Re: Report on UN conference on Internet and racism

["Colin A. Reed" <aleph@cco.caltech.edu>]

At 05:59 PM 11/18/97 -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>My take on it is that overseas citizens have no Constitutional rights.
>However ISPs in the U.S. have rights that U.S. laws recognize and protect.
>
Actually I seem to remember that U.S. citizens have full constitutional
protection (only from the U.S. government of course) no matter where they
reside, non-citizens have full protection within the borders of the U.S.,
and non-citizens have partial protection outside the borders of the U.S.  I
don't remember how much is covered by the last though.  

>If a U.S. law prevented an ISP from contracting to put a web site online,
>it would be like a law that prevented a U.S. book company from publishing a
>book penned by a German. Or the Netly News from publishing an article
>written by our London correspondent. Such a law would be facially
>unconstitutional.
>
>Perhaps the analogy between an ISP and publisher is inexact, but that's the
>type of analysis I'd pursue.
>
>-Declan
>
>
>At 23:33 +0100 11/18/97, Peter Herngaard wrote:
>>Does the First Amendment prevent the Congress from passing
>>a law that would make it illegal for anyone who is outside the United
>>States to
>>set up a web site in the U. S. in violation of a local speechcode?
>>For example, a German nazi organization could establish a WWW site in
>>California out of reach
>>of German law.
>>Would it be constitutional to make a law barring  foreign citizens from
>>violating the speech
>>codes of their home countries using a U. S. ISP?
>
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                             -Colin