Re: Anonymous remailers and Leahy bill

[jrochkin@cs.oberlin.edu (Jonathan Rochkind)]

At 5:22 PM 03/07/96, jim bell wrote:
>Wouldn't help "Bob" in the least.  And you didn't read what I wrote very
>carefully, either:  Notice that I said, "under a different name."  In other
>words, the source of the note does not identify the user name under which
>the illegal activity is promised to occur.  Cancelling this particular
>fellow's account does NOTHING to prevent the illegal activity from
>occurring by other, unidentified users, and "Bob" knows it.

How is this differnet then me calling up AOL and saying "Using a friend's
account whose password I have, I'm going to send child pornography out to
many people sometime tommorow"?

I don't know if it is or not, but hopefully it's the same.  As long as
anonymous remailers are legally identical to ISPs, I think we don't have to
worry too much becuase ISPs are now serious money-making businesses with
lots to spend on lobbying and legal fees, and will fight any laws that
effect them such.   Whether this Leahy bill is passed or not, clearly AOL
is not going to quietly shut down their entire company after receiving such
a phone call.  And they can't really do anything to stop the theoretical
next-day child porn mailing either.  [If you like, have the phone caller
threaten to send out encrypted child porn, just to make it more perfect an
example.]

So it would be beneficial to present anonymous remailers as just another
sort of internet service provider.  And we only really have to worry when
there are laws that seem to apply to anon remailers but not AOL.