From: "David D. W. Downey" <admin@cyberspacetechnologies.com>
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 17:21:00 +0800
To: Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>
Subject: Re: Eternity Uncensorable?
In-Reply-To: <19970812121230.24614@bywater.songbird.com>
Message-ID: <XFMail.970813051333.admin@cyberspacetechnologies.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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  The Feds will undoubtably attempt to procecute, but the way the federal law re
ads, 
ABCD Company must have some sort of knowledge in their possesion that conspirato
rs C and D
were actually planning something criminal. Without that knowledge, the governmen
t can not 
prove the technicals needed for a conviction.    Scenario: Say the conspirators 
committed a 
murder.  Malice Afore-thought is crucial to a premeditated murder conviction. 
The conspirators could be convicted of premeditated murder because they showed m
alice 
aforethought when they purchased and used the weapons involved in the killing. 
   Now, ABCD Company can not be charged with premeditated murder as they did not
 take part 
in the actual killing. That leaves aiding and abetting, and co-conspiring to com
mit a 
felony (aka the premeditiated murder.) ABCD Company would lose if they had culpa
ble knowledge
 1) what the contents of the packages were, and 2) what the conspirators were pl
anning. 
    But the Feds would be unable to show malice aforethought on the part of ABCD
 
Company, thereby blowing the co-conspirator charge out the window. In addition, 
culpable 
knowledge would not be proven because they did not know the contents of the pack
ages, 
thereby blowing the aiding and abetting charges out the window. The Feds' case w
ould hinge 
upon the requirement that ABCD Company know the contents of anything moving thro
ugh their
 buisiness. Since their business is legally based upon anonymous mailing abiliti
es, they 
can basically tell the government to go blow up a battleship for all the chances
 the Feds 
have of winning.>
>Yes, I think there might be problems for the feds in this case.  Your 
>analogy is not at all accurate, since the remailers have no knowledge 
>of what their individual shares contain, and didn't supply any of the 
>input data to begin with.  Here's a different analogy:
>
>Alice and Bob and Carol and Dave run mailbox outlets.  Elmer and Fred
>jointly rent several mailboxes.  Elmer mails a single piece of a gun
>to each mailbox in a sealed package -- ABCD can have no way of
>knowing what is in each package.  Fred goes to each mailbox and gets
>the package inside, takes them all home, and assemble a weapon used 
>to commit a crime.  It is hard to see how ABCD could be included in 
>any conspiracy, because they were providing a general, legal service, 
>and they had absolutely no knowledge of the conspiracy.
>
>-- 
>Kent Crispin				"No reason to get excited",
>kent@songbird.com			the thief he kindly spoke...
>PGP fingerprint:   B1 8B 72 ED 55 21 5E 44  61 F4 58 0F 72 10 65 55
>http://songbird.com/kent/pgp_key.html

----------------------------------
E-Mail: David D. W. Downey <admin@cyberspacetechnologies.com>
Date: 08/13/97
Time: 04:51:15

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