad control over speech or expres-
sive activities; it must alter the objective physical character
or uses of the property, and bear the attendant costs, to
change the property's forum status.
Under this analysis, it is evident that the public spaces
of the Port Authority's airports are public forums. First,
the District Court made detailed findings regarding the
physical similarities between the Port Authority's airports
and public streets. 721 F. Supp. 572, 576-577 (SDNY
1989). These findings show that the public spaces in the
airports are broad, public thoroughfares full of people and
lined with stores and other commercial activities. An
airport corridor is of course not a street, but that is not the
proper inquiry. The question is one of physical similarities,
sufficient to suggest that the airport corridor should be a
public forum for the same reasons that streets and side-
walks have been treated as public forums by the people who
use them.
Second, the airport areas involved here are open to the
public without restriction. Ibid. Plaintiffs do not seek
access to the secured areas of the airports, nor do I suggest
that these areas would be public forums. And while most
people who come to the Port Authority's airports do so for
a reason related to air travel, either because they are
passengers or because they are picking up or dropping off
passengers, this does not distinguish an airport from streets
or sidewalks, which most people use for travel. See supra,
at ---. Further, the group visiting the airports encom-
passes a vast portion of the public: In 1986 the Authority's
three airports served over 78 million passengers. It is the
very breadth and extent of the public's use of airports that
makes it imperative to protect speech rights there. Of
course, airport operators retain authority to restrict public
access when necessary, for instance to respond to special
security concerns. But if the Port Authority allows the uses
and open access to airports that is shown on this record, it
cannot argue that some vestigial power to change its
practices bars the conclusion that its airports are public
forums, any more than the power to bulldoze a park bars a
finding that a public forum exists so long as the open use
does.
Third, and perhaps most important, it is apparent from
the record, and from the recent history of airports, that
when adequate time, place, and manner regulations are in
place, expressive activity is quite compatible with the uses
of major airports. The Port Authority's primary argument
to the contrary is that the problem of congestion in its
airports' corridors makes expressive activity inconsistent
with the airports' primary purpose, which is to facilitate air
travel. The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But
that is besides the point. Inconvenience does not absolve
the government of its obligation to tolerate speech. The
Authority makes no showing that any real impediments to
the smooth functioning of the airports cannot be cured with
reasonable time, place, and manner regulations. In fact,
the history of the Authority's own airports, as well as other
major airports in this country, leaves little doubt that such
a solution is quite feasible. The Port Authority has for
many years permitted expressive activities by the plaintiffs
and others, without any apparent interference with its
ability to meet its transportation purposes. App. 462,
469-470; see also ante, at 8 (opinion of O'Connor, J.). The
Federal Aviation Authority, in its operation of the airports
of the Nation's capital, has issued rules which allow
regulated expressive activity within specified areas, without
any suggestion that the speech would be incompatible with
the airports' business. 14 CFR 159.93, 159.94 (1992).
And in fact expressive activity has been a commonplace
feature of our Nation's major airports for many years, in
part because of the wide consensus among the Courts of
Appeals, prior to the decision in this case, that the public
spaces of airports are public forums. See, e.g., Chicago
Area Military Project v. Chicago, 508 F. 2d 921 (CA7), cert.
denied, 421 U. S. 992 (1975); Fernandes v. Limmer, 663 F.
2d 619 (CA5 1981), cert. dism'd, 458 U. S. 1124 (1982);
United States Southwest Africa/Namibia Trade & Cultural
Council v. United States, 228 U. S. App. D.C. 191, 708 F. 2d
760 (1983); Jews for Jesus, Inc. v. Board of Airport Com-
m'rs, 785 F. 2d 791 (CA9 1986), aff'd on other grounds, 482
U. S. 569 (1987); Jamison v. St. Louis, 828 F. 2d 1280 (CA8
1987), cert. denied, 485 U. S. 987 (1988). As the District
Court recognized, the logical consequence of Port Author-
ity's congestion argument is that the crowded streets and
sidewalks of major cities cannot be public forums. 721 F.
Supp., at 578. These problems have been dealt with in the
past, and in other settings, through proper time, place, and
manner restrictions; and the Port Authority does not make
any showing that similar regulations would not be effective
in its airports. The Port Authority makes a half-hearted
argument that the special security concerns associated with
airports suggest they are not public forums; but this
position is belied by the unlimited public access the
Authority allows to its airports. This access demonstrates
that the Port Authority does not consider the general public
to pose a serious security threat, and there is no evidence
in the record that persons engaged in expressive activities
are any different.
The danger of allowing the government to suppress
speech is shown in the case now before us. A grant of
plenary power allows the government to tilt the dialogue
heard by the public, to exclude many, more marginal voices.
The first challenged Port Authority regulation establishes
a flat prohibition on -[t]he sale or distribution of flyers,
brochures, pamphlets, books or any other printed or written
material,- if conducted within the airport terminal, -in a
continuous or repetitive manner.- We have long recognized
that the right to distribute flyers and literature lies at the
heart of the liberties guaranteed by the Speech and Press
Clauses of the First Amendment. See, e.g., Schneider v.
State, 308 U. S. 147 (1939); Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319
U. S. 105 (1943). The Port Authority's rule, which prohibits
almost all such activity, is among the most restrictive
possible of those liberties. The regulation is in fact so broad
and restrictive of speech, Justice O'Connor finds it void
even under the standards applicable to government regula-
tions in nonpublic forums. Ante, at 7-8. I have no difficul-
ty deciding the regulation cannot survive the far more strin-
gent rules applicable to regulations in public forums. The
regulation is not drawn in narrow terms and it does not
leave open ample alternative channels for communication.
See Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U. S. 781, 791
(1989). The Port Authority's concerns with the problem of
congestion can be addressed through narrow restrictions on
the time and place of expressive activity, see ante, at 8
(opinion of O'Connor, J.). I would strike down the regula-
tion as an unconstitutional restriction of speech.
========= Excerpt from ftp.cwru.edu:hermes/ascii/91-155.ZX2.filt ============
Justice Souter, with whom Justice Blackmun and
Justice Stevens join, concurring in the judgment in No.
91-339 and dissenting in No. 91-155.
I
I join in Part I of Justice Kennedy's opinion and the
judgment of affirmance in No. 91-339. I agree with
Justice Kennedy's view of the rule that should determine
what is a public forum and with his conclusion that the
public areas of the airports at issue here qualify as such.
The designation of a given piece of public property as a
traditional public forum must not merely state a conclusion
that the property falls within a static category including
streets, parks, sidewalks and perhaps not much more, but
must represent a conclusion that the property is no differ-
ent in principle from such examples, which we have
previously described as -archetypes- of property from which
the government was and is powerless to exclude speech.
See Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U. S. 474, 480 (1988). To treat
the class of such forums as closed by their description as
-traditional,- taking that word merely as a charter for
examining the history of the particular public property
claimed as a forum, has no warrant in a Constitution whose
values are not to be left behind in the city streets that are
no longer the only focus of our community life. If that were
the line of our direction, we might as well abandon the
public forum doctrine altogether.
Nor is that a Scylla without Charybdis. Public forum
analysis is stultified not only by treating its archetypes as
closed categories, but by treating its candidates so categori-
cally as to defeat their identification with the archetypes.
We need not say that all -transportation nodes- or all
airports are public forums in order to find that certain
metropolitan airports are. Thus, the enquiry may and must
relate to the particular property at issue and not necessari-
ly to the -precise classification of the property.- See ante,
at 6 (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment). It is true that
property of some types will invariably be public forums.
-No particularized inquiry into the precise nature of a
specific street is necessary; all public streets are held in the
public trust and are properly considered traditional public
fora.- Frisby, supra, at 481. But to find one example of a
certain property type (e.g., airports, post offices, etc.) that
is not a public forum is not to rule out all properties of that
sort. Cf. United States v. Kokinda, 497 U. S. 720, 727
(1990) (plurality opinion of O'Connor, J.), (implicitly
rejecting the categorical approach by examining whether
-[t]he postal sidewalk at issue . . . [has] the characteristics
of public sidewalks traditionally open to expressive activ-
ity-). One can imagine a public airport of a size or design
or need for extraordinary security that would render
expressive activity incompatible with its normal use. But
that would be no reason to conclude that one of the more
usual variety of metropolitan airports is not a public forum.
I also agree with Justice Kennedy's statement of the
public forum principle: we should classify as a public forum
any piece of public property that is -suitable for discourse-
in its physical character, where expressive activity is
-compatible- with the use to which it has actually been put.
See ante, at 7, 6 (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment); see
also Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U. S. 104, 116 (1972)
(-The crucial question is whether the manner of expression
is basically incompatible with the normal activity of a
particular place at a particular time-); ante, at 8 (O'Con-
nor, J., concurring in No. 91-155 and concurring in judg-
ment in No. 91-339) (finding that the ban on the sale or
distribution of leaflets here must be struck down -[b]ecause
I cannot see how peaceful pamphleteering is incompatible
with the multipurpose environment of the Port Authority
airports,- and concluding that regulations of leafletting may
thus only be upheld if they pass scrutiny under our test for
restrictions on time, place or manner of speech). Applying
this test, I have no difficulty concluding that the unleased
public areas at airports like the metropolitan New York
airports at issue in this case are public forums.
II
From the Court's conclusion in No. 91-155, however,
sustaining the total ban on solicitation of money for
immediate payment, I respectfully dissent. -We have held
the solicitation of money by charities to be fully protected
as the dissemination of ideas. See [Riley v. National
Federation of Blind of N. C., Inc., 487 U. S. 781,] 787-789
[(1988)]; Secretary of State of Maryland v. Joseph H.
Munson Co., 467 U. S. 947, 959-961 (1984); Schaumburg v.
Citizens for a Better Environment, 444 U. S. 620, 628-632
(1980). It is axiomatic that, although fraudulent misrepre-
sentation of facts can be regulated, the dissemination of
ideas cannot be regulated to prevent it from being unfair
or unreasonable.- Riley v. National Federation of Blind
of N. C., Inc., 487 U. S. 781, 803 (1988) (Scalia, J., concur-
ring in part and concurring in judgment) (some citations
omitted).
[...]
ANNOTATED REFERENCES
(All these documents are available on-line. Access information follows.)
=================
law/iskcon-v-lee
=================
Supreme Court orders, summaries, and opinions for case 91-155 (_ISKCON
v. Lee_) and 91-339 (_Lee v. ISKCON_).
ISKCON is the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.
The Court ruled that neither by tradition nor purpose can the airport
terminals be decribed as public fora (forums). The Port Authority
airports are thus nonpublic fora, and thus "reasonable" restrictions,
such as a ban on solicitation, are Constitutional. A ban on literature
distribution, however, is unreasonable.
=================
law/perry-v-perry
=================
Comments from the ACLU Handbook _The Rights of _Teachers_. It says
that campus mail systems (and other school facilities) can be limited
public forums. (Perry v. Perry was about an interschool mail system.
It was one of the cases that defined the Public Forum Doctrine.)
Also, a paraphrase from an ACLU handbook _The Rights of Teachers_. It
says that generally, speech, if otherwise shielded from punishment by
the First Amendment, does not lose that protection because its tone is
sharp.
Also, from p. 92, it says that there are legal limits to the oaths a
(public) school can ask its teachers to sign. [Some of these same
limits might apply to what a school can ask a user to sign as a
condition of getting (or keeping) a computer account.]
=================
law/san-diego-committee-v-gov-bd
=================
Excerpts from San Diego Committee v. Governing Bd., 790 F.2d 1471. A
decision by an appellate court that applied the Supreme Court's Public
Forum Doctrine (to a school newspaper).
=================
law/stanley-v-magrath
=================
Comments from _Public Schools Law: Teachers' and Students' Rights_ 2nd
Ed. by Martha M. McCarthy and Nelda H. Cambron-McCabe, published in
1987 by Allyn and Bacon, Inc. It says, in part, "[a]lthough school
boards are not obligated to support student papers, if a given
publication was originally created as a free speech forum, removal of
financial or other school board support can be construed as an
unlawful effort to stifle free expression." Also, "school
authorities cannot withdraw support from a student publication simply
because of displeasure with the content" and "the content of a
school-sponsored paper that is established as a medium for student
expression cannot be regulated more closely than a nonsponsored
paper". Also, it tells what to do about libel in student
publications.
=================
=================
These document(s) are available by anonymous ftp (the preferred
method) and by email. To get the file(s) via ftp, do an anonymous ftp
to ftp.eff.org (192.88.144.4), and get file(s):
pub/academic/law/iskcon-v-lee
pub/academic/law/perry-v-perry
pub/academic/law/san-diego-committee-v-gov-bd
pub/academic/law/stanley-v-magrath
To get the file(s) by email, send email to archive-server@eff.org.
Include the line(s) (be sure to include the space before the file
name):
send acad-freedom/law iskcon-v-lee
send acad-freedom/law perry-v-perry
send acad-freedom/law san-diego-committee-v-gov-bd
send acad-freedom/law stanley-v-magrath
--
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
=kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
From caf-talk Caf Jun 26 18:25:36 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,misc.legal,alt.censorship
From: kadie@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: Airport speech
Message-ID: <1992Jun26.221641.20795@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1992 22:16:41 GMT
[Here is the UPI article. - Carl]
Copyright 1992 by UPI. Reposted with permission from the ClariNet
Electronic Newspaper newsgroup clari.biz.courts, et al. For more info
on ClariNet, write to info@clarinet.com or phone 1-800-USE-NETS.
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- The Supreme Court ruled Friday the Hare Krishnas
and members of other religious groups can be barred from soliciting
money inside airports, but cannot be prohibited from distributing
literature.
The court, by a 6-3 vote, upheld a ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals that allowed operators of the three major airports in
the New York City area to ban religious groups from seeking donations.
But the high court, in a 5-4 split, said Hare Krishnas and others
cannot likewise be barred from handing out free booklets that explain
their religious philosophy inside the nation's airports.
The 2nd Circuit ruled 16 months ago that while religious groups
cannot be banned from distributing literature inside John F. Kennedy
International, La Guardia and Newark International airports, they can be
prohibited from asking for money.
The high court Friday upheld both aspects of that decision.
The 2nd Circuit ruling conflicted with decisions from five other
federal appeals courts that airport terminals are complete ``public
forums.''
The high court Friday said airport terminals are not public forums --
which are places entitled to the broadest free speech protections.
``The tradition of airport activity does not demonstrate that
airports have historically been made available for free speech activity,
'' Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote for the court.
Because airport terminals are not public forums -- like parks or
sidewalks -- free speech can be restricted on a finding that a government
regulation is ``reasonable,'' something Rehnquist said is clearly
evident here.
The case stemmed from a 1975 lawsuit against the Port Authority of
New York and New Jersey, which operates the airports.
The International Society for Krishna Consciousness claimed the
policy violates freedom of speech and religious liberty.
Hare Krishnas claim the ``very lifeblood'' of their movement is for
devotees to ``venture into public places for the purposes of chanting
the names of God, proselytizing members of the public, distributing
religious literature and soliciting support for the religion.''
If barred from seeking funds in the New York airports, the Hare
Krishnas -- introduced to the United States in 1965 -- would be denied
access to more than 80 million potential donors a year, the group
claimed.
The Port Authority said airport passenger terminals are not public
forums because their ``sole function'' is to facilitate air travel, not
communication.
The court majority Friday agreed. ``The inconveniences to passengers
and the burdens on Port Authority officials flowing from solicitation
activity may seem small, but viewed against the fact that 'pedestrian
congestion is one of the greatest problems facing the three terminals',
the Port Authority could reasonably worry that even such incremental
effects would prove quite disruptive,'' wrote Rehnquist.
The 6-3 portion of the ruling allowing a ban on asking for money was
joined by justices Byron White, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia,
Clarence Thomas and -- in part -- by Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Kennedy wrote that while he believes passenger terminals are public
forums and a blanket ban on solicitation violates the First and 14th
amendments, the Port Authority ban -- disallowing in-person solicitation
for ``immediate payment'' -- is a legally ``narrow and valid regulation.''
But Kennedy criticized the majority for its rationale in refusing to
find airport terminals public forums, and said Rehnquist's reliance on
tradition means government in the future will be able to halt
solicitation in new endeavors that do not have a ``history'' of free
speech expression to back them up.
``It leaves the government with almost unlimited authority to
restrict speech on its property by doing nothing more than articulating
a non-speech-related purpose for the area, and it leaves almost no scope
for the development of new public forums absent the rare approval of the
government,'' wrote Kennedy.
``The court's error lies in its conclusion that the public-forum
status of public property depends on the government's defined purpose
for the property, or on an explicit decision by the government to
dedicate the property to expressive activity,'' Kennedy continued. ``In
my view, the inquiry must be an objective one, based on the actual,
physical characteristics and uses of the property.''
Justice David Souter dissented from the solicitation ban, joined by
justices Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens.
``I do not think the Port Authority's solicitation ban leaves open
the 'ample' channels of communication required of a valid content-
neutral time, place and manner restriction,'' wrote Souter.
The court's 5-4 ruling in the second aspect of the case -- agreeing
that a ban on the free distribution of literature is ``invalid'' under
the First Amendment -- came in a one-paragraph, unsigned ``per curiam''
opinion backed by Blackmun, Stevens, O'Connor, Kennedy and Souter.
Rehnquist filed a dissent from that aspect of the ruling, joined by
White, Scalia and Thomas.
``Leafletting presents risks of congestion similar to those posed by
solicitation,'' wrote Rehnquist. ``...Viewed in this light, I conclude
that the distribution ban, no less than the solicitation ban, is
reasonable.''
Rehnquist also said allowing leafletting, but not solicitation, may
prove a ``Pyrrhic victory'' that will force airport officials to spend
time monitoring leafletting to ensure it does not include requests for
money.
The combined rulings are expected to prompt airports nationwide to
consider adopting bans on solicitation similar to those in New York.
------
91-155 International Society for Krishna Consciousness, et al., vs.
Walter Lee
91-339 Walter Lee vs. International Society for Krishna Consciousness,
et al.
--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@cs.uiuc.edu -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
From caf-talk Caf Jun 27 00:05:48 1992
From: martelli@cadlab.sublink.org (Alex Martelli)
Newsgroups: news.admin,alt.censorship,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,news.future,news.groups
Subject: Re: would this be censorship?
Message-ID: <1992Jun25.092338.8704@cadlab.sublink.org>
Date: 25 Jun 92 09:23:38 GMT
tt@tarzan.jyu.fi (Tapani Tarvainen) writes:
...
:Censorship is not the only problem -- the sheer volume of information
:is a big problem also. Important information can be lost not only
:because it's suppressed but also because it's buried under irrelevant
:stuff one has no time to scan through.
Agree 100% - information overload is getting to be as big a problem as
censorship itself.
:I believe the mechanism outlined above would be useful for some groups
:-- not all, it would be just another alternative between normal
:moderation and none at all, and of course it'd have to be voted on
:just like normal moderation or name change or whatever.
Disagree. No need to vote or make it official in any way. We could have
MULTIPLE "selectors/critics/commentors/digestors" for a group, all self
selected, each of whom, if he or she feels like it, could post a particular
type of followup to any article, suggesting others to read, or not to
read, it, or better still commenting on it with appropriate keywords so
as to cathegorize the article and let potential readers select or kill
it more easily. It would help if there were some easy way to distinguish
such comment-posts from "normal" posts even for users of old software, or
the "comment-post" traffic could become annoying to such users. An
experiment I believe would be REALLY worthwhile would be to take a group,
make another group for such comments on it (so those not interested can
easily avoid receiving the comment-posts) and other metadiscussion, and
hack a few newsreaders appropriately [Distribution:, or suitable other
headers, might also work instead of the comment-post group, but selecting
out the comment-posts would then be harder for people not interested if
their, or their feeder's, sw is not up to it].
Let's see how this might work, with an example scenario. Suppose group
alt.lang.basic is selected for this experiment; alt.lang.basic.metadisc
is then formed. Angela A, who wants to read all of alt.lang.basic anyway
for her own reasons, decides to start metaposting as a public service.
She follows up to all articles she reads, with a special key in her
suitably hacked newsreader (say Control-F rather than just F), so that
the followup will go to .metadisc, will only refer to the article
being followed up, and will carry some suitable header identifiying
it as a comment-post. In the body of the metapost, she only puts a few
keywords per article - maybe "C64" would mean the article will only make
sense for C64 Basic, ditto "GW" for GWbasic, etc; "drivel" or "gem" would
express her evaluation of the article; "humor", "flame", "beginner",
"technical", "interpreter-writers-only", or whatever, might categorize
it further. Buster B, a sometime reader of alt.lang.basic, decides to
tak advantage of the new service, and in HIS hacked newsreader is a way
to autoselect, or autokill, articles based not only on the article
itself, but optionally on the comments in .metadisc by one or more
commentors he, personally, respects the opinions of.
Nothing says Angela A is the ONLY commentor on alt.lang.basic! Indeed
Charlie C often disagrees with her (he knows because in HIS newsreader he
reads all of alt.lang.basic anyway, PLUS for each article he sees the
commentors' opinions of it), so much that he decides to become a
commentor too, countering some of her "drivel" comments with a "don't-miss"
of his own, and viceversa. Now Buster gets to make a choice - he may
autokill articles panned by BOTH Angela and Charlie, autoselect those
praised by both, and get presented on the menu for non-automatic selection
those where they disagree, with info on what both thought of the article.
After a while he finds he actually agrees with Charlie much more often
than with Angela, and may set his newsreader to let Charlie's opinion
override Angela's, using Angela's metaposts only if nothing has been heard
by Charlie on a give article. And so on, and on.
This will of course only help readers who are in no hurry to see posts, as
it will take some time for metacommentors' feedback on various articles to
propagate. No worry! I believe most of us news fen are in the "no hurry"
cathegory for SOME groups - maybe we now avoid all of said groups, if they
are high-volume, rather than try searching for that 15-20% of articles
which WOULD actually interest us; with such mechanisms, that 15-20% would
instead get read. Many of us are in the read-all-of-it-anyway for SOME
groups which are to us of consuming interest; if the mechanism for
metacommenting is well built, we'll then be able to give a service to
others with little extra effort.
Things work like that in many others walks of life. I can't possibly go
see EVERY movie that gets screened, nor buy EVERY book; I rely on several
sources to help me select - a critic I appreciate pans or praises the
book or movie, a friend gives me a tip, some authors/directors I like so
much I'll fall for anything by them anyway, and so on. Posts are,
individually, less weighty than books or movies, but there are so many
more of them, that such selection help would be invaluable anyway.
I have studiously avoided the term "moderator". No need for ONE individual
to assume such selection-help responsibility, much less to vote on him or
her as "moderator"; multiple inputs to the individuals' selection process
will only help. If some person is SO widely agreed with, that his or her
metacomments acquire the practical status of a "soft moderator" as you
suggest, so be it; vice versa, SOME metacommentors will not be listened
to by essentially anybody, and, again, so be it. In most cases I believe
one will want to weigh *several* metacommentos' opinions (automatically in
one's newsreader selector/killer), if the idea takes roots and many people
begin to metacomment.
--
Email: martelli@cadlab.sublink.org Phone: ++39 (51) 6130360
CAD.LAB s.p.a., v. Ronzani 7/29, Casalecchio, Italia Fax: ++39 (51) 6130294
From caf-talk Caf Jun 27 01:46:34 1992
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,alt.sex,alt.config,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: wcstom@alfred.carleton.ca (Tom Hamill)
Subject: Re: Farlay Mowat and Free Speech (was: Congratulations...)
Message-ID: <1992Jun27.053330.29149@cunews.carleton.ca>
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1992 05:33:30 GMT
In article rstevew@deeptht.santa-cruz.ca.us (Richard Steven Walz) writes:
>------
>If Mowat had gone to your typical "checkpoint Charlie" and
>said, I grew up in (wherever), and I want to visit friends and shop
>for a couple weeks in the states, no one would have given a flying
>fuck.
>
You would prefer that Farley Mowat gain entry into your country
illegally, by lying? Perhaps his personal code of ethics makes it
abhorrant to him to be less than totally honest wherever he goes,
whatever he does, whoever he deals with. Or is the concept of a code
of ethics, or of honesty, beyond your comprehension?
>They aren't going to search through a huge list of potentially
>undesireables, which is after the list of wanted felons, to bother
>with him if they have even slight traffic. They will just say,
>okey-dokey, and wave him through.
>
It is obvious that you have never had to deal with US Customs, as a
Canadian citizen trying to enter the US. If you had, you would know
that Customs officers don't have to search through a "huge list of
potentially undesirables" in order to refuse someone entry into your
country; they will do so for something as simple as appearance. It
seems that the ones who have the most difficulty usually have hair
that reaches their shoulders and their faces covered by a beard--your
Customs officers seem to automatically assume that someone who looks
like that is obviously involved in drugs and is thus entering the US
to break the law. Do you have any idea what Farley Mowat looks like?
On that basis alone he would have had to answer a lot of questions
while his background was examined for a police record or anything else
that could be used as an excuse to refuse him entry. They finally
found something, didn't they.
>That's how I have gotten in and out
>of Canada and back here, even though I smelled like cannabis and was
>carrying a bayonet!!!!
>
Excuse me, but you are an American dealing with Canadian customs to
gain entry into Canada, not a Canadian dealing with American customs
to get into the US, which is what the message you were responding to
was all about. There is a world of difference in the attitudes of the
officers on each side of the border, and in the way they handle people
seeking entry into their particular country. You really are quite
naive if you think the situation is handled the same on both sides.
>I think I've been to Canada about eight times
>and I was never stopped except to be asked where I was born. Once they
>checked my ID. Big whopee!
>- Steve Walz
>
Clearly, Canadian Customs didn't think you were a person who posed any
threat to the Canadian way of life, and consequently, gave you all the
attention you deserved. And while I do agree wholeheartedly with
their appraisal of your importance, I should write to my Member of
Parliament to suggest Customs upgrade their procedures so as to keep
dishonest druggies carrying lethal weapons out of our country.
---tom
l~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~l
l CRUSH---CompassionRespectUnderstandingSelfHonesty---CRUSH l
l How could you have ever lived your life without it? l
l Join Now, Apply Within. Spread the word. l
l____________________________ ---me, trying to save the world, l
l wcstom@alfred.carleton.ca l from itself. l
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From caf-talk Caf Jun 27 14:18:00 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.policy.admin
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Rice U. - Overview
Message-ID: <1992Jun27.181753.21585@eff.org>
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1992 18:17:53 GMT
Joseph A. Watters, the Deputy Director of Owlnet at Rice University,
has sent me updated versions of Owlnet's computer policies.
Interesting features include a Sys Admin Statement of Ethics and
student committee that advises on policy and handles some of the
discipline.
I'm enclosing Mr. Watters overview letter (with his permission) and
access information for this and related. To faciliate discussion, I'll
post the documents as separate articles.
================================
>From jaw@rice.edu Sat Jun 27 12:47:27 1992
>From: Joseph A. Watters
>Subject: Updated Rice University computing policies
>To: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu
>Date: Thu, 18 Jun 92 16:56:37 CDT
>Cc: jaw@owlnet.rice.edu (Joseph A. Watters)
>X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Mr. Kadie,
As you maintain and critique University computing policies, I thought
it appropriate to send you updated editions of many of Rice
University's computing polices. I have extensively revised and
expanded many of the computing policies that apply to the largest
educational network at Rice, Owlnet. The new policies and other
documents are included in 6 messages that follow this one. Please feel
free to critique these, and post them to an appropriate newsgroup
(comp.admin.policy?) for further public comment. You may also archive
and post all or parts of this message as explanatory comment to the
archive material. The mail messages contain:
Rice's University Computing Policy - You should already have this in
the archive. It hasn't changed, but I'm sending it along as part of
the set. Of significant note is the section requiring permission of
the Vice President for Information Systems for a student to send
communications off-campus and to access external computing facilities.
Last semester, Owlnet obtained blanket permission for student users to
access external computing facilities for educational purposes. All
Owlnet student users (1500 students) automatically receive permission
as part of their account acquisition. Existing users were given
permission also. Owlnet essentially found a way to give the students
what they wanted, access to off-campus facilities, including e-mail and
news posting, without requiring the University to go through the
relatively arduous process of changing a University wide policy.
Owlnet Policies - These are the policies that I have the most direct
control and influence over. They have been extensively revised based
upon comments from students at Rice and comments from people such as
yourself.
Owlnet Policy Enforcement Guidelines - This document has been
extensively rewritten since the last one in the archives. The major
change is a rewriting to incorporate the disciplinary function of the
Owlnet Student Advisory Committee, a new student body whose charter is
included in one of the messages.
Owlnet Student Advisory Committee Charter - This charter establishes a
student computer user committee with two main functions: proposing
and reviewing Owlnet computing policies with the purpose of having a
formal mechanism for including student input into policy formulation;
and acting as a disciplinary body for users accused of violating
Owlnet computing policies. The charter was originally written by a
student. I then formed a working group of myself, a system
administrator and four students (the proposal author was one of them)
to work out some specific issues with the charter. The result of that
working group is what you see. The charter has essentially been
adopted by the faculty committee that sets policy direction for
Owlnet, and we anticipate forming the first committee this fall.
System Administrator Statement of Ethics - This statement was
recently adopted by the system administrators in Rice's Information
Systems division (these sys admins provide services to Owlnet). It
is a statement of how they will approach user privacy and
confidentiality.
Owlnet Application Agreement - This is the agreement that all new
users sign. I believe this one is a later version than the one in
your archives.
--
Joseph A. Watters, Jr. jaw@owlnet.rice.edu
Deputy Director, Owlnet director@owlnet.rice.edu
Rice University
Houston, Texas
========================================
ANNOTATED REFERENCES
(All these documents are available on-line. Access information follows.)
=================
policies/rice.edu
=================
Computer policies for Rice University, especially Owlnet. (Rice is a
private University in Houston, Texas.) The charter for the Owlnet
Student Advisory Committe Charter is included. The two main functions
of the committee are "proposing and reviewing Owlnet computing
policies with the purpose of having a formal mechanism for including
student input into policy formulation; and acting as a disciplinary
body for users accused of violating Owlnet computing policies."
=================
policies/old.rice.edu
=================
Old computer policies ("User Agreement","Disciplinary Procedures",
"Appropriate Use") for Rice University (especially Owlnet). Rice is a
private University in Houston, Texas. These policies are under
development and subject to change. The "Disciplinary Procedures" is
interesting because it establishes a due process procedure just for
computer infractions.
(Critiqued, replaced by newer policies)
=================
policies/old.rice.edu.critique
=================
Critiques of the old computer policies at Rice University (especially
Owlnet). Updated policies are now in force.
Summaries: One critic calls the policy "uptight and authoritarian",
saying: "Requir[ing] permission ahead of time to send email or use ftp
offsite? Lock accounts with no warning? My God, why not just shoot
them in the head? It'd be kinder." The Director replies that
permission is readily given.
Another critic says that parts are too vague and that privacy
provisions may be inconsistent with general University policy,
Yet another critic says "This is the most dangerous sort of policy, if
what you say is true-- a policy which is routinely violated, but which
is enforcible against 'troublemakers'-- whereas an oppressive policy
strictly enforced will be challenged and revoked, this policy can stay
on the books forever, becoming a weapon for administrators to use on
any students who annoy them."
=================
policies/README
=================
Computer Policy and Critiques Archive
[part of the Computers and Academic Freedom (CAF) Archive
[part of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Archive]]
This is a collection of the computer policies of many schools and
networks. The collection also includes critiques of some of the
policies.
The archive is accessible via anonymous ftp and email. Ftp to
ftp.eff.org (192.88.144.4). It is in directory "pub/academic/policies".
For email access, send email to archive-server@eff.org. Include the
line:
send acad-freedom/policies
where is a list of the files that you want. File README is
a detailed description of the items in the directory.
For more information, to make contributions, or to report typos
contact Carl Kadie (kadie@eff.org). Directory "widener" contains
additional policies (but not critiques).
=================
caf
=================
A description to the comp-academic-freedom-talk mailing list. It is a
free-forum for the discussion of questions such as: How should general
principles of academic freedom (such as freedom of expression, freedom
to read, due process, and privacy) be applied to university computers
and networks? How are these principles actually being applied? How can
the principles of academic freedom as applied to computers and
networks be defended?
=================
=================
These document(s) are available by anonymous ftp (the preferred
method) and by email. To get the file(s) via ftp, do an anonymous ftp
to ftp.eff.org (192.88.144.4), and get file(s):
pub/academic/policies/rice.edu
pub/academic/policies/old.rice.edu
pub/academic/policies/old.rice.edu.critique
pub/academic/policies/README
pub/academic/caf
To get the file(s) by email, send email to archive-server@eff.org.
Include the line(s) (be sure to include the space before the file
name):
send acad-freedom/policies rice.edu
send acad-freedom/policies old.rice.edu
send acad-freedom/policies old.rice.edu.critique
send acad-freedom/policies README
send acad-freedom caf
--
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
=kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
From caf-talk Caf Jun 27 14:46:36 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.policy.admin
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: Rice U. - "Appropriate Use of Computing Facilities Policy"
Message-ID: <1992Jun27.184624.21855@eff.org>
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1992 18:46:24 GMT
>Rice's University Computing Policy - You should already have this in
>the archive. It hasn't changed, but I'm sending it along as part of
>the set. Of significant note is the section requiring permission of
>the Vice President for Information Systems for a student to send
>communications off-campus and to access external computing facilities.
>Last semester, Owlnet obtained blanket permission for student users to
>access external computing facilities for educational purposes. All
>Owlnet student users (1500 students) automatically receive permission
>as part of their account acquisition. Existing users were given
>permission also. Owlnet essentially found a way to give the students
>what they wanted, access to off-campus facilities, including e-mail and
>news posting, without requiring the University to go through the
>relatively arduous process of changing a University wide policy.
From jaw@rice.edu Sat Jun 27 12:45:08 1992
From: Joseph A. Watters
Subject: 1 of 6: Rice U. computing policies
To: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 92 16:58:10 CDT
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Rice University's Appropriate Use of Computing Facilities Policy
--
Joseph A. Watters, Jr. jaw@owlnet.rice.edu
Deputy Director, Owlnet director@owlnet.rice.edu
Rice University
University Computing Policy
Policy No. 832-90
APPROPRIATE USE OF COMPUTER FACILITIES
Rice University maintains computers, computer networks, connections
to external computer networks, and subscriptions to external
computer services, collectively referred to as ``Computer
Facilities'', for the purpose of conducting and fostering the
instructional and research activities of the University.
Rice University licenses copyrighted and proprietary programs, data
and documentation, collectively referred to as ``Licensed Software'',
for its Computer Facilities. In the course of their use of Rice's
Computer Facilities in support of the University's instructional
and research activities, the faculty, students, and staff of Rice
University and its subcontractors and agents develop programs, data
and documentation, collectively referred to as ``Software''.
In order to maximize usefulness of Computer Facilities to instructional
and research activities, the University provides access to such
Computer Facilities in the most open manner permitted by the owners or
providers of such Computer Facilities. However, individual users are
responsible for obtaining authorization prior to use of any Computer
Facility. The failure of a Computer Facility to prevent unauthorized
use does not relieve the user of this responsibility.
Proscribed Activities
The following activities involving use of Computer Facilities are
prohibited:
Transmitting unsolicited information which contains obscene, indecent,
lewd or lascivious material or other material which explicitly or
implicitly refers to sexual conduct;
Transmitting unsolicited information which contains profane language or
panders to bigotry, sexism, or other forms of discrimination;
Communicating any information concerning any password, identifying
code, personal identification number or other confidential information
without the permission of its owner or the controlling authority of the
Computer Facility to which it belongs;
Creating, modifying, executing or retransmitting any computer program
or instructions intended to gain unauthorized access to, or make
unauthorized use of, a Computer Facility, Software or Licensed
Software;
Creating, modifying, executing or retransmitting any computer program
or instructions intended to obscure the true identity of the sender of
electronic mail or electronic messages, collectively referred to as
``Messages'', including, but not limited to, forgery of Messages and/or
alteration of system and/or user data used to identify the sender of
Messages;
Accessing or intentionally destroying Software or Licensed Software in
a Computer Facility without the permission of the owner of such
Software or Licensed Software or the controlling authority of the
Facility;
Making unauthorized copies of Licensed Software;
Communicating any credit card number or other financial account number
without the permission of its owner;
Effecting or receiving unauthorized electronic transfer of funds;
Violating any laws or participating in the commission or furtherance of
any crime or other unlawful or improper purpose;
Using the Computer Facilities in a manner inconsistent with the
University's contractual obligations to suppliers of Computer
Facilities or with any published University policy.
Mailing Lists
It is the responsibility of any user of an electronic mailing list to
determine the purpose of the list before sending messages to the list
or receiving messages from the list.
Persons subscribing to an electronic mailing list will be viewed as
having solicited any material delivered by the list as long as that
material is consistent with the purpose of the list. Persons sending
to a mailing list any materials which are not consistent with the
purpose of the mailing list will be viewed as having sent unsolicited
material to the mailing list.
Student Use of External Computer Facilities
Student use of external Computer Facilities is permitted in the
following circumstances:
With the permission of the Project Director when the student's formal
involvement in a sponsored research activity requires such access,
With the permission of the supervisor when employment by a University
department requires such access, or
With the permission of the Vice President for Graduate Studies,
Research, and Information Systems when a member of the Faculty affirms
in writing that a proposed use is required by or enhances the student's
education.
Exceptions
The Vice President for Graduate Studies, Research, and Information
Systems is the point of contact for approval of any activities at
variance with the above practice.
Governing Law
In addition to University policy, unauthorized access to Computer
Facilities, Software and Licensed Software is the subject of both
Federal and State Law. A brief summary of Federal and Texas Law
relevant to this issue follows. Note that the laws of other states may
be applicable depending on the actual location of the Computer
Facility(ies) in question.
Federal Law
It is a violation of Federal Law intentionally (1) to access a computer
without authorization and thereby to obtain classified information; (2)
to access a computer without authorization and thereby to obtain
financial records of a financial institution; (3) to access any U. S.
Government computer without authorization if such conduct affects the
use of the Government's operation of the computer; (4) to access a
Federal computer without authorization with the intent to defraud; (5)
to access a financial institution or U. S. Government computer
without authorization and thereby alter, damage, or destroy information
which causes losses to others or which modifies or impairs medical
diagnosis, treatment, or care; or (6) with intent to defraud to traffic
in passwords or similar information through which a computer may be
accessed if the trafficking affects interstate commerce or the computer
is used by the U. S. Government. The penalty can be a fine or as
much as 20 years in the Federal penitentiary for certain of these
violations (18 USCA 1030).
Copyright is a constitutionally conceived property right which is
designed to promote progress of science and the useful arts by securing
for an author the benefits of his/her original work for a limited time
(US Constitution Art. I, Sec. 8). Congress has passed the Copyright
statute (17 USCA 101 et seq) to implement this policy by balancing
the author's interest against the public interest in the dissemination
of information affecting areas of universal interest.
Texas Law
It is a violation of Texas Law intentionally (1) to use a computer
without the consent of its owner or to access data stored in a computer
system without the consent of its owner or licensee if you know there
is a security system intended to prevent your doing either of these
things; (2) to give passwords, or similar confidential information
about a computer security system to another person without the consent
of the person employing the security system to restrict access to a
computer or its data; (3) to cause a computer to malfunction or to
interrupt operation of a computer system without the consent of its
owner; or (4) to alter, damage, or destroy data or a computer program
in a computer without the consent of the owner or licensee of the data
or computer program. Convictions under the Computer Crimes section of
the Texas Penal Code can result in a sentence of a fine up to 5,000
and a jail sentence up to ten years (7 Texas Penal Code, 33).
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
George Rupp
August 10, 1990
tabbing
--
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
=kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
From caf-talk Caf Jun 27 14:46:45 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.policy.admin
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: Rice U. - "Owlnet Policy Enforcement Guidelines"
Message-ID: <1992Jun27.184628.21911@eff.org>
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1992 18:46:28 GMT
>Owlnet Policy Enforcement Guidelines - This document has been
>extensively rewritten since the last one in the archives. The major
>change is a rewriting to incorporate the disciplinary function of the
>Owlnet Student Advisory Committee, a new student body whose charter is
>included in one of the messages.
From jaw@rice.edu Sat Jun 27 12:45:19 1992
From: Joseph A. Watters
Subject: Part 3 of 6: Rice U. computing policies
To: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 92 17:00:26 CDT
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Owlnet policy enforcement guidelines.
--
Joseph A. Watters, Jr. jaw@owlnet.rice.edu
Deputy Director, Owlnet director@owlnet.rice.edu
Rice University
Owlnet Policy Enforcement Guidelines
Available Penalties
Depending on the nature and severity of the policy violation, Owlnet
may take one or more of the following disciplinary actions:
a. Verbal, written, or electronic mail warning.
b. Disciplinary probation.
c. Temporary access denial (lockout).
d. Permanent access revocation.
e. Disciplinary suspension
f. Alternative punishment not involving access or usage restrictions.
If warranted, Owlnet will refer the case to an appropriate University,
Local, State, or Federal authority for further disposition.
Policy Enforcement Procedures
Owlnet procedures will generally follow those set forth in the
University Code of Judicial Procedure.
For incidents not involving system security, integrity, or performance,
the user will generally receive at least one warning before being
referred to the Owlnet Student Advisory Committee (Advisory Committee)
for disciplinary action. For reference purposes, the Advisory
Committee will receive copies of all warnings issued. However,
depending on the nature and severity of the infraction, a meeting with
the Director or Deputy Director on the first offense may be required.
Users who are required to meet with the Director or Deputy Director
will be given two class days from the date on which notification is
sent to meet with them. If the user has not met with the appropriate
person within that time, and has not been granted an extension due to
unusual circumstances that prevent them from doing so, the user's
account shall be locked until the user has meet with the Director or
Deputy Director.
Evidence of attempted or actual system security, integrity, or
performance related incidents will be cause for immediate access
denial. The purpose of access denial in these cases is to prevent
further damage to the system or data while an investigation is being
conducted as expeditiously as possible. The user or users involved
will be required to meet with the Director or Deputy Director as soon
as possible. After investigation the case may be referred to the
Advisory Committee for disciplinary action, if warranted.
Demonstrated intent to violate policy will be considered the same as an
actual policy violation. Demonstrated intent means evidence of
actions, that if successful or if carried out as intended, would result
in a policy violation.
Violations or intended violations of the University Appropriate Use of
Computing Facilities Policy (832-90) will be considered violations of
Owlnet policy as well.
Notification
Users who are required to meet with the Director or Deputy Director
will be notified via electronic mail that a meeting within the next two
class days is required. The electronic mail will describe the incident
that led to the requirement for a face-to-face meeting, and any
scheduling constraints on the part of the Director or Deputy Director
that may exist.
Users who are denied access will be notified the next time they attempt
to access the system that they have been denied access, the specific
incident that led to the access denial, and any further action they are
expected to take, such as to meet with the Director, or Deputy
Director. Users with a known mailing address will be sent a written
notification via surface mail containing the same information.
Disciplinary Process
The disciplinary process for Owlnet policy violations contains the
following steps:
1. Initial disciplinary action (warning and/or meeting with Director
or Deputy Director)
2. If warranted, referral of the case to the Owlnet Student Advisory
Committee or the appropriate external authority.
3. Disciplinary hearing by the Advisory Committee.
4. Implementation of the disciplinary decision, if any, made by the
Advisory Committee.
Initial disciplinary action will be authorized or taken by the Director
or Deputy Director of Owlnet.
In situations where the case would be referred to the Owlnet Student
Advisory Committee or other authority, the user will be given a written
statement of the charges and specifications against them within four
working days. These terms are defined as follows:
Charge(s) - A description of the specific Owlnet and/or University
policy that was violated. Each different policy violation will be a
separate charge.
Specification(s) - A description of the specific actions alleged to
have been taken by the user that violate the policy. Every charge will
have a specification, providing a one-to-one correspondence between the
user's alleged activity and the policy that it violates.
Disciplinary procedures of the Advisory Committee are described in the
Owlnet Student Advisory Committee Charter.
--
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
=kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
From caf-talk Caf Jun 27 14:46:59 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.policy.admin
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: Rice U. - "Owlnet Policies"
Message-ID: <1992Jun27.184628.21901@eff.org>
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1992 18:46:28 GMT
From jaw@rice.edu Sat Jun 27 12:45:15 1992
From: Joseph A. Watters
Subject: part 2 of 6: Rice U. computing polices
To: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 92 16:59:17 CDT
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Owlnet's computing polices.
--
Joseph A. Watters, Jr. jaw@owlnet.rice.edu
Deputy Director, Owlnet director@owlnet.rice.edu
Rice University
Appropriate Use of the System
Given Owlnet's educational mission and the need to provide all users
fair and reasonably equitable access to the system resources, the
following describes how to use Owlnet appropriately:
o Use only your own userid and password to access the network, unless
you are explicitly authorized to use a special userid and password,
such as a course account userid and password, for a designated
purpose. Do not allow other users to use your userid and password to
access the network. This is for your own protection as well as the
protection of the network in general.
o Keep your password confidential and change it at regular
intervals.
o Manage your use of system resources so as to minimize the impact of
your activities on other users. Use only the resources that you need
to complete your activity and learn how to use those resources
efficiently. Take care that you don't use excessive or unnecessary CPU
cycles, system memory, disk space, or printer supplies. For example,
don't run "find" commands on large filesystems, or otherwise severly
tax the system resources for non-coursework activities. Don't make
unnecessary printouts.
o Abide by the system mechanisms designed to insure reasonably
equitable computing resource distribution amongst all users, such as
disk space quotas, screen locking timeouts, and printing charges. Use
the designated methods to acquire a larger share of computing resources
if you justifiably need them for your work.
o Modify only your own data and files and create them only in your own
directories or designated system directories unless given explicit
written or verbal permission to modify another user's data or files or
create them in their directories. Merely having write capability
enabled on a file or directory does not constitute explicit
permission. Designated system directories are directories set aside
for users to create or modify temporary files. These directories are
named {\bf tmp}, such as {\bf /tmp} or {\bf /usr/tmp}.
o Use the system for valid educational purposes only unless given
explicit permission by Owlnet management to do otherwise.
o Refrain from deliberately engaging in activities that are
intended to hinder another user's ability to do their work. For
example, do not run programs that are designed to disrupt another
user's display in a manner such that they cannot do their work.
o Abide by the Owlnet User Agreement, other Owlnet policies,
University computing policies, and local, state, or federal statutes
and regulations concerning the use of computing facilities.
Of course, attempting to do the converse of the above descriptions
would be inappropriate use of Owlnet. People who use Owlnet
inappropriately will have disciplinary action taken against them. This
is not limited to incidents involving only Owlnet equipment.
Inappropriate use of computing facilities external to Owlnet, but
accessed through or by Owlnet will be considered an inappropriate use
of Owlnet itself. You should send E-mail to {\bf consult@owlnet}
asking about anything that might be questionable before you do it.
Work Priorities
Owlnet is an intensively used resource. Playing games, experimenting
with graphics tools and reading electronic news can contribute to the
educational process; however during times when the network is
heavily used, these pursuits need to make way for users trying to
complete course assignments. Therefore, Owlnet users must abide by the
following priority system:
Priority Type of Work
1 System Maintenance by Staff System Administrators
2 Development of Courseware by Faculty or Class Labbies
3 Completion of Course Assignments by Students
4 Reading Electronic News
5 Experimenting with Standalone Games or Graphics
In addition, students whose course work requires a color workstation
(such as VLSI design) have priority on the color workstations over
other students.
If you have work to do that is a higher priority than that of the user
occupying a seat, then you have the right to ask that user to vacate
their seat. The activity that the user occupying the seat is engaged
in at the time that you ask them to vacate should be used to determine
relative priorities of your and their activities. What this means is
that if you mix activities of differing priorities, you run the risk
of losing your seat and not being able to complete your higher
priority work because you may be asked to vacate your seat while
you are engaged in a lower priority activity.
Games
Playing games on Owlnet can contribute to the educational experience.
However, this activity must make way for users trying to complete
course assignments, and cannot unduly interfere with the operation of
the system as a whole.
** PLAYING STANDALONE GAMES IS PERMITTED UNDER THE FOLLOWING
CONDITIONS:
Anyone playing a standalone game when the last seat in the room
becomes occupied must vacate his/her seat.
If you have school work to do and a person is playing a game,
you have the right to ask that person to vacate the seat if no
other workstations of the same type are available in that room.
Users playing games who refuse to vacate should be reported to Owlnet
management via electronic mail (director@owlnet).
** PLAYING NETWORK GAMES, OR GAMES THAT UNDULY AFFECT SYSTEM
RESOURCES IS NOT PERMITTED.
A network game is defined as one that allows two or more players to
interact with each other from more than one workstation. The game
makes use of the network facilities to accomplish this.
Games that unduly affect system resources include, but are not limited
to standalone games that require excessively large files, or excessive
computational or input/output resources, or can render all or part of a
system inoperable due to minor mis-configuration of the game files or
directories.
As they are discovered, network games, or standalone games that
interfere with the system resources will be rendered inoperable and
eventually removed from the system. The original owner of the file
shall be notified via electronic mail that these actions have
occurred.
Electronic Mail
Owlnet management will not regulate in any way the content of private,
consensual electronic mail communication between users.
Sending electronic mail directly to an unofficial automatic mail
handling program is not allowed. Unofficial means something that is
not a standard part of the system and has not been installed by the
Owlnet system management. Using an automated method to direct any
incoming mail to an unofficial program is not allowed. This
restriction is in place to guard against a mail handling or directing
method having an error, such as an infinite loop, that could flood the
mail system with spurious messages, preventing others from sending or
receiving mail and possibly significantly impacting overall system
performance.
Privacy
Although Owlnet will not regulate the content of electronic mail or
other files, Owlnet system management, in order to preserve the
integrity or operational state of the network, may find it necessary to
look at, without your prior consent, any data or files of yours that
exist on the system.
You should be aware that no computer security system, no matter how
elaborate, can absolutely prevent a determined person from accessing
stored information that they are not authorized to access. Thus,
while Owlnet tries to provide a reasonable level of confidentiality for
information stored on the network, we cannot {\em guarantee} the
privacy or confidentiality of any information stored on it. Therefore,
if there is any information that you absolutely do not want another
person to see or access, then you should not store it on Owlnet.
This policy exists to make you aware of the inherent limitations on
your ability to maintain your desired level of privacy or
confidentiality of information stored on the network.
Research
Owlnet currently does not support research activities during the Fall
and Spring semesters. Research activities include the following:
Computational activities that are undertaken to directly support
a Masters or Doctoral thesis.
Computational activities that are undertaken at a faculty
member's direction to support any faculty member's research.
enumerate
These definitions apply whether someone is actually using Owlnet
computers for the computation or activity, or is using Owlnet
workstations to remotely login to non-Owlnet systems where the activity
is taking place.
Research activities do not include the following:
Undergraduate independent projects as a structured part of an
undergraduate degree.
Structured projects or coursework as part of a professional
(non-thesis) masters degree.
Structured projects or graduate coursework that does not directly
support a thesis.
enumerate
Preventing Access by Others
Leaving your workstation unattended is dangerous to your personal
files, reputation, and to system security. People have taken advantage
of such unwary users by erasing their files, sending rude mail to third
parties, changing the unfortunate user's password to something unknown
so that they are locked out of their account, and setting up ways to do
all of these things again in the future. Obviously, such actions are
undesirable and will be punished; however, punishment of the malicious
user comes after the damage is done.
When you are running a windowing system (such as X Windows or SunView),
programs are available via menu options to lock a workstation's
screen. You should use these programs whenever you are going to be
away from your station for a short period of time. The lockscreen
programs available on the system will log you out of your workstation
at the end of a twenty minute period . This should be enough time to
go to the restroom, pick up a printout, or get a labby's attention.
Users are not allowed to use their own versions of lockscreen
programs.
Background Jobs
Putting a program into an unattended state while it continues to
execute and logging out of a computer is known as putting the
program, or `job' into the background. Running a program on one
machine and displaying its output on another via X Windows is not
considered backgrounding the job. All background jobs must have their
execution priority set to a level lower that that for interactive
processes. The job priority levels range from 1 to 19, with 1 being
the highest priority. Background jobs must be set to a priority of 10
or lower using the UNIX command nice . Please read the manual
page for nice find out how to do this, or consult
Chapter~ chap-unix , Introduction to UNIX in the Owlnet
Notes , or consult the Information Systems document ``Introduction to
UNIX''.
Background jobs are currently only allowed on the compute server
flammulated . If a background job is found running on a disallowed
workstation or server, it will be killed. If it is running on the
acceptable machine but its priority is not set low enough, then it will
be set to the lowest priority level possible (19).
This policy is in place to insure that maximum system resources are
available to users who are using Owlnet interactively, as they must be
logged on to use the network in this manner.
Remote Login Sessions
Owlnet users may only remotely login to the Owlnet systems flammulated,
alfric, and abelard. This applies to remote login sessions from any
system on or off campus and includes login sessions through the campus
terminal server charon.rice.edu. The full domain addresses of the
systems are flammulated.owlnet.rice.edu, alfric.owlnet.rice.edu, and
ableard.owlnet.rice.edu. Generally speaking, flam can be substituted
for flammulated.
alfric and abelard may only be remotely accessed for the purpose of
using applications unique to those systems, notably Mathematica.
General remote access is not permitted. All other remote access must
be to flam.
Users discovered to be remotely logged into any other Owlnet system
will be asked to move to flam. Users who repeatedly or egregiously
violate this policy will be directed to meet with the Director or
Deputy Director of Owlnet.
These remote login restrictions are in place to insure that maximum
system resources are available to those users who are physically in the
Owlnet labs.
System Administrator Talk Requests
Sometimes the Owlnet system administrators notice unusual activity
occurring in or by a user's account. Often the administrators attempt
to investigate what is going on by initiating an interactive electronic
talk session with the userid in question.
Sometimes the user refuses to respond to the talk request and logs off
immediately. This behavior raises the suspicion that the user may be
violating system or University policies, or even more serious, the
person using that userid is not the true owner of the userid.
Given Owlnet's need to maintain continuous service for over 1500
users, the system administrators will treat a user refusing a system
administrator's talk request by logging off as a potential security
violation. *In this situation, the system administrators have been
authorized to immediately lock the account of that user.* This
prevents any further activity with that account, which will protect the
system, and if the user account has been compromised and is being used
by someone other than the true owner, prevents any further possible
damage to that user's or other users' files. The owner of that userid
will be directed to meet with the Director or Deputy Director.
Many users routinely disable incoming talk messages, presumably to cut
down on distracting conversations with other users. We would advise
that you not disable incoming talk messages as a matter of course.
This will reduce the possibility that a system administrator who may be
trying to talk to you will misinterpret your actions. Message
receiving is enabled by default, so if you do not taken action to
disable it, you have nothing to worry about.
--
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
=kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
From caf-talk Caf Jun 27 14:47:21 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.policy.admin
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: Rice U. - "Owlnet Application Agreement"
Message-ID: <1992Jun27.184636.22011@eff.org>
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1992 18:46:36 GMT
>Owlnet Application Agreement - This is the agreement that all new
>users sign. I believe this one is a later version than the one in
>your archives.
From jaw@rice.edu Sat Jun 27 12:45:31 1992
From: Joseph A. Watters
Subject: Part 6 of 6: Rice U. computing policies
To: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 92 17:07:44 CDT
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Owlnet account application agreement.
--
Joseph A. Watters, Jr. jaw@owlnet.rice.edu
Deputy Director, Owlnet director@owlnet.rice.edu
Rice University
----------------------------------------------------------------------
OWLNET USE AGREEMENT
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Getting and keeping an Owlnet account is based on your acceptance of
and continuing compliance with the following conditions regarding use
of the system. Violation of these provisions are grounds for
forfeiture of your account and/or disciplinary action by the
university.
1) You agree not to use your account to actively support research
projects, either your own or a faculty member's. Research computing
activities are outside the scope of Owlnet.
2) You agree not to use your account for commercial venture or for
personal profit. You agree that any gain you accrue in violation of
this rule may be forfeit by you to the university at the
university's discretion.
3) So that others may not use your account, you agree to
use your account for your own work and to keep your password
confidential. You agree to report the use of your account by others
to Owlnet system management.
4) You understand the ethical and legal use of software, recognize
that the unauthorized use or copying of software is illegal, and
agree to refrain from any illegal and unethical actions involving
software as an Owlnet user.
5) You understand that being granted access to Owlnet gives you
permission to access external computing facilities as defined in
Rice Policy 832-90. You agree to use any external computing
facilities that you access for valid educational purposes only.
6) You agree not to intentionally hinder other users' ability to do
work on this or any other networks which you access from this
account.
7) You understand that Owlnet system management, in order to preserve
the integrity or operational state of the network, may find it
necessary to look at, without your prior consent, any data
or files of yours that exist on the system.
8) You understand and agree to abide by the computing polices of Rice
University and Owlnet. You understand and agree to abide by the
computing policies of any facilities that you access from Owlnet.
9) You understand that while Owlnet makes every attempt to preserve the
integrity of your data and files stored on the system, if a conflict
arises between keeping the system operational and maintaining the
integrity of your data, keeping the system operational will take
precedence.
You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Rice University, its
employees, and agents, from any claim, demand, liability, cause of
action, suit, judgment, or expense (including attorneys' fees),
arising out of your breach of this agreement.
You agree to waive any claim and release Rice University, its
employees, and agents, from any claim, demand, liability, cause of
action, or suit for damages arising out of your use of Owlnet,
including but not limited to any loss of your data stored on Owlnet.
You understand and agree that each time you access Owlnet, you are
bound by the terms of this agreement along with any changes or
additions to this agreement and the terms of all Owlnet policies that
are in effect at the time you access the system.
A copy of this agreement will be provided to you when you pick up your
account information.
--
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
=kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
From caf-talk Caf Jun 27 14:47:23 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.policy.admin
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: Rice U. - "System Administrator Statment of Ethics"
Message-ID: <1992Jun27.184634.21995@eff.org>
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1992 18:46:34 GMT
>System Administrator Statement of Ethics - This statement was
>recently adopted by the system administrators in Rice's Information
>Systems division (these sys admins provide services to Owlnet). It
>is a statement of how they will approach user privacy and
>confidentiality.
From jaw@rice.edu Sat Jun 27 12:45:29 1992
From: Joseph A. Watters
Subject: Part 5 of 6: Rice U. computing policies
To: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 92 17:06:04 CDT
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Rice Information Systems statement of ethics.
--
Joseph A. Watters, Jr. jaw@owlnet.rice.edu
Deputy Director, Owlnet director@owlnet.rice.edu
Rice University
Statement of Ethics with Respect To User Data
Network and Systems Support
Office of Networking and Computing Systems
Information Systems
William Marsh Rice University
3 March 1992
The members of Network and Systems Support (NSS) recognize their
ethical responsibilities toward the information stored on or passing
through the computers and networks they maintain. This document is
intended to assist people in understanding those responsiblities by
giving previously oral traditions written form.
I. Value of confidentiality
The term "privacy" has a more restricted meaning than the term
"confidentiality". Privacy is often used to indicate the ability of a
single person to control access to information he or she creates,
stores or transmits. Confidentiality implies that more than one person
may have access to that information, but that they recognize the
sensitive nature of that access and use their power of access
judiciously.
System or Network Administrators (sys-admins) understand that absolute
privacy of user data cannot be guaranteed for a number of technical,
legal and economic reasons. Among them are limitations in software and
hardware technology, limited personnel and financial resources, and
human error. Sys-admins cannot, given these limitations, make any
legal promises about the privacy of user data.
Sys-admins cannot perform their function without having access to
sensitive information. Sys-admins cannot guarantee either privacy or
confidentiality, but they value both concepts. They attempt to maintain
systems and networks in a manner which reflects these concerns.
II. Informed Users
Sys-admins have a responsibility to inform the user community about the
degree of privacy and confidentiality enjoyed by their data.
Sys-admins should endeavor to educate users about the ways they can
increase the confidentiality of their data.
For example, users of all NSS-maintained systems should be informed
when they receive their accounts that privacy is not guaranteed, if for
no other reason than the fact that all known computer security
mechanisms can be compromised. Therefore, if there is any information
that users absolutely do not want another person to see, then it should
not be stored on those systems. However, there are a number of
mechanisms and behaviors which aid in increasing the confidentiality of
their data, such as file encryption, protecting the security of their
account, etcetera.
III. Maximizing Confidentiality
Sys-admins have the technical ability to see almost all of the data on
the systems or networks they manage, including that which users have
attempted to protect from access by other users. Sys-admins attempt to
recognize data which has been treated this way and they handle it more
cautiously than other, unprotected information. Electronic mail is
considered extremely confidential material.
They should minimize their access to protected data to the extent
possible while allowing them to complete their duties as stewards of
systems and networks. The duties which typically require access to
protected data are: identifying and pursuing breaches of security
mechanisms, maintaining the integrity or operational state of a system
or network, fulfilling a specific management mandate (e.g. collecting
evidence for an Honor Council investigation), responding to a user
question, and collecting aggregate data (e.g. the number of users who
have used a certain package or logged in during some time period).
IV. Disclosure to others
Sys-admins may disclose the contents of protected files to others
without the user's prior permission when the sys-admin(s) believe that
policies or laws were violated. Limited disclosure of private data may
also occur while pursuing a question initiated by the user. Disclosure
of private data without the user's prior permission should be
minimized.
V. Protection of data
Much of the preceding discussion is concerned with the accessibilty of
data by sys-admins. The modification of users' data is a different
question. Modification of users' data without prior consent by the user
should be avoided if at all possible. However, the maintenance of
normal system operation may at times require modification of user
data.
A sys-admin changing a user's file should attempt to:
(a) minimize the changes made in order to protect the integrity
of the user's data. Integrity includes both existence and
attributes such as location and access permissions.
(b) unless a security incident is being investigated and
notification would jeopardize the investigation, notify the
user of the changes made, including an explanation of the reasons which
made the changes necessary.
(c) maintain enough records to be able to justify the action to
management.
--
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
=kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
From caf-talk Caf Jun 27 14:47:49 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.policy.admin
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: Rice U. - "Owlnet Student Advisory Committee Charter"
Message-ID: <1992Jun27.184632.21971@eff.org>
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1992 18:46:32 GMT
>Owlnet Student Advisory Committee Charter - This charter establishes a
>student computer user committee with two main functions: proposing
>and reviewing Owlnet computing policies with the purpose of having a
>formal mechanism for including student input into policy formulation;
>and acting as a disciplinary body for users accused of violating
>Owlnet computing policies. The charter was originally written by a
>student. I then formed a working group of myself, a system
>administrator and four students (the proposal author was one of them)
>to work out some specific issues with the charter. The result of that
>working group is what you see. The charter has essentially been
>adopted by the faculty committee that sets policy direction for
>Owlnet, and we anticipate forming the first committee this fall.
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 92 17:01:59 CDT
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Owlnet Student Advisory Committee charter.
--
Joseph A. Watters, Jr. jaw@owlnet.rice.edu
Deputy Director, Owlnet director@owlnet.rice.edu
Rice University
Owlnet Student Advisory Committee Charter
June 8, 1992
I. Purpose
The purposes of the Owlnet Student Advisory Committee (Advisory
Committee) shall be to represent the student users of Owlnet before the
Owlnet Steering Committee (Steering Committee), to serve as an advisory
body to the Steering Committee in the formulation, review, and
implementation of Owlnet policies, and to serve as a disciplinary body
in cases of alleged violations of Owlnet policies by student users.
The Advisory Committee shall also act as an informal educational
resource for the student users.
II. Membership
The Advisory Committee shall be composed of eight members, at least
four of whom must be undergraduate students, and at least two of whom
must be graduate students. Each member must be registered for classes
at Rice University, qualify for and have an Owlnet account, and attest
that he or she has read this document and the Owlnet policy enforcement
guidelines. Each member should have had their account for at least one
semester before appointment, and be reasonably familiar with the
operation of the network.
III. Appointment, Term, and Quorum
Qualified students shall be appointed by the Steering Committee at the
beginning of the fall semester, and shall serve for one calendar year.
Should vacancies occur during a term, the Steering Committee shall
appoint other students to complete the remainder of term.
The Steering Committee shall solicit petitions for membership on the
Advisory Committee via the appropriate electronic newsgroup and any
other appropriate avenues, at least ten class days before the deadline
for submitting petitions. The Steering Committee will then appoint
Advisory Committee members from among those students submitting
petitions.
Advisory Committee members will serve during the summer class break if
they are reasonably available. If not enough members are available to
make a quorum, the Steering Committee shall appoint enough students for
the summer to have a quorum.
For all meetings and hearings of the Advisory Committee, four members,
including the Chairperson and Secretary or official designates, are a
quorum.
IV. Officers and Appointed Positions
The Advisory Committee shall elect its own officers by majority vote.
The officers are a Chairperson and a Secretary. The positions of
Ombudsman and Steering Committee Meeting Delegate shall be appointed
by the Chairperson on a rotating basis.
Officers
Chairperson: The Chairperson shall call meetings of the
Advisory Committee, and preside at all meetings and disciplinary
hearings or appoint another member to preside in the event of his or
her absence. The Chairperson shall be responsible for timely and
regular communications with the Steering Committee and Owlnet
management. The Chairperson or a designate is an advisor member of the
Owlnet Steering Committee. The Chairperson shall approve and
officially notify all persons who are to appear before the committee.
Secretary: The Secretary shall keep minutes of all Advisory
Committee meetings, and be responsible for notifying the committee
members of meetings. The Secretary shall record and abstract for
publication all disciplinary proceedings. The Secretary shall maintain
all Advisory Committee records. The outgoing Secretary is responsible
for transmitting the complete records of the Advisory Committee to the
incoming Secretary.
Appointed Positions
Ombudsman: The Ombudsman shall serve as a neutral advisor to
any persons referred for disciplinary action. The Ombudsman shall not
vote in the disciplinary action. The Ombudsman is a rotating position,
selected by the Chairperson before each disciplinary hearing.
Steering Committee Meeting Delegate: The Steering Committee
Meeting delegate is an advisor member of the Owlnet Steering Committee.
The Delegate is a rotating position, selected by the Chairperson before
each Steering Committee meeting.
V. Duties and Powers
Policy Advising
Owlnet policies are statements regarding the operation and use of
Owlnet that are in effect for an indefinite time period. The Steering
Committee approves Owlnet policies.
The Advisory Committee may submit policy proposals to the Steering
Committee. Advisory Committee proposals shall become policy by
approval of the Steering Committee. Should the Steering Committee
choose not to approve a proposal, it shall return it to the Advisory
Committee, giving reasons for rejection. The Steering Committee must
act on proposals within thirty days of submission.
The Advisory Committee shall be notified of any new Owlnet policies
initiated by the Steering Committee at least ten class days before
implementation, and may comment on and/or advise changes to the
proposed policy.
Owlnet operating decisions are statements regarding the operation
and use of Owlnet that are in effect for a limited time period. Owlnet
system administrators and managers (Director and Deputy Director)
implement operating decisions.
Owlnet managers shall inform the Advisory Committee of operating
decisions as soon as practicable. The Advisory Committee may choose to
comment on the decisions.
Disciplinary Actions
The Advisory Committee shall serve as a disciplinary body to hear
charges against student users of violations of Owlnet Policy. The
Advisory Committee does not deal with cases involving academic
misconduct on Owlnet. Cases involving Advisory Committee members shall
be heard by the Steering Committee.
Hearings
If an Owlnet student user is accused of violating Owlnet policy, he or
she may appear in a hearing before the Advisory Committee. The user
shall be notified of the time and date of the hearing via electronic
mail and surface mail. The Advisory Committee Chairperson shall
officially notify the accused of the hearing.
After a presentation of the evidence against the user by the accuser or
a representative, the user may speak in his or her own defense. If
appropriate, the Advisory Committee may refer a case to the Steering
Committee or the Dean of Students for disciplinary action.
The Advisory Committee shall then decide the innocence or guilt of the
user by a simple majority vote. However, the Advisory Committee shall
strive to achieve unanimity; multiple ballots may be cast, and any
dissenting opinions shall be recorded. If the user chooses not to
appear before the Advisory Committee, guilt will not be assumed, but
the Advisory Committee may still vote upon the innocence or guilt of
the user.
Disciplinary hearings shall be confidential. The accused user may
choose to invite any other person(s) to the hearing, with the prior
consent of the Advisory Committee Chairperson. The Advisory Committee
may call any outside witnesses or technical advisors as it may feel
necessary or appropriate to the incident under review.
The Secretary shall record the proceedings of the hearing, and shall
publish abstracts of the hearings for the user community. The
identities of the accused shall be masked in the abstract. Abstracts
will be published in appropriate electronic newsgroups and/or print
media.
Penalties
Should the user be found guilty by the Advisory Committee, the
Committee will then decide upon a penalty by another simple majority
vote, and notify the Deputy Director of Owlnet so that it may be
carried out. The Committee shall strive to achieve unanimity; multiple
votes may be cast, and any dissenting opinions shall be recorded. The
penalty shall be in accordance with Owlnet enforcement guidelines.
Cases where the recommended punishment would be expected to result in
severe academic consequences for the student will be reviewed by the
Steering Committee and/or the Dean of Students. As a guideline,
penalties imposed for the remainder of the current semester or longer
shall be reviewed.
Incidents where it appears that University, Local, State, or Federal
statutes or regulations have been violated will be referred to the
appropriate authority for investigation and disposition. In those
cases, the disciplinary process of the appropriate authority comes into
effect. Referral to an outside authority does not preclude
disciplinary action by the Advisory Committee for Owlnet policy
violations arising from the same incident.
Appeals
The user may choose to appeal the case to the Steering Committee. A
written request for appeal is required within three class days
following notification of the decision appealed. A written appeal is
required within five class days following notification of approval of
the appeal request. Written requests and appeals shall be submitted to
the Deputy Director of Owlnet for forwarding to the Steering
Committee.
The grounds for appeal must conform to those stated in section XXII,
Judicial and Disciplinary Procedures, in the Student Handbook. Any
further appeal beyond the Steering Committee must follow the Student
Grievance Procedures, described in Section XXXII of the Student
Handbook.
If a user is denied access to Owlnet for policy violations, the user
may remain locked out during the appeal process. Access denial time
accrued before and during the appeal process for the current violation
will be credited against the total punishment imposed. After the
appeal process has concluded, if a student has suffered unwarranted
academic consequences (i.e., consequences that occur because the appeal
process resulted in an access denial that was longer than the
punishment that was ultimately imposed) then the Steering Committee
and/or the Committee on Examinations and Standings will take steps to
redress those consequences.
VI. Amendment
This charter may be amended by a two-thirds vote of the Advisory
Committee with the approval of the Steering Committee.
VII. Adoption and Revocation
This charter shall be adopted by approval of the Steering Committee.
The charter may be revoked, and the Advisory Committee dissolved, by
majority vote of the Steering Committee.
--
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
=kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
From caf-talk Caf Jun 27 17:34:36 1992
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,alt.sex,alt.config,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: nadeau@bnr.ca (Rheal Nadeau)
Subject: Re: Farlay Mowat and Free Speech (was: Congratulations...)
Message-ID: <1992Jun27.204918.4867@bcrka451.bnr.ca>
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1992 20:49:18 GMT
In article <1992Jun24.015803.16987@deeptht.santa-cruz.ca.us> rstevew@deeptht.santa-cruz.ca.us (Richard Steven Walz) writes:
>Actually, according to the stupid prejudices of the current president
>and the butt kissing attitude of his department of state, the INS is
>given guidelines for who they let in, IF SOMEONE IS STUPID ENOUGH TO
>ASK THEM! If Mowat had gone to your typical "checkpoint Charlie" and
>said, I grew up in (wherever), and I want to visit friends and shop
>for a couple weeks in the states, no one would have given a flying
>fuck. They aren't going to search through a huge list of potentially
>undesireables, which is after the list of wanted felons, to bother
>with him if they have even slight traffic. They will just say,
>okey-dokey, and wave him through. That's how I have gotten in and out
>of Canada and back here, even though I smelled like cannabis and was
>carrying a bayonet!!!! I think I've been to Canada about eight times
>and I was never stopped except to be asked where I was born. Once they
>checked my ID. Big whopee!
>- Steve Walz
Well, the above may be true for nobodies like you and me. But Farley
Mowat is hardly a nobody. True, he's not exactly a household name in
the U.S., but all it takes is one customs official who's knowledgeable
enough to remember the name. "Farley Mowat? Rings a bell - let's see
here... (flip flip flip) Ah-ah - undesirable alien!"
The Rhealist - Rheal Nadeau - nadeau@bnr.ca - Speaking only for myself
From caf-talk Caf Jun 28 00:56:17 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.admin.policy
From: kadie@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: Rice U. - "Owlnet Student Advisory Committee Charter"
Message-ID: <1992Jun28.044128.19802@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1992 04:41:28 GMT
>Owlnet Student Advisory Committee Charter - This charter establishes a
>student computer user committee with two main functions: proposing
>and reviewing Owlnet computing policies with the purpose of having a
>formal mechanism for including student input into policy formulation;
>and acting as a disciplinary body for users accused of violating
>Owlnet computing policies. The charter was originally written by a
>student. I then formed a working group of myself, a system
>administrator and four students (the proposal author was one of them)
>to work out some specific issues with the charter. The result of that
>working group is what you see. The charter has essentially been
>adopted by the faculty committee that sets policy direction for
>Owlnet, and we anticipate forming the first committee this fall.
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 92 17:01:59 CDT
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Owlnet Student Advisory Committee charter.
--
Joseph A. Watters, Jr. jaw@owlnet.rice.edu
Deputy Director, Owlnet director@owlnet.rice.edu
Rice University
Owlnet Student Advisory Committee Charter
June 8, 1992
I. Purpose
The purposes of the Owlnet Student Advisory Committee (Advisory
Committee) shall be to represent the student users of Owlnet before the
Owlnet Steering Committee (Steering Committee), to serve as an advisory
body to the Steering Committee in the formulation, review, and
implementation of Owlnet policies, and to serve as a disciplinary body
in cases of alleged violations of Owlnet policies by student users.
The Advisory Committee shall also act as an informal educational
resource for the student users.
II. Membership
The Advisory Committee shall be composed of eight members, at least
four of whom must be undergraduate students, and at least two of whom
must be graduate students. Each member must be registered for classes
at Rice University, qualify for and have an Owlnet account, and attest
that he or she has read this document and the Owlnet policy enforcement
guidelines. Each member should have had their account for at least one
semester before appointment, and be reasonably familiar with the
operation of the network.
III. Appointment, Term, and Quorum
Qualified students shall be appointed by the Steering Committee at the
beginning of the fall semester, and shall serve for one calendar year.
Should vacancies occur during a term, the Steering Committee shall
appoint other students to complete the remainder of term.
The Steering Committee shall solicit petitions for membership on the
Advisory Committee via the appropriate electronic newsgroup and any
other appropriate avenues, at least ten class days before the deadline
for submitting petitions. The Steering Committee will then appoint
Advisory Committee members from among those students submitting
petitions.
Advisory Committee members will serve during the summer class break if
they are reasonably available. If not enough members are available to
make a quorum, the Steering Committee shall appoint enough students for
the summer to have a quorum.
For all meetings and hearings of the Advisory Committee, four members,
including the Chairperson and Secretary or official designates, are a
quorum.
IV. Officers and Appointed Positions
The Advisory Committee shall elect its own officers by majority vote.
The officers are a Chairperson and a Secretary. The positions of
Ombudsman and Steering Committee Meeting Delegate shall be appointed
by the Chairperson on a rotating basis.
Officers
Chairperson: The Chairperson shall call meetings of the
Advisory Committee, and preside at all meetings and disciplinary
hearings or appoint another member to preside in the event of his or
her absence. The Chairperson shall be responsible for timely and
regular communications with the Steering Committee and Owlnet
management. The Chairperson or a designate is an advisor member of the
Owlnet Steering Committee. The Chairperson shall approve and
officially notify all persons who are to appear before the committee.
Secretary: The Secretary shall keep minutes of all Advisory
Committee meetings, and be responsible for notifying the committee
members of meetings. The Secretary shall record and abstract for
publication all disciplinary proceedings. The Secretary shall maintain
all Advisory Committee records. The outgoing Secretary is responsible
for transmitting the complete records of the Advisory Committee to the
incoming Secretary.
Appointed Positions
Ombudsman: The Ombudsman shall serve as a neutral advisor to
any persons referred for disciplinary action. The Ombudsman shall not
vote in the disciplinary action. The Ombudsman is a rotating position,
selected by the Chairperson before each disciplinary hearing.
Steering Committee Meeting Delegate: The Steering Committee
Meeting delegate is an advisor member of the Owlnet Steering Committee.
The Delegate is a rotating position, selected by the Chairperson before
each Steering Committee meeting.
V. Duties and Powers
Policy Advising
Owlnet policies are statements regarding the operation and use of
Owlnet that are in effect for an indefinite time period. The Steering
Committee approves Owlnet policies.
The Advisory Committee may submit policy proposals to the Steering
Committee. Advisory Committee proposals shall become policy by
approval of the Steering Committee. Should the Steering Committee
choose not to approve a proposal, it shall return it to the Advisory
Committee, giving reasons for rejection. The Steering Committee must
act on proposals within thirty days of submission.
The Advisory Committee shall be notified of any new Owlnet policies
initiated by the Steering Committee at least ten class days before
implementation, and may comment on and/or advise changes to the
proposed policy.
Owlnet operating decisions are statements regarding the operation
and use of Owlnet that are in effect for a limited time period. Owlnet
system administrators and managers (Director and Deputy Director)
implement operating decisions.
Owlnet managers shall inform the Advisory Committee of operating
decisions as soon as practicable. The Advisory Committee may choose to
comment on the decisions.
Disciplinary Actions
The Advisory Committee shall serve as a disciplinary body to hear
charges against student users of violations of Owlnet Policy. The
Advisory Committee does not deal with cases involving academic
misconduct on Owlnet. Cases involving Advisory Committee members shall
be heard by the Steering Committee.
Hearings
If an Owlnet student user is accused of violating Owlnet policy, he or
she may appear in a hearing before the Advisory Committee. The user
shall be notified of the time and date of the hearing via electronic
mail and surface mail. The Advisory Committee Chairperson shall
officially notify the accused of the hearing.
After a presentation of the evidence against the user by the accuser or
a representative, the user may speak in his or her own defense. If
appropriate, the Advisory Committee may refer a case to the Steering
Committee or the Dean of Students for disciplinary action.
The Advisory Committee shall then decide the innocence or guilt of the
user by a simple majority vote. However, the Advisory Committee shall
strive to achieve unanimity; multiple ballots may be cast, and any
dissenting opinions shall be recorded. If the user chooses not to
appear before the Advisory Committee, guilt will not be assumed, but
the Advisory Committee may still vote upon the innocence or guilt of
the user.
Disciplinary hearings shall be confidential. The accused user may
choose to invite any other person(s) to the hearing, with the prior
consent of the Advisory Committee Chairperson. The Advisory Committee
may call any outside witnesses or technical advisors as it may feel
necessary or appropriate to the incident under review.
The Secretary shall record the proceedings of the hearing, and shall
publish abstracts of the hearings for the user community. The
identities of the accused shall be masked in the abstract. Abstracts
will be published in appropriate electronic newsgroups and/or print
media.
Penalties
Should the user be found guilty by the Advisory Committee, the
Committee will then decide upon a penalty by another simple majority
vote, and notify the Deputy Director of Owlnet so that it may be
carried out. The Committee shall strive to achieve unanimity; multiple
votes may be cast, and any dissenting opinions shall be recorded. The
penalty shall be in accordance with Owlnet enforcement guidelines.
Cases where the recommended punishment would be expected to result in
severe academic consequences for the student will be reviewed by the
Steering Committee and/or the Dean of Students. As a guideline,
penalties imposed for the remainder of the current semester or longer
shall be reviewed.
Incidents where it appears that University, Local, State, or Federal
statutes or regulations have been violated will be referred to the
appropriate authority for investigation and disposition. In those
cases, the disciplinary process of the appropriate authority comes into
effect. Referral to an outside authority does not preclude
disciplinary action by the Advisory Committee for Owlnet policy
violations arising from the same incident.
Appeals
The user may choose to appeal the case to the Steering Committee. A
written request for appeal is required within three class days
following notification of the decision appealed. A written appeal is
required within five class days following notification of approval of
the appeal request. Written requests and appeals shall be submitted to
the Deputy Director of Owlnet for forwarding to the Steering
Committee.
The grounds for appeal must conform to those stated in section XXII,
Judicial and Disciplinary Procedures, in the Student Handbook. Any
further appeal beyond the Steering Committee must follow the Student
Grievance Procedures, described in Section XXXII of the Student
Handbook.
If a user is denied access to Owlnet for policy violations, the user
may remain locked out during the appeal process. Access denial time
accrued before and during the appeal process for the current violation
will be credited against the total punishment imposed. After the
appeal process has concluded, if a student has suffered unwarranted
academic consequences (i.e., consequences that occur because the appeal
process resulted in an access denial that was longer than the
punishment that was ultimately imposed) then the Steering Committee
and/or the Committee on Examinations and Standings will take steps to
redress those consequences.
VI. Amendment
This charter may be amended by a two-thirds vote of the Advisory
Committee with the approval of the Steering Committee.
VII. Adoption and Revocation
This charter shall be adopted by approval of the Steering Committee.
The charter may be revoked, and the Advisory Committee dissolved, by
majority vote of the Steering Committee.
--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@cs.uiuc.edu -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
From caf-talk Caf Jun 28 00:56:19 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.admin.policy
From: kadie@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: Rice U. - "Owlnet Application Agreement"
Message-ID: <1992Jun28.044137.5018@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1992 04:41:37 GMT
>Owlnet Application Agreement - This is the agreement that all new
>users sign. I believe this one is a later version than the one in
>your archives.
From jaw@rice.edu Sat Jun 27 12:45:31 1992
From: Joseph A. Watters
Subject: Part 6 of 6: Rice U. computing policies
To: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 92 17:07:44 CDT
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Owlnet account application agreement.
--
Joseph A. Watters, Jr. jaw@owlnet.rice.edu
Deputy Director, Owlnet director@owlnet.rice.edu
Rice University
----------------------------------------------------------------------
OWLNET USE AGREEMENT
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Getting and keeping an Owlnet account is based on your acceptance of
and continuing compliance with the following conditions regarding use
of the system. Violation of these provisions are grounds for
forfeiture of your account and/or disciplinary action by the
university.
1) You agree not to use your account to actively support research
projects, either your own or a faculty member's. Research computing
activities are outside the scope of Owlnet.
2) You agree not to use your account for commercial venture or for
personal profit. You agree that any gain you accrue in violation of
this rule may be forfeit by you to the university at the
university's discretion.
3) So that others may not use your account, you agree to
use your account for your own work and to keep your password
confidential. You agree to report the use of your account by others
to Owlnet system management.
4) You understand the ethical and legal use of software, recognize
that the unauthorized use or copying of software is illegal, and
agree to refrain from any illegal and unethical actions involving
software as an Owlnet user.
5) You understand that being granted access to Owlnet gives you
permission to access external computing facilities as defined in
Rice Policy 832-90. You agree to use any external computing
facilities that you access for valid educational purposes only.
6) You agree not to intentionally hinder other users' ability to do
work on this or any other networks which you access from this
account.
7) You understand that Owlnet system management, in order to preserve
the integrity or operational state of the network, may find it
necessary to look at, without your prior consent, any data
or files of yours that exist on the system.
8) You understand and agree to abide by the computing polices of Rice
University and Owlnet. You understand and agree to abide by the
computing policies of any facilities that you access from Owlnet.
9) You understand that while Owlnet makes every attempt to preserve the
integrity of your data and files stored on the system, if a conflict
arises between keeping the system operational and maintaining the
integrity of your data, keeping the system operational will take
precedence.
You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Rice University, its
employees, and agents, from any claim, demand, liability, cause of
action, suit, judgment, or expense (including attorneys' fees),
arising out of your breach of this agreement.
You agree to waive any claim and release Rice University, its
employees, and agents, from any claim, demand, liability, cause of
action, or suit for damages arising out of your use of Owlnet,
including but not limited to any loss of your data stored on Owlnet.
You understand and agree that each time you access Owlnet, you are
bound by the terms of this agreement along with any changes or
additions to this agreement and the terms of all Owlnet policies that
are in effect at the time you access the system.
A copy of this agreement will be provided to you when you pick up your
account information.
--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@cs.uiuc.edu -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
From caf-talk Caf Jun 28 00:56:19 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.admin.policy
From: kadie@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: Rice U. - "System Administrator Statment of Ethics"
Message-ID: <1992Jun28.044132.27949@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1992 04:41:32 GMT
>System Administrator Statement of Ethics - This statement was
>recently adopted by the system administrators in Rice's Information
>Systems division (these sys admins provide services to Owlnet). It
>is a statement of how they will approach user privacy and
>confidentiality.
From jaw@rice.edu Sat Jun 27 12:45:29 1992
From: Joseph A. Watters
Subject: Part 5 of 6: Rice U. computing policies
To: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 92 17:06:04 CDT
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Rice Information Systems statement of ethics.
--
Joseph A. Watters, Jr. jaw@owlnet.rice.edu
Deputy Director, Owlnet director@owlnet.rice.edu
Rice University
Statement of Ethics with Respect To User Data
Network and Systems Support
Office of Networking and Computing Systems
Information Systems
William Marsh Rice University
3 March 1992
The members of Network and Systems Support (NSS) recognize their
ethical responsibilities toward the information stored on or passing
through the computers and networks they maintain. This document is
intended to assist people in understanding those responsiblities by
giving previously oral traditions written form.
I. Value of confidentiality
The term "privacy" has a more restricted meaning than the term
"confidentiality". Privacy is often used to indicate the ability of a
single person to control access to information he or she creates,
stores or transmits. Confidentiality implies that more than one person
may have access to that information, but that they recognize the
sensitive nature of that access and use their power of access
judiciously.
System or Network Administrators (sys-admins) understand that absolute
privacy of user data cannot be guaranteed for a number of technical,
legal and economic reasons. Among them are limitations in software and
hardware technology, limited personnel and financial resources, and
human error. Sys-admins cannot, given these limitations, make any
legal promises about the privacy of user data.
Sys-admins cannot perform their function without having access to
sensitive information. Sys-admins cannot guarantee either privacy or
confidentiality, but they value both concepts. They attempt to maintain
systems and networks in a manner which reflects these concerns.
II. Informed Users
Sys-admins have a responsibility to inform the user community about the
degree of privacy and confidentiality enjoyed by their data.
Sys-admins should endeavor to educate users about the ways they can
increase the confidentiality of their data.
For example, users of all NSS-maintained systems should be informed
when they receive their accounts that privacy is not guaranteed, if for
no other reason than the fact that all known computer security
mechanisms can be compromised. Therefore, if there is any information
that users absolutely do not want another person to see, then it should
not be stored on those systems. However, there are a number of
mechanisms and behaviors which aid in increasing the confidentiality of
their data, such as file encryption, protecting the security of their
account, etcetera.
III. Maximizing Confidentiality
Sys-admins have the technical ability to see almost all of the data on
the systems or networks they manage, including that which users have
attempted to protect from access by other users. Sys-admins attempt to
recognize data which has been treated this way and they handle it more
cautiously than other, unprotected information. Electronic mail is
considered extremely confidential material.
They should minimize their access to protected data to the extent
possible while allowing them to complete their duties as stewards of
systems and networks. The duties which typically require access to
protected data are: identifying and pursuing breaches of security
mechanisms, maintaining the integrity or operational state of a system
or network, fulfilling a specific management mandate (e.g. collecting
evidence for an Honor Council investigation), responding to a user
question, and collecting aggregate data (e.g. the number of users who
have used a certain package or logged in during some time period).
IV. Disclosure to others
Sys-admins may disclose the contents of protected files to others
without the user's prior permission when the sys-admin(s) believe that
policies or laws were violated. Limited disclosure of private data may
also occur while pursuing a question initiated by the user. Disclosure
of private data without the user's prior permission should be
minimized.
V. Protection of data
Much of the preceding discussion is concerned with the accessibilty of
data by sys-admins. The modification of users' data is a different
question. Modification of users' data without prior consent by the user
should be avoided if at all possible. However, the maintenance of
normal system operation may at times require modification of user
data.
A sys-admin changing a user's file should attempt to:
(a) minimize the changes made in order to protect the integrity
of the user's data. Integrity includes both existence and
attributes such as location and access permissions.
(b) unless a security incident is being investigated and
notification would jeopardize the investigation, notify the
user of the changes made, including an explanation of the reasons which
made the changes necessary.
(c) maintain enough records to be able to justify the action to
management.
--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@cs.uiuc.edu -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
From caf-talk Caf Jun 28 10:33:50 1992
From: kadie@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.admin.policy
Subject: Re: Rice U. - "Appropriate Use of Computing Facilities Policy"
Message-ID: <1992Jun28.141311.25263@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 28 Jun 92 14:13:11 GMT
>Rice's University Computing Policy - You should already have this in
>the archive. It hasn't changed, but I'm sending it along as part of
>the set. Of significant note is the section requiring permission of
>the Vice President for Information Systems for a student to send
>communications off-campus and to access external computing facilities.
>Last semester, Owlnet obtained blanket permission for student users to
>access external computing facilities for educational purposes. All
>Owlnet student users (1500 students) automatically receive permission
>as part of their account acquisition. Existing users were given
>permission also. Owlnet essentially found a way to give the students
>what they wanted, access to off-campus facilities, including e-mail and
>news posting, without requiring the University to go through the
>relatively arduous process of changing a University wide policy.
From jaw@rice.edu Sat Jun 27 12:45:08 1992
From: Joseph A. Watters
Subject: 1 of 6: Rice U. computing policies
To: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 92 16:58:10 CDT
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Rice University's Appropriate Use of Computing Facilities Policy
--
Joseph A. Watters, Jr. jaw@owlnet.rice.edu
Deputy Director, Owlnet director@owlnet.rice.edu
Rice University
University Computing Policy
Policy No. 832-90
APPROPRIATE USE OF COMPUTER FACILITIES
Rice University maintains computers, computer networks, connections
to external computer networks, and subscriptions to external
computer services, collectively referred to as ``Computer
Facilities'', for the purpose of conducting and fostering the
instructional and research activities of the University.
Rice University licenses copyrighted and proprietary programs, data
and documentation, collectively referred to as ``Licensed Software'',
for its Computer Facilities. In the course of their use of Rice's
Computer Facilities in support of the University's instructional
and research activities, the faculty, students, and staff of Rice
University and its subcontractors and agents develop programs, data
and documentation, collectively referred to as ``Software''.
In order to maximize usefulness of Computer Facilities to instructional
and research activities, the University provides access to such
Computer Facilities in the most open manner permitted by the owners or
providers of such Computer Facilities. However, individual users are
responsible for obtaining authorization prior to use of any Computer
Facility. The failure of a Computer Facility to prevent unauthorized
use does not relieve the user of this responsibility.
Proscribed Activities
The following activities involving use of Computer Facilities are
prohibited:
Transmitting unsolicited information which contains obscene, indecent,
lewd or lascivious material or other material which explicitly or
implicitly refers to sexual conduct;
Transmitting unsolicited information which contains profane language or
panders to bigotry, sexism, or other forms of discrimination;
Communicating any information concerning any password, identifying
code, personal identification number or other confidential information
without the permission of its owner or the controlling authority of the
Computer Facility to which it belongs;
Creating, modifying, executing or retransmitting any computer program
or instructions intended to gain unauthorized access to, or make
unauthorized use of, a Computer Facility, Software or Licensed
Software;
Creating, modifying, executing or retransmitting any computer program
or instructions intended to obscure the true identity of the sender of
electronic mail or electronic messages, collectively referred to as
``Messages'', including, but not limited to, forgery of Messages and/or
alteration of system and/or user data used to identify the sender of
Messages;
Accessing or intentionally destroying Software or Licensed Software in
a Computer Facility without the permission of the owner of such
Software or Licensed Software or the controlling authority of the
Facility;
Making unauthorized copies of Licensed Software;
Communicating any credit card number or other financial account number
without the permission of its owner;
Effecting or receiving unauthorized electronic transfer of funds;
Violating any laws or participating in the commission or furtherance of
any crime or other unlawful or improper purpose;
Using the Computer Facilities in a manner inconsistent with the
University's contractual obligations to suppliers of Computer
Facilities or with any published University policy.
Mailing Lists
It is the responsibility of any user of an electronic mailing list to
determine the purpose of the list before sending messages to the list
or receiving messages from the list.
Persons subscribing to an electronic mailing list will be viewed as
having solicited any material delivered by the list as long as that
material is consistent with the purpose of the list. Persons sending
to a mailing list any materials which are not consistent with the
purpose of the mailing list will be viewed as having sent unsolicited
material to the mailing list.
Student Use of External Computer Facilities
Student use of external Computer Facilities is permitted in the
following circumstances:
With the permission of the Project Director when the student's formal
involvement in a sponsored research activity requires such access,
With the permission of the supervisor when employment by a University
department requires such access, or
With the permission of the Vice President for Graduate Studies,
Research, and Information Systems when a member of the Faculty affirms
in writing that a proposed use is required by or enhances the student's
education.
Exceptions
The Vice President for Graduate Studies, Research, and Information
Systems is the point of contact for approval of any activities at
variance with the above practice.
Governing Law
In addition to University policy, unauthorized access to Computer
Facilities, Software and Licensed Software is the subject of both
Federal and State Law. A brief summary of Federal and Texas Law
relevant to this issue follows. Note that the laws of other states may
be applicable depending on the actual location of the Computer
Facility(ies) in question.
Federal Law
It is a violation of Federal Law intentionally (1) to access a computer
without authorization and thereby to obtain classified information; (2)
to access a computer without authorization and thereby to obtain
financial records of a financial institution; (3) to access any U. S.
Government computer without authorization if such conduct affects the
use of the Government's operation of the computer; (4) to access a
Federal computer without authorization with the intent to defraud; (5)
to access a financial institution or U. S. Government computer
without authorization and thereby alter, damage, or destroy information
which causes losses to others or which modifies or impairs medical
diagnosis, treatment, or care; or (6) with intent to defraud to traffic
in passwords or similar information through which a computer may be
accessed if the trafficking affects interstate commerce or the computer
is used by the U. S. Government. The penalty can be a fine or as
much as 20 years in the Federal penitentiary for certain of these
violations (18 USCA 1030).
Copyright is a constitutionally conceived property right which is
designed to promote progress of science and the useful arts by securing
for an author the benefits of his/her original work for a limited time
(US Constitution Art. I, Sec. 8). Congress has passed the Copyright
statute (17 USCA 101 et seq) to implement this policy by balancing
the author's interest against the public interest in the dissemination
of information affecting areas of universal interest.
Texas Law
It is a violation of Texas Law intentionally (1) to use a computer
without the consent of its owner or to access data stored in a computer
system without the consent of its owner or licensee if you know there
is a security system intended to prevent your doing either of these
things; (2) to give passwords, or similar confidential information
about a computer security system to another person without the consent
of the person employing the security system to restrict access to a
computer or its data; (3) to cause a computer to malfunction or to
interrupt operation of a computer system without the consent of its
owner; or (4) to alter, damage, or destroy data or a computer program
in a computer without the consent of the owner or licensee of the data
or computer program. Convictions under the Computer Crimes section of
the Texas Penal Code can result in a sentence of a fine up to 5,000
and a jail sentence up to ten years (7 Texas Penal Code, 33).
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
George Rupp
August 10, 1990
tabbing
--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@cs.uiuc.edu -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
From caf-talk Caf Jun 28 10:33:51 1992
From: kadie@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.admin.policy
Subject: Re: Rice U. - "Owlnet Policies"
Message-ID: <1992Jun28.141316.9502@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 28 Jun 92 14:13:16 GMT
From jaw@rice.edu Sat Jun 27 12:45:15 1992
From: Joseph A. Watters
Subject: part 2 of 6: Rice U. computing polices
To: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 92 16:59:17 CDT
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Owlnet's computing polices.
--
Joseph A. Watters, Jr. jaw@owlnet.rice.edu
Deputy Director, Owlnet director@owlnet.rice.edu
Rice University
Appropriate Use of the System
Given Owlnet's educational mission and the need to provide all users
fair and reasonably equitable access to the system resources, the
following describes how to use Owlnet appropriately:
o Use only your own userid and password to access the network, unless
you are explicitly authorized to use a special userid and password,
such as a course account userid and password, for a designated
purpose. Do not allow other users to use your userid and password to
access the network. This is for your own protection as well as the
protection of the network in general.
o Keep your password confidential and change it at regular
intervals.
o Manage your use of system resources so as to minimize the impact of
your activities on other users. Use only the resources that you need
to complete your activity and learn how to use those resources
efficiently. Take care that you don't use excessive or unnecessary CPU
cycles, system memory, disk space, or printer supplies. For example,
don't run "find" commands on large filesystems, or otherwise severly
tax the system resources for non-coursework activities. Don't make
unnecessary printouts.
o Abide by the system mechanisms designed to insure reasonably
equitable computing resource distribution amongst all users, such as
disk space quotas, screen locking timeouts, and printing charges. Use
the designated methods to acquire a larger share of computing resources
if you justifiably need them for your work.
o Modify only your own data and files and create them only in your own
directories or designated system directories unless given explicit
written or verbal permission to modify another user's data or files or
create them in their directories. Merely having write capability
enabled on a file or directory does not constitute explicit
permission. Designated system directories are directories set aside
for users to create or modify temporary files. These directories are
named {\bf tmp}, such as {\bf /tmp} or {\bf /usr/tmp}.
o Use the system for valid educational purposes only unless given
explicit permission by Owlnet management to do otherwise.
o Refrain from deliberately engaging in activities that are
intended to hinder another user's ability to do their work. For
example, do not run programs that are designed to disrupt another
user's display in a manner such that they cannot do their work.
o Abide by the Owlnet User Agreement, other Owlnet policies,
University computing policies, and local, state, or federal statutes
and regulations concerning the use of computing facilities.
Of course, attempting to do the converse of the above descriptions
would be inappropriate use of Owlnet. People who use Owlnet
inappropriately will have disciplinary action taken against them. This
is not limited to incidents involving only Owlnet equipment.
Inappropriate use of computing facilities external to Owlnet, but
accessed through or by Owlnet will be considered an inappropriate use
of Owlnet itself. You should send E-mail to {\bf consult@owlnet}
asking about anything that might be questionable before you do it.
Work Priorities
Owlnet is an intensively used resource. Playing games, experimenting
with graphics tools and reading electronic news can contribute to the
educational process; however during times when the network is
heavily used, these pursuits need to make way for users trying to
complete course assignments. Therefore, Owlnet users must abide by the
following priority system:
Priority Type of Work
1 System Maintenance by Staff System Administrators
2 Development of Courseware by Faculty or Class Labbies
3 Completion of Course Assignments by Students
4 Reading Electronic News
5 Experimenting with Standalone Games or Graphics
In addition, students whose course work requires a color workstation
(such as VLSI design) have priority on the color workstations over
other students.
If you have work to do that is a higher priority than that of the user
occupying a seat, then you have the right to ask that user to vacate
their seat. The activity that the user occupying the seat is engaged
in at the time that you ask them to vacate should be used to determine
relative priorities of your and their activities. What this means is
that if you mix activities of differing priorities, you run the risk
of losing your seat and not being able to complete your higher
priority work because you may be asked to vacate your seat while
you are engaged in a lower priority activity.
Games
Playing games on Owlnet can contribute to the educational experience.
However, this activity must make way for users trying to complete
course assignments, and cannot unduly interfere with the operation of
the system as a whole.
** PLAYING STANDALONE GAMES IS PERMITTED UNDER THE FOLLOWING
CONDITIONS:
Anyone playing a standalone game when the last seat in the room
becomes occupied must vacate his/her seat.
If you have school work to do and a person is playing a game,
you have the right to ask that person to vacate the seat if no
other workstations of the same type are available in that room.
Users playing games who refuse to vacate should be reported to Owlnet
management via electronic mail (director@owlnet).
** PLAYING NETWORK GAMES, OR GAMES THAT UNDULY AFFECT SYSTEM
RESOURCES IS NOT PERMITTED.
A network game is defined as one that allows two or more players to
interact with each other from more than one workstation. The game
makes use of the network facilities to accomplish this.
Games that unduly affect system resources include, but are not limited
to standalone games that require excessively large files, or excessive
computational or input/output resources, or can render all or part of a
system inoperable due to minor mis-configuration of the game files or
directories.
As they are discovered, network games, or standalone games that
interfere with the system resources will be rendered inoperable and
eventually removed from the system. The original owner of the file
shall be notified via electronic mail that these actions have
occurred.
Electronic Mail
Owlnet management will not regulate in any way the content of private,
consensual electronic mail communication between users.
Sending electronic mail directly to an unofficial automatic mail
handling program is not allowed. Unofficial means something that is
not a standard part of the system and has not been installed by the
Owlnet system management. Using an automated method to direct any
incoming mail to an unofficial program is not allowed. This
restriction is in place to guard against a mail handling or directing
method having an error, such as an infinite loop, that could flood the
mail system with spurious messages, preventing others from sending or
receiving mail and possibly significantly impacting overall system
performance.
Privacy
Although Owlnet will not regulate the content of electronic mail or
other files, Owlnet system management, in order to preserve the
integrity or operational state of the network, may find it necessary to
look at, without your prior consent, any data or files of yours that
exist on the system.
You should be aware that no computer security system, no matter how
elaborate, can absolutely prevent a determined person from accessing
stored information that they are not authorized to access. Thus,
while Owlnet tries to provide a reasonable level of confidentiality for
information stored on the network, we cannot {\em guarantee} the
privacy or confidentiality of any information stored on it. Therefore,
if there is any information that you absolutely do not want another
person to see or access, then you should not store it on Owlnet.
This policy exists to make you aware of the inherent limitations on
your ability to maintain your desired level of privacy or
confidentiality of information stored on the network.
Research
Owlnet currently does not support research activities during the Fall
and Spring semesters. Research activities include the following:
Computational activities that are undertaken to directly support
a Masters or Doctoral thesis.
Computational activities that are undertaken at a faculty
member's direction to support any faculty member's research.
enumerate
These definitions apply whether someone is actually using Owlnet
computers for the computation or activity, or is using Owlnet
workstations to remotely login to non-Owlnet systems where the activity
is taking place.
Research activities do not include the following:
Undergraduate independent projects as a structured part of an
undergraduate degree.
Structured projects or coursework as part of a professional
(non-thesis) masters degree.
Structured projects or graduate coursework that does not directly
support a thesis.
enumerate
Preventing Access by Others
Leaving your workstation unattended is dangerous to your personal
files, reputation, and to system security. People have taken advantage
of such unwary users by erasing their files, sending rude mail to third
parties, changing the unfortunate user's password to something unknown
so that they are locked out of their account, and setting up ways to do
all of these things again in the future. Obviously, such actions are
undesirable and will be punished; however, punishment of the malicious
user comes after the damage is done.
When you are running a windowing system (such as X Windows or SunView),
programs are available via menu options to lock a workstation's
screen. You should use these programs whenever you are going to be
away from your station for a short period of time. The lockscreen
programs available on the system will log you out of your workstation
at the end of a twenty minute period . This should be enough time to
go to the restroom, pick up a printout, or get a labby's attention.
Users are not allowed to use their own versions of lockscreen
programs.
Background Jobs
Putting a program into an unattended state while it continues to
execute and logging out of a computer is known as putting the
program, or `job' into the background. Running a program on one
machine and displaying its output on another via X Windows is not
considered backgrounding the job. All background jobs must have their
execution priority set to a level lower that that for interactive
processes. The job priority levels range from 1 to 19, with 1 being
the highest priority. Background jobs must be set to a priority of 10
or lower using the UNIX command nice . Please read the manual
page for nice find out how to do this, or consult
Chapter~ chap-unix , Introduction to UNIX in the Owlnet
Notes , or consult the Information Systems document ``Introduction to
UNIX''.
Background jobs are currently only allowed on the compute server
flammulated . If a background job is found running on a disallowed
workstation or server, it will be killed. If it is running on the
acceptable machine but its priority is not set low enough, then it will
be set to the lowest priority level possible (19).
This policy is in place to insure that maximum system resources are
available to users who are using Owlnet interactively, as they must be
logged on to use the network in this manner.
Remote Login Sessions
Owlnet users may only remotely login to the Owlnet systems flammulated,
alfric, and abelard. This applies to remote login sessions from any
system on or off campus and includes login sessions through the campus
terminal server charon.rice.edu. The full domain addresses of the
systems are flammulated.owlnet.rice.edu, alfric.owlnet.rice.edu, and
ableard.owlnet.rice.edu. Generally speaking, flam can be substituted
for flammulated.
alfric and abelard may only be remotely accessed for the purpose of
using applications unique to those systems, notably Mathematica.
General remote access is not permitted. All other remote access must
be to flam.
Users discovered to be remotely logged into any other Owlnet system
will be asked to move to flam. Users who repeatedly or egregiously
violate this policy will be directed to meet with the Director or
Deputy Director of Owlnet.
These remote login restrictions are in place to insure that maximum
system resources are available to those users who are physically in the
Owlnet labs.
System Administrator Talk Requests
Sometimes the Owlnet system administrators notice unusual activity
occurring in or by a user's account. Often the administrators attempt
to investigate what is going on by initiating an interactive electronic
talk session with the userid in question.
Sometimes the user refuses to respond to the talk request and logs off
immediately. This behavior raises the suspicion that the user may be
violating system or University policies, or even more serious, the
person using that userid is not the true owner of the userid.
Given Owlnet's need to maintain continuous service for over 1500
users, the system administrators will treat a user refusing a system
administrator's talk request by logging off as a potential security
violation. *In this situation, the system administrators have been
authorized to immediately lock the account of that user.* This
prevents any further activity with that account, which will protect the
system, and if the user account has been compromised and is being used
by someone other than the true owner, prevents any further possible
damage to that user's or other users' files. The owner of that userid
will be directed to meet with the Director or Deputy Director.
Many users routinely disable incoming talk messages, presumably to cut
down on distracting conversations with other users. We would advise
that you not disable incoming talk messages as a matter of course.
This will reduce the possibility that a system administrator who may be
trying to talk to you will misinterpret your actions. Message
receiving is enabled by default, so if you do not taken action to
disable it, you have nothing to worry about.
--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@cs.uiuc.edu -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
From caf-talk Caf Jun 28 10:33:52 1992
From: kadie@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.admin.policy
Subject: Re: Rice U. - "Owlnet Policy Enforcement Guidelines"
Message-ID: <1992Jun28.141320.14716@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 28 Jun 92 14:13:20 GMT
>Owlnet Policy Enforcement Guidelines - This document has been
>extensively rewritten since the last one in the archives. The major
>change is a rewriting to incorporate the disciplinary function of the
>Owlnet Student Advisory Committee, a new student body whose charter is
>included in one of the messages.
From jaw@rice.edu Sat Jun 27 12:45:19 1992
From: Joseph A. Watters
Subject: Part 3 of 6: Rice U. computing policies
To: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 92 17:00:26 CDT
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Owlnet policy enforcement guidelines.
--
Joseph A. Watters, Jr. jaw@owlnet.rice.edu
Deputy Director, Owlnet director@owlnet.rice.edu
Rice University
Owlnet Policy Enforcement Guidelines
Available Penalties
Depending on the nature and severity of the policy violation, Owlnet
may take one or more of the following disciplinary actions:
a. Verbal, written, or electronic mail warning.
b. Disciplinary probation.
c. Temporary access denial (lockout).
d. Permanent access revocation.
e. Disciplinary suspension
f. Alternative punishment not involving access or usage restrictions.
If warranted, Owlnet will refer the case to an appropriate University,
Local, State, or Federal authority for further disposition.
Policy Enforcement Procedures
Owlnet procedures will generally follow those set forth in the
University Code of Judicial Procedure.
For incidents not involving system security, integrity, or performance,
the user will generally receive at least one warning before being
referred to the Owlnet Student Advisory Committee (Advisory Committee)
for disciplinary action. For reference purposes, the Advisory
Committee will receive copies of all warnings issued. However,
depending on the nature and severity of the infraction, a meeting with
the Director or Deputy Director on the first offense may be required.
Users who are required to meet with the Director or Deputy Director
will be given two class days from the date on which notification is
sent to meet with them. If the user has not met with the appropriate
person within that time, and has not been granted an extension due to
unusual circumstances that prevent them from doing so, the user's
account shall be locked until the user has meet with the Director or
Deputy Director.
Evidence of attempted or actual system security, integrity, or
performance related incidents will be cause for immediate access
denial. The purpose of access denial in these cases is to prevent
further damage to the system or data while an investigation is being
conducted as expeditiously as possible. The user or users involved
will be required to meet with the Director or Deputy Director as soon
as possible. After investigation the case may be referred to the
Advisory Committee for disciplinary action, if warranted.
Demonstrated intent to violate policy will be considered the same as an
actual policy violation. Demonstrated intent means evidence of
actions, that if successful or if carried out as intended, would result
in a policy violation.
Violations or intended violations of the University Appropriate Use of
Computing Facilities Policy (832-90) will be considered violations of
Owlnet policy as well.
Notification
Users who are required to meet with the Director or Deputy Director
will be notified via electronic mail that a meeting within the next two
class days is required. The electronic mail will describe the incident
that led to the requirement for a face-to-face meeting, and any
scheduling constraints on the part of the Director or Deputy Director
that may exist.
Users who are denied access will be notified the next time they attempt
to access the system that they have been denied access, the specific
incident that led to the access denial, and any further action they are
expected to take, such as to meet with the Director, or Deputy
Director. Users with a known mailing address will be sent a written
notification via surface mail containing the same information.
Disciplinary Process
The disciplinary process for Owlnet policy violations contains the
following steps:
1. Initial disciplinary action (warning and/or meeting with Director
or Deputy Director)
2. If warranted, referral of the case to the Owlnet Student Advisory
Committee or the appropriate external authority.
3. Disciplinary hearing by the Advisory Committee.
4. Implementation of the disciplinary decision, if any, made by the
Advisory Committee.
Initial disciplinary action will be authorized or taken by the Director
or Deputy Director of Owlnet.
In situations where the case would be referred to the Owlnet Student
Advisory Committee or other authority, the user will be given a written
statement of the charges and specifications against them within four
working days. These terms are defined as follows:
Charge(s) - A description of the specific Owlnet and/or University
policy that was violated. Each different policy violation will be a
separate charge.
Specification(s) - A description of the specific actions alleged to
have been taken by the user that violate the policy. Every charge will
have a specification, providing a one-to-one correspondence between the
user's alleged activity and the policy that it violates.
Disciplinary procedures of the Advisory Committee are described in the
Owlnet Student Advisory Committee Charter.
--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@cs.uiuc.edu -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
From caf-talk Caf Jun 28 17:34:53 1992
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,alt.rush-limbaugh,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: alt.rush.limbaugh: censored or just dead?
Message-ID: <1992Jun28.212859.20136@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1992 21:28:59 GMT
n9020351@henson.cc.wwu.edu (James Douglas Del-Vecchio) writes:
>There once was a group called alt.rush-limbaugh, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh
>or something similar. I noticed that the group does not seem to exist
>at my site now. This either means that the topic was boring, and all the
>posters gave up and let it die, or someone at my site or feed is blocking
>it.
[...]
According to an article last year, Western Washington University is
subject to newsgroup censorship by the Vice Provost Information and
Communication. I hadn't heard that discussions of Rush Limbaugh were
restricted, only discussions related to sex.
- Carl
ANNOTATED REFERENCES
(All these documents are available on-line. Access information follows.)
=================
news/cafv01n45: Message-Id: <1991Dec18.181508.10501@eff.org>
=================
An article from the Computers and Academic Freedom News 01.45
Note 1 is a summary of many 1991 cases.
1. Enclosed is an end-of-year update of the Banned Computer Material
list. It summarizes incidents and policies at Ohio State U., the U. of
Illinois (two campuses), Case Western U., Boston U., U. of Waterloo,
U. of Toledo, Western Washington U., Iowa State U., Pennsylvania State
U., U. of Texas, U. of Newcastle, James Madison U., U. of Wisconsin,
and others.
=================
news/cafv01n35: Message-Id: <1991Oct30.040844.8212@henson.cc.wwu.edu>
=================
An article from the Computers and Academic Freedom News 01.35
Notes 12-13 are about Netnews service.
12. Western Washington University continues its ban on roughly 15 news groups.
=================
news/cafv01n33: Message-Id: <199110180040.AA04264@eff.org>
=================
An article from the Computers and Academic Freedom News 01.33
Notes 1-10 are related to the brouhaha in the State of Washington.
Notes 1-2 are about what happened.
1. A state auditor's criticism of game playing and pictures of naked
people on computers at Central Washington University (CWU) lead to
a demotion at CWU, newspaper criticism of the University of Washington
(UW), and newsgroup removal at Western Washington University (WWU).
=================
news/cafv01n36: Message-Id: <1991Oct17.181138.9478@henson.cc.wwu.edu>
=================
An article from the Computers and Academic Freedom News 01.36
Notes 2-6 are about incidents and policy at specific universities.
3. (Student at WWU:) Alt.sex was removed on the order of one person,
the Vice Provost for "information and communication".
=================
caf
=================
A description to the comp-academic-freedom-talk mailing list. It is a
free-forum for the discussion of questions such as: How should general
principles of academic freedom (such as freedom of expression, freedom
to read, due process, and privacy) be applied to university computers
and networks? How are these principles actually being applied? How can
the principles of academic freedom as applied to computers and
networks be defended?
=================
=================
These document(s) are available by anonymous ftp (the preferred
method) and by email. To get the file(s) via ftp, do an anonymous ftp
to ftp.eff.org (192.88.144.4), and get file(s):
pub/academic/news/cafv01n45
pub/academic/news/cafv01n35
pub/academic/news/cafv01n33
pub/academic/news/cafv01n36
pub/academic/caf
To get the file(s) by email, send email to archive-server@eff.org.
Include the line(s) (be sure to include the space before the file
name):
send acad-freedom/news cafv01n45
send acad-freedom/news cafv01n35
send acad-freedom/news cafv01n33
send acad-freedom/news cafv01n36
send acad-freedom caf
--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@cs.uiuc.edu -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
From caf-talk Caf Jun 28 19:45:09 1992
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,alt.rush-limbaugh,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: gmartin@zia.aoc.nrao.edu (George Martin)
Subject: Re: alt.rush.limbaugh: censored or just dead?
Message-ID: <1992Jun28.225349.2211@zia.aoc.nrao.edu>
Date: Sun, 28 Jun 92 22:53:49 GMT
In article <1992Jun28.212859.20136@m.cs.uiuc.edu> kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes:
>n9020351@henson.cc.wwu.edu (James Douglas Del-Vecchio) writes:
>
>>There once was a group called alt.rush-limbaugh, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh
>>or something similar. I noticed that the group does not seem to exist
>>at my site now. This either means that the topic was boring, and all the
>>posters gave up and let it die, or someone at my site or feed is blocking
>>it.
>[...]
>
>According to an article last year, Western Washington University is
>subject to newsgroup censorship by the Vice Provost Information and
>Communication. I hadn't heard that discussions of Rush Limbaugh were
>restricted, only discussions related to sex.
>
>- Carl
[The rest of Carl's reply deleted]
Before everyone goes off the deep end, did James Douglas Del-Vecchio
do the most obvious and simplest thing and contact his local News
administrator or whoever is responsible for the local Usenet feed
and ask about alt.* groups in general and *.*rush in paticular?
Ghad I hate to think I am suggesting this. I think that Rush is a
moronic demagougue and guess what I think about the ditto heads.
I find myself more interested in people's reactions to Rush than
I have interest in what Rush says or is said to say. But why not
move the Rush group(s?) into the mainstream heirarchy?.
talk.rush
or
talk.politics.rush
or
"whatever".rush
?
If such a proposal ever got to the CFV stage I would vote yes. I
would not enter the discussion in news.groups except perhaps to
argue against or for a suggested name. I WOULD NOT DO A CFD NOR
WOULD I DO A CFV AND I WOULD NOT COUNT VOTES!!!!
Why not try to move Rush's "wisdom" :-) into the mainstream hierarchy?
Any Rush fan out there willing to do some work for her/his hero?
--
George Martin
Systems Analyst NRAO/VLA Socorro NM
Internet: gmartin@zia.aoc.nrao.edu
"Skating away on the thin ice of the new day." (Ian Anderson)
From caf-talk Caf Jun 28 22:36:31 1992
Newsgroups: alt.censorship,alt.rush-limbaugh,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: alex@umbc4.umbc.edu (Alex S. Crain)
Subject: Re: alt.rush.limbaugh: censored or just dead?
Message-ID: <1992Jun29.022123.19834@umbc3.umbc.edu>
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1992 02:21:23 GMT
In article <1992Jun28.225349.2211@zia.aoc.nrao.edu> gmartin@zia.aoc.nrao.edu (George Martin) writes:
>Before everyone goes off the deep end, did James Douglas Del-Vecchio
>do the most obvious and simplest thing and contact his local News
>administrator or whoever is responsible for the local Usenet feed
>and ask about alt.* groups in general and *.*rush in paticular?
I second this. I can't believe that anyone would "censor"
alt.r-l, except maybe to conserve bandwidth, as is the right of any
sysadmin. I will say that alt.r-l went away at this site for about a week,
but it came back again, I didn't worry about it much. Of course, it
might be that liberal breeding that goes on in universities: maybe
the liberal leaders decided that Rush was getting too dangerous, and
killed off the group, just a thought.
>Ghad I hate to think I am suggesting this. I think that Rush is a
>moronic demagougue and guess what I think about the ditto heads.
>I find myself more interested in people's reactions to Rush than
>I have interest in what Rush says or is said to say. But why not
>move the Rush group(s?) into the mainstream heirarchy?.
I think that alt.r-l (and alt.fan.r-l) is the quinticential
alt group - more heat then light, random flame wars and not much
constructive anything. Of course, I also think that about the radio
show, too, so maybe there's a counter opinion out there somewhere.
--
Anybody who agrees with me deserves what they get.
Alex Crain
UMBC Academic Computing Services
From caf-talk Caf Jun 28 23:04:23 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.org.eff.talk,comp.admin.policy,alt.censorship,soc.college
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Abstract of CAF-News 02.23
Message-ID: <1992Jun29.030408.2755@eff.org>
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1992 03:04:08 GMT
This is an abstract for the most recent "Computers and Academic
Freedom News" (CAF-News). Information about CAF-News follows the
abstract. The full CAF-News is available via anonymous ftp or by
email. For ftp access, do an anonymous ftp to ftp.eff.org
(192.88.144.4). Get file "pub/academic/news/cafv02n23".
The full CAF-News is also available via email. Send email to
archive-server@eff.org. Include the line:
send caf-news cafv02n23
--- begin abstract ---
[Best of April 1992
========================== KEY ================================
The words after the numbers are a short PARAPHRASES of the articles,
or QUOTES from them, NOT AN OBJECTIVE SUMMARY and not necessarily my
opinion. Many of the paraphrases are based on earlier paraphrases by
Adam, Elizabeth, Mark, Paul, me, and by guest editor Fred Nixon.
===============================================================
Notes 1-3 are about Netnews removals at the University of
Nebraska, Lincoln and in Germany.
1. [A UNL user:] On March 2nd, the alt groups were eliminated by UNL's
Computing Resource Center (CRC). Although the reason given was lack
of resources, the content of the groups played a major part. The
chairman of the UNL Academic Senate Computational Services and
Facilities Committee felt in hindsight that the committee did not have
all the facts when they recommended a limited set of news feeds. On
April 6th the UNL Academic Senate Executive Committee voted to request
restoration of the majority of the alt.* groups.
2. [_The Daily Nebraskan_:] "Pornography was a factor in the UNL
Computing Resource Center's decision to stop supplying and entire
hierarchy of USENET news groups to UNL computers, the CRC director
said Thursday."
<9205040334.AA04565@cse.unl.edu>
3. A story in the German paper "EMMA" resulted in the banning of the
"sex" news groups at several universities. Among the groups banned was
"alt.sexual.abuse.recovery."
<199204201927.AA07124@eff.org>
Notes 4-5 are about computer policy at the University of Illinois
and at Iowa State University.
4. [Editor's note: This policy was recently changed -cmk] The NCSA
email policy permits searches and punishment of facility users who
criticize the NCSA or University in email. The policy was created to
justify (after the fact) a search of the computer files of a student
employee. In reaction to the criticism, the NCSA asked a campus wide
committee to review the policy. The committee recommended a policy
closer to the University's general privacy policy. The campus legal
counsel apparently objected to the new policy, since it might increase
the University's liability. It appears counsel is waiting for the
courts to establish law in this area.
<1992Apr26.204032.20854@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
5. "The due process protection of the policy is good. The privacy
protection is unclear. Free expression protection is poor. (The policy
imposes speech restrictions on email and other computer media.
Specifically, it prohibits rude expression and any expression of a
political nature. In my opinion, these speech restrictions violate
academic freedom and the law.)"
<1992Apr2.174625.23219@eff.org>
Note 6 is the Nebraska University Students for Electronic Freedom.
6. This is the Statement of Purpose from the Nebraska University
Students for Electronic Freedom. The group promotes academic freedom,
works to protect privacy, acts as "watch dog" group for university
administration, educates the user community, and strives to broaden
access to electronic communication systems.
<1992Apr1.192701.28737@eff.org>
Note 7 is about fighting words, the "right" not to listen, and the
"right" not to be offended.
7. The Supreme Court says that there is no right not to be offended
except when privacy is 'invaded in an essentially intolerable manner.
Any broader view ... would effectively empower a majority to silence
dissidents simply as a matter of personal predilections.'
<1992Apr27.143505.9602@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Notes 8-9 are about cracking program and email privacy policy.
8. "I have a problem with outlawing cracking programs: ... Would it be
illegal to possess a paper on access security that contained the
source code for a cracking program? Where do they draw the line
between intellectual discourse and intent to break into someones
account?"
<1992Apr30.164835.1816@opac.osl.or.gov>
9. This is a summary of opinions on email privacy, gleaned from a
questionnaire distributed to comp.admin.policy, comp.risks, and
comp.society.
Notes 10-12 are about logging user activity.
10. [An administrator:] I have been logging "anonymous" ftp's for
months. It was done in response to people abusing privileges by
uploading files to bypass local quotas, or to share with friends.
After discussion in the picture discussion groups, I decided to post a
notice about the logging and upload restrictions at login. Others
argued that "anonymous" implied that no logging would be done. Login
as anonymous now gives a message warning that that is not so. A sample
warning is provided.
11. "One should consider the overall chilling effect of [telnet]
monitoring. What effect will it have on the users--and the
institution--as a whole?"
<1992Apr16.035456.6200@ms.uky.edu>
12. I have never encountered a library system which retains the
patron/book association after the book is returned. "Most libraries
will vehemently protect the privacy of their patrons."
- Carl]
--- end abstract ---
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Disclaimer: This CAF-News abstract was compiled by a guest editor or a
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--
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
=kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
