From: Lou Zirko <lzirko@isdn.net>
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Message Hash: 77f2dbbc80e86d023cb4387b099cc076ea05e93537f1ae3a16816d946691d8ca
Message ID: <199604202128.QAA09545@rex.isdn.net>
Reply To: N/A
UTC Datetime: 1996-04-21 00:12:57 UTC
Raw Date: Sun, 21 Apr 1996 08:12:57 +0800
From: Lou Zirko <lzirko@isdn.net>
Date: Sun, 21 Apr 1996 08:12:57 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Georgia Legislation - Remailer Effect???
Message-ID: <199604202128.QAA09545@rex.isdn.net>
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T have included copy of text from c/net about a bill passed in the
Georgia legislature. It would definately impact remailer service.
Location of the remailers might fall in with the Arkansas (or was it
Tennessee) BBS/Porno case. The URL is at:
http://www.cnet.com/Content/News/Files/0,16,1144,00.html
Article follows
- ---------------------------------
Georgia OKs "Net Police" law
By Rose Aguilar
April 19, 1996, 5 p.m. PST
A bill signed into law this week by Georgia Governor
Zell Miller has sparked yet another firestorm
over what role the government should take in curbing
the Internet and whether legislators are
sufficiently techno-savvy to make considered judgments.
House Bill 1630 was introduced on February 8 by Georgia
House of Representatives member Don
Parsons (R-Marietta). The bill makes it illegal to
falsely identify yourself or place a registered
trademark or logo on your home page. The bill also
makes it illegal for email users to have addresses
that don't include their own names.
For example, an individual who sets up a site that
gives the appearance of representing a government
agency by using a state seal could be sued by the
state. Also, "vanity" email addresses like
jackpot@luckynumber.com purchased from a new service
called VanityMail.com are now illegal in
the state of Georgia. If someone is sued under the new
law, the court will decide the penalties.
Parsons says he drafted the bill to solve the problem
of online impersonation. "Back in the winter I
started hearing about home pages through the news that
offer remedies and health related services.
To the untrained eye the pages make it appear that the
information provided is valid and could be
some kind of remedy," Parsons said. "After some thought
and research I decided to present the bill."
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a civil
liberties organization devoted to technology-related
issues, says the bill could undermine one of the
essential benefits of the Net: the ability to link
information posted to one site with related information
posted to another.
"The way the bill is written states that you can't put
a button on your homepage that says, 'Click here
to go to Wired magazine.'" If Wired is copyrighted I
would be under violation if I didn't have their
permission. Instead, I would have to say, 'Click here
to go to this cool magazine,'" said Shari Steel, a
staff attorney with the EFF.
Parsons retorts back that the foundation is
misinterpreting the bill. "The EFF is reading something into
the bill which just isn't there. The bill has nothing
to do with links. The bill is about using a name or a
trademark to represent your page as being someone
else's," he said.
The problem is that the wording of the law leaves it
open to multiple interpretations, according to the
EFF. "He created a very vague law that could very well
make everyone on the Internet a criminal,"
said Steel. Furthermore, the EFF is accusing Parsons of
introducing the bill to help his employer, Bell
South, win a lawsuit.
Bell South announced this week that it has filed a suit
against startup company "realpages.com" in a
battle over domain names on the Internet. Realpages.com
designs and maintains Web pages for other
businesses. Bell South, however, has a trademark on the
term The Real Yellow Pages for its printed
directories and claims that this extends to a trademark
on the "realpages.com" domain name for the
Net. The Baby Bell wants to use "realpages.com" because
"Realyellowpages.com" is too long.
"This [bill] has been masterminded by Bell South. It's
obvious, considering that the legislator who
wrote the bill is a Bell South employee," said Stanton
McCandlish, an online activist with the EFF.
"This bill would give Bell South the victory that they
want, but probably aren't going to get in court.
Bell South is going to lose that case and lose big," he
said.
Parsons confirms that he works for Bell South but
denies the charge. "The Bell South Corporation
has no interest in this bill. I don't even think the
cases are the same," Parsons said. "I put this bill
together long before that case and they are totally
separate," he said.
Whatever Parsons' motivations, even some other Georgia
representatives agree that he managed to
get a bill passed with potential negative repercussions
for the use of the Internet.
"Many legislators are afraid of technology and they
fear the power of information and the Internet,
especially the Internet in the power of the voters and
that's a nationwide problem," said
Representative Mitchell Kaye (R-Marietta).
Kaye is the Web master of a site called the
Conservative Policy Caucus (CPC), which posts
information about House activities from the viewpoint
of the conservative legislative caucus. During
debate over his bill, Parsons referred to the CPC site
as an example of one that passes itself off as an
official government site.
Kaye says that Parsons is wrong about the CPC site and
that it will be unaffected by the bill. But he's
still concerned about the potential dampening affect
that it will have on the use of the Internet in
Georgia. "I'm concerned about the bigger page of the
Internet," said Kaye. "The bottom line is that
this is an unconstitutional infringement upon free
speech and literally puts Georgia in the same
category as communist China."
Ridiculous, says Parsons. "I would never want to
restrict anybody's freedom of speech, but I believe
that end users have some right to know who is behind
what they are looking at," he said.
The passage of the law has since sparked conversation
on Steve Outing's online-news mailing list.
Copyright =A9 1996 c|net inc. all rights reserved
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