Re: Report on UN conference on Internet and racism

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

Sorry. I was unclear. I was comparing U.S. citizens with citizens of
another country who are living in that country.

If a U.S. citizen living in the U.S. is running an ISP, I would argue from
principle that he has a right to distribute writings (I like Jeanne's
bookstore analogy) penned by citizens of another country.

-Declan

At 16:38 -0800 11/18/97, Colin A. Reed wrote:
>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?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>                             -Colin