Remailer extensions

[Jim Choate <ravage@ssz.com>]

Hi all,

In pondering the last few days of discussion it occurs to me that a test
might be possible. In short:

Is it legal for a business to anonymously remail physical mail?

The process I propose is as follows:

1.   Some party mails an envelope to 'Remailers-R-Us'.

2.   Inside that envelope is the real mail addressed and stamped along
     with say a $1 money order for processing.

3.   The people at Remailers-R-Us simply take the dollar and deposit it
     in the bank while depositing the letter they received in the local
     mail drop.

Now the Remailers-R-Us obviously can't open the mail since that would be
tampering. To this end I make reference to some comments I made about a year
ago regarding the results of encrypting every stage of the remailer
sequence. To wit, the only way to guarantee protection is if the remialer
is not able to read the actual contents of the mail, even if they were so
disposed.

I would also like to point out (the obvious I admit) that the founding
fathers apparently embarced anonymous distribution via their 'publius'
handle. It seems to me that a federal prosecutor would have a hard time
claiming there was no precedence for such actions. Such a claim to my way
of thinking would be fundamental in any attempted prosecution for anonymous
remailing. Also, as far as I can find out, there was no persecution of the
newspapers for printing this material anonymously, they apparently were not
held to task for the content. This seems to indicate that English commen law
of that day (and its descendants here today) embraced anonymous speech as
well.


                                                      Jim Choate