Re: Are Remailers Liable for What They Remail?

[die@pig.jjm.com (Dave Emery)]

	Duncan Frissell writes
> 
> Remailers have no knowledge or control hence no scienter (guilty knowledge)
> hence no liability as a matter of law -- not a jury question BTW.
> 
	But is it not true that the state can simply decide that
anonymous remailers are a nuisance and a tool of criminals and pass laws
making remailer operators liable or outlawing remailers entirely ?
Considering the things that have been outlawed for flimsy reasons in the
US recently (eg assault weapons, some kinds of scanners) I find it nieve
to presume that anonymous remailers will remain legal.  They are just
too much of a temptation to libelers and slanderers, software pirates,
information thieves, blackmailers, extortionists, tax evaders etc.  And
their perceived positive uses so weak by comparision that I predict that
within a very few years providing an anonymous mail service will either
be strictly illegal or require logging of user ID's and screening of
traffic for legality. 

	Wait and see ...

						Dave Emery