Re: Legal status of Indian Reservations and CDA

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 6:03 PM 2/17/96, Michael Peponis wrote:
>If I remember correctly, are not American Indian reservations considered
>qusi-sovergin states under the law?
>
>If this is true, what would stop me from negotiating with some tribe to
>establish an ISP on the reservation and then placing whatever material I
>wanted
>on that site without fear of reprisals from the US goverment.
>
>After all, if they are a soveign state, decency is covered by whatever laws
>they have, if any, not the CDA.
>
>If this is true, the Indians get the benift of having state-of-the-art
>telecommunications in thier communities, plus residual job creation, and
>everyone else gets freedom of speech.

"Bingo."

Actually, not. Despite the Indian bingo parlors, look at what is lacking in
this model: brothels, money-laundering banks, hash parlors, etc. (Not that
there aren't whorehouses operating semi-openly on Indian lands, as
elsewhere, just that the fiction that Indian reservations are
quasi-sovereign is just that, a fiction. Recall the case of Native American
uses of peyote.)

Of course, this fiction of sovereignty has been useful for the intelligence
community when they wanted it: Wackenhut and related CIA companies used the
Cabazon Band of Indians lands near Indio, California to develop products
that are illegal to develop in the nominal United States...despite being
less than a mile from the main freeway linking LA and Palm Springs.

And I was told that certain microwave (Long Lines?) lines were deliberately
routed through Indian reservations, allowing NSA-GCHQ monitoring without
violating the "no domestic interception" fiction.

So, it might be possible to eventually push through an exemption to the CDA
that is somewhat analogous to the way some Indian reservations can have
gambling facilities that are otherwise forbidden, but I expect the court
battle would be a long one, and would need big money to pursue. (Gambling
got pushed through for obvious financial reasons, and perhaps because of
some judicious payoffs to local officials, courts, etc. Yet another
convenient fiction.)

--Tim May

Boycott espionage-enabled software!
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed.
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