From: Mike Godwin <mnemonic@eff.org>
Date: Tue, 5 Oct 93 05:00:19 PDT
To: an25184@anon.penet.fi
Subject: Re: More Anonymous "Annoyance"
In-Reply-To: <199310050409.AA02605@xtropia>
Message-ID: <199310051159.AA20241@eff.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


 
anonymous writes, among other things:

> A small California network, "NirvanaNet," that features encryption,
> radical political discussion and "dangerous" text files had their home
> node visited by the FBI earlier this year and in short order were
> libeled in the local press in an inflammatory hatchet-piece as (and I
> quote) "a clearinghouse for crime," despite the fact that no charges
> were filed nor any criminal activity detected on the part of any
> individual caller.
 
<text deleted>

> The effect - ultimately - is that it is safer for a BBS operator to risk
> violating a caller's rights than to face trouble from the authorities
> on some fishing expedition.

This posting illustrates the common logic problem behind rationales for
e-mail snooping. Note that, according to anonymous, there was no criminal
activity detected on this NirvanaNet node. Yet it was still searched.

What triggered the search of NirvanaNet seems to have been the unencrypted
discussions and text files, not the encrypted or private mail.

The notion that e-mail snooping has some kind of magic power to prevent
police searches still has no evidence to support it.


--Mike