Date: Sat, 28 Nov 92 10:19:54 CDT >From: Jim Thomas Subject: File 5--SYSLAW (Review #2) The U.S. Secret Service's "crackdown" on hackers in the past two years has included seizures of computer hardware running BBSes. This raises significant questions for the legal obligations of both users and sysops. The "Phrack trial," Operation Sun Devil, and--more recently--the alleged USSS involvement in disrupting law-abiding 2600 meetings underscore the importance of establishing unequivocal Constitutional protections of BBSes. SYSLAW, a comprehensive summary of the legal liabilities and obligations of BBS sysops, is mistitled: It's not simply a legal handbook for sysops, but a helpful compendium of laws and practices relevant to BBS users as well. Although both Lance Rose and Jonathan Wallace (R&W) are attorneys, the volume is written clearly and without overwhelming legal jargon, and even the casual BBS user should derive sufficient information from the volume to understand the problems sysops confront in running a board. Rose and Wallace accomplish their stated goals (p. xxii) of familiarizing readers with the kinds of legal questions arising in a BBS context, providing sysops with a legal overview of laws bearing on BBS operations, and identifying the legal ambiguities in which the law appears to provide no clear guidelines for operation, yet may place a sysop at legal risk. Syslaw is divided into nine chapters and 10 hefty appendices. The core issues in the book are 1) First Amendment and speech, 2) privacy, 3) sysop liabilities to users, and 4) sysop/user relations. In the first chapter, the authors emphasize that the question of the relationship of a BBS to the First Amendment remains unsettled, and this relationship generates considerable discussion in BBS forums and on Usenet (eg, comp.org.eff.talk). While noting that BBSs create new challenges or Constitutional interpretation, R&W identify two reasons why BBSs deserve "the full protection from legal interference granted by the First Amendment under its express protections of "speech," "press," "peaceable assembly," and "petitioning the government" (p. 2). First, BBSs are focal points for creating, collecting and disseminating information, and as such, electronic speech is "perfectly analogous to printed materials which are universally acknowledge as protected under the First Amendment." Second, R&W argue that BBSs are analogous to physical printing presses and promote the growth of alternative publishers with diverse points of view. Just as technology has expanded rights from print media other media, such broadcast radio and television, BBSs also reflect an emergent technology that functions in much the same way as the older media: BBS's ((sic)) powerfully fulfill the goal of the First Amendment by enabling effective publishing and distribution of diverse points of view, many of which never before had a voice. Protecting BBS's should be one of the primary functions of the First Amendment today (p. 3). R&W argue that there are three main ways that the First Amendment protects BBSs: (1) it sharply limits the kinds of speech that can be considered illegal on BBS', (2) it assures that the overall legal burdens on sysops will be kept light enough that they can keep their BBS' running to distribute their own speech and others', and (3) it limits the government's ability to search or seize BBS' where it would interfere with BBS' ability to distribute speech. The authors identify three kinds of BBS operations that, for First Amendment purposes, qualify for various types and amounts of protection (p. 8-17): They are simultaneously publishers, distributors, and shared message networks. The authors emphasize that speech protections are an issue between the government and the citizens, not the sysops and their users. Sysops, they remind us, can--within the law--run their boards and censor as they wish. The danger, R&W suggest, is that over-cautious sysops may engage in unnecessary self-censorship in fear of government intervention. Their goal is to provide the BBS community with guidelines that help distinguish legal from illegal speech (and files). The remaining chapters address topics such as sysop liability when injurious activities or materials occur on a BBS, the sysops obligations when obviously illegal behavior is discovered, the "problem" of sexual explicit materials, and searches and seizures. Of special interest is the chapter on contractual obligations between sysop and users (chapter 2) in which they suggest that one way around many of the potential legal liabilities a sysop might face with users is to require a binding "caller contract" that explicitly delineates the rights and obligations of each party. They provide a sample contract (Appendix A) that, if implemented at the first-call in screen progression format (any unwillingness to agree to the terms of the contract prevents the caller from progressing into the system) that they judge to be legally binding if the caller completes the contract by agreeing to its terms. The Appendixes also include a number of federal statutes that provide a handy reference for readers. These include statues on child pornography, state computer crime laws, and federal computer fraud and abuse acts. My one, in fact my only, objection to the book was to a rather hyperbolic swipe at "pirate boards:" Only a tiny minority of BBS's operate as "pirate boards" for swapping stolen software, computer access codes, viruses etc. When these criminal boards are seized and shut down by the authorities everyone benefits (p. 6). This rather excessive and simplistic view of "piracy" seems to contradict both their intent to improve understanding of new technology and corresponding behaviors by avoiding such extreme words as "stolen software" and to clarify the nuances in various forms of behavior in ways that distinguish between, for example, casual swapping of copyright files and profiteering. This, however, is a minor quibble (and will be taken up in future issues of CuD focusing on piracy and the Software Publishers' Association). Syslaw should be required reading for all BBSers. Unfortunately, it is available *only* from PC Information group, Inc. Those wishing to obtain a copy can write the publisher at: 1125 East Broadway Winona, MN 55987 Voice: (800-321-8285 / 507-452-2824 Fax: 507-452-0037 If ordering directly, add $3.00 (US) to the $34.95 price for shipping. ------------------------------ Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253