Re: Leahy bill nightmare scenario?

[jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>]

At 12:01 PM 3/11/96 -0800, Timothy C. May wrote:
>At 11:12 AM 3/11/96, Gary Howland wrote:
>
>>Dan Weinstein writes:
>
>>> If I rent cars, someone might one day use a car rented from me in a
>>> robbery.  Does that make my an accessary?  NO.
>>
>>This is an unfair analogy.  Now if you had said that you rented cars
>>without asking for proof of identification, thus making your car hire
>>centre very useful to robbers, that may more closely resemble the
>>anon-remailer situation.
>
>If a hotel rents a room to someone who commits a crime in that room, e.g.,
>prostitution, drug use, plotting to blow up a building, can the hotel be
>seized under the asset forfeiture laws?
>Not that I have heard.

Your example is so misleading that it's wrong.  Cities generally attack motels by threatening to pull their licenses, which is usually called an "administrative process" and thus few of the usual protections apply.

>Does it matter if the hotel fails to extensively check identification?
>(Hint: Rarely have I had my ID checked. Sometimes they ask for a driver's
>license and write down the number...and we all know how easy it is to get
>fake DLs. Mostly they don't.)

They do if they've been harassed by the city, for example Portland Oregon to name the closest example I know.

>
>If I lend my chain saw to my next-door neighbor without confirming his
>identity, and he carves up his wife, am I liable? Not in these parts.

"Criminally", probably not.  Civilly, probably if the victim's family has a good enough lawyer.

>(If I lend my chain saw to a ranting, foaming maniac, am I liable? Perhaps.)

Actually, then you're CRIMINALLY liable, as well.


>If I let someone use my telephone without confirming his identity, am I
>liable for crimes committed with this phone?
>This last example is, I submit,  a nearly perfect parallel to anonymous
>remailers. And not because the telephone system is a "common carrier," but
>because of scienter: I have no knowledge, and cannot be expected to have
>knowledge, of crimes committed with my phone.

Actually, that's wrong.  The question will be asked, "Do you regularly lend your phone to strangers who you can't even see, no questions asked, without listening in to see that nothing untoward is being plotted?"  _THAT's_ a more apt analogy.


>If I have visitors at my house, perhaps at a party, and I let a stranger go
>ahead and make a call from the phone in a bedroom, for example, and he
>plans a drug deal, can my house be automatically seized? Not that I have
>ever heard about. 

If your phone was already tapped, and the delivery occurred in your house, you'd better look for new accomodations.

>Maybe so, but if this ever happens, expect an outcry
>against the asset forfeiture laws that will make Linda Thompson's protest
>seem tame.

I prefer not to wait until the Pollyannas of this world have been proven wrong.


>Now if I operate a pay phone and encourage dealers and pimps to use it,
>then maybe the public nuisance, RICO, or "crack house" laws can be used to
>shut it down. (The public nuisance laws are what I would look to to see
>remailers shut down, which will just move them offshore, of course. Absent
>laws about sending encrypted packets outside the country, nothing can be
>done.)

Justa sec:  The Leahy bill makes "encryption furtherance of a felony" 
illegal.  Sending encrypted packets out of the country, containing material 
you don't know (because they're encrypted) sounds like a classic opportunity 
to declare you in violation of some "conspiracy to violate the law" of some 
OTHER country, which is probably considered a Federal felony.

Welcome to prison, Tim.  Your optimism will serve you well, there.

BTW, it is clear that you haven't yet read Mr. Junger's analysis of the 
bill.  Nobody except a government stooge could read that and not wonder why 
anybody would support that bill.  A complete re-write is called for.

Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com