Re: PGP in Fidonet

[Mike Godwin <mnemonic@eff.org>]

Perry Metzger writes:

> > 1]  On a privately-owned computer...
> > 2]  Operating a noncommercial BBS without monetary compensation...
> > 3]  On which a repeating log-on notice informs users that all messages
> >     are subject to sysop viewing...
> > 4]  Sysop/sole owner viewing of non-public (as opposed to "private")
> >     messages during system maintenance or monitoring for unlawful
> >     activity...
> > 5]  Is prosecutable under ECPA?
> 
> Gee, you are starting to catch on, aren't you? 
 
Perry, he actually does touch on one exception under ECPA--viewing of
non-public messages during normal system maintenance. Also, a sysop can't
monitor for unlawful activity in general, but he or she can monitor
activity that may relate to the protection of the system from, say,
intruders. Think of this latter as the Cuckoo's Egg exception.

> > In any case, I am informed hobby sysops have been arrested and their
> > systems seized for allegedly illegal traffic on their systems 
> 
> Mike Godwin, council to the EFF, has never heard of such a case. If
> you believe one has occured, why don't you tell us precisely where and
> when it occured?

Let me be precise. I do know of systems that have been seized, not for
some crime of "illegal traffic," but because law enforcement believed that
the system contained evidence of a crime. I know of no case in which a
sysop has been "arrested" merely because of allowing so-called "illegal
traffic" that he or she didn't know about.



--Mike