From: dean2@garnet.berkeley.edu (Dean Pentcheff)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,ba.politics,ucb.general,uc.general
Subject: UC computer searches: Summary #3.
Date: 18 Jan 92 00:14:42 GMT
Article-I.D.: agate.knesbiINN8d1
Reply-To: dean2@garnet.berkeley.edu (Dean Pentcheff)
Followup-To: comp.org.eff.talk
Organization: Department of Integrative Biology, UC Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: garnet.berkeley.edu


Friday Jan 17, 1992

UC computer search summary number 3.
        - Dean Pentcheff (dean2@garnet.berkeley.edu)
====================================================

This is the third (and probably final) in a short series of summaries
I've provided regarding the UC's court-ordered search of files on two
of its Unix mainframe computers.  I will maintain the mailing list of
interested parties, just in case something else comes up.  If you have
a continuing interest in these issues, please see the end of this
summary for suggestions on where to find more information.

**Please note**  This summary (and the preceeding two) are based on my
own understanding of what's going on.  These are not "official"
summaries, either from the University of California, or from the
plaintiff in the case.  I am not involved with the case in any
capacity except as an interested observer.

A brief summary of the case runs as follows (based primarily on a
discussion with the University counsel involved).  This repeats some
information contained in earlier postings, but also corrects some
misunderstandings.

A UC student is alleged to have broken into a UC computer system.  The
University has initiated disciplinary proceedings against him.

Based on due process requirements, the student's family has retained a
lawyer and computer experts and gone to court to get court orders for
certain University maintained records for the disciplinary hearing.
NOTE: the only involvement of the court is to order (or not order, as
the case may be) the University to divulge records.  Contrary to my
previous postings, the student's family is not suing the University.
They are preparing a case for the University disciplinary hearing, and
are using the court purely to require the University to provide
evidence they feel is important to the hearing.  There is no "discovery
procedure" involved.

The judge involved is not particularly familiar either with electronic
communications law or computers.  The strategy of the student's case
seems to be to obfuscate and complicate the entire sequence of hearings
as much as possible in an attempt to nullify the whole disciplinary
action.  Hence, they requested that the court order the University to
produce all University maintained student records on the student in
question.

The key question here is the interpretation of "university maintained
records."  The simple interpretation of the California State Buckley
Amendment is that a student is entitled access to conventional
administrative or faculty records of their university progress.  In
this case, the student's lawyers chose to push an interpretation that
made university maintained records encompass any record about the
student that exists on university maintained systems.

The student's lawyers informed the judge that it would be simple to
just have the University search _all_ backups for the mainframes for
anything relevant.  The University lawyers figuratively coughed and
sputtered, saying this was _most_ impractical.  The judge, unwilling
(and unable) to decide between the claims of the lawyers arguing in
front of him, ordered them out into the hall to come up with a
compromise.  The lawyers bargained and came up with a deal: the
University would search some specific backups and the online disks for
files that contain the student's name.

The University fought to search only for files that contained both the
student's first and last name.  The student's lawyers wanted files that
contained the first or the last name.  The judge, unwilling to accept
the University's claim that the latter option would produce too much,
ordered the University to do a search to determine how much text would
actually be located by these searches.

At this point, the University posted a message on the mainframes,
telling all users that they intended to search the disks on two of the
campus mainframes for any files "that may contain a particular
individual's name..."  At this point, also, the University lawyers
became aware of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986.
Considering that this case was too complicated already, realizing that
they already accepted a court order to search, and feeling that the
ECPA might not actually apply to this search, they chose not to mount a
secondary effort to stop the search.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation became interested in the case, but
discovered that they had been contacted by the plaintiff last year and
had given him some help.  This provides a potential conflict of
interest, so they have been carefully investigating their options.

At this point, the University has proceeded with the search, as ordered
by the court (though I'm not sure whether it's the first and last name
search or the first or last name search).  The files that are located
by this procedure will be inspected.  Any that are not relevant to the
disciplinary proceeding will not be divulged.  If, for example,
someones mailbox file with 50 letters in it is a "hit", only the
individual letters that are relevant to the case will be extracted and
printed.  All interaction with the court is complete.  The disciplinary
hearing itself will occur in a few weeks.

What's the upshot?  Files (including electronic mail files) on two
mainframes at UC Berkeley have been electronically searched (under
court order) for a particular character string.  The University
resisted the search, not on grounds of protection of privacy, but
simply on the grounds of undue burden.

The next few paragraphs summarize my own reactions to the incident, and
are no longer "news" summaries.

The clearest lesson of this incident is the exposure of lack of
knowledge of information privacy issues.  This applies both to the the
court and to the University counsel's office.  Apparently the judge
involved (who is nearing retirement), asked the lawyers to send him a
letter, once he's retired, explaining what was _really_ being argued in
front of him, since it clearly had little to do with a simple minded
request for student records.

The "moral" of the story is that the EFF, the Association for Computing
Machinery, and other organizations definitely have an important job
ahead of them.  We need clear policies and leadership on issues of
electronic privacy.  We definitely need to educate the legal
profession, legislators, and the general public on these issues.

Actual damage to users' privacy?  Pretty minimal (in my opinion).  The
University computer center has done its best to be as nonintrusive as
possible while still complying with the court order.

Theoretical damage to users' privacy?  Perhaps not so minimal.  As
students, faculty, or staff using the University's mainframes, what
expectation of privacy do we have?  Technically, it is trivial for
anyone with systems privilege to go on a fishing expedition for any
character string.  Under what circumstances, though, is this
permissible?  The issues in this case (users' privacy vs. right of
access to records) are not clear cut.  What constitutes a university
record of a student?  What legal protection's do computer user's files
have?  I don't know.  Nor does the University legal staff, the local
courts, or the University computer administration.  I find that
disturbing.

========================================================================

Further sources of information on issues of electronic privacy and freedom
of information.

************************************************************ 
THE ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION

"The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been established to civilize
the electronic frontier; to make it useful and beneficial not just to a
technical elite, but to everyone; and to do this in keeping with our
society's highest traditions of the free and open flow of information
and communication."

You can request to be added to the EFF mailing list by sending a note
to "eff-request@eff.org".  Alternatively, you can subscribe to the
moderated Usenet newsgroup "comp.org.eff.news" (which carries
everything sent out on the mailing list).  You are also welcome to
participate in the unmoderated Usenet news group "comp.org.eff.talk".

You can get more information about the EFF via anonymous FTP from the
site "eff.org" (Internet number 192.88.144.3).  Send electronic mail to
"ftphelp@eff.org" if you have questions or are unable to use FTP.

EFF ADDRESS:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Inc.
155 Second Street
Cambridge, MA 02142  
+1 617 864 0665
+1 617 864 0866 FAX

THE EFF STAFF: 
Mitchell Kapor, President and Co-founder (mkapor@eff.org);
John Perry Barlow, Co-founder (barlow@eff.org);
Michael Godwin, General Counsel (mnemonic@eff.org);
Gerard Van der Leun, Director of Communications (van@eff.org);
Christopher Davis, System Administrator (ckd@eff.org);
Helen Rose, System Administrator (hrose@eff.org);
Rita Rouvalis, Administrator (rita@eff.org)

THE EFF BOARD OF DIRECTORS:  
Jerry Berman, John Perry Barlow, Stewart Brand, Esther Dyson, John
Gilmore, Mitchell Kapor, Steve Wozniak.


************************************************************ 
USENET NEWSGROUPS

If you subscribe to Usenet news, there are several newsgroups that may
be of interest to you:
   comp.risks 
        A long running, well respected, moderated group that deals with
        the risks of computers in society.
   comp.org.eff.talk 
        Discussions of privacy and freedom of information in the 
        computer age.
   comp.org.eff.news 
        Moderated group of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
   alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
   alt.comp.acad-freedom.news
        Two other newsgroups dealing with issues of academic freedom.

If you don't know what Usenet news is, but are reading this message via
electronic mail, there's a good chance that your system supports the
Usenet news, but you just don't know about it.  Check for information
about the "rn" command, or ask your systems administrator how you can
subscribe to Usenet news.

--
Dean Pentcheff  (Internet: dean2@garnet.berkeley.edu)
Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley CA 94720
Work Phone: (510) 643-9048   Home Phone: (510) 839-1790    Fax: (510) 643-6264
-- 
Dean Pentcheff  (Internet: dean2@garnet.berkeley.edu)
Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley CA 94720
Work Phone: (510) 643-9048   Home Phone: (510) 839-1790    Fax: (510) 643-6264

From cafnews Fri Dec 13 16:15:02 1991
From: kadie@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: hackers, crackers, privacy on KQED
Date: 14 Jan 92 03:26:59 GMT

lear@oni.sgi.com (Eliot Lear) writes:

[...]
>A communication becomes a record once it is delivered to the final
>addressees.  One could argue that only *official* communications are
>covered, but it's a red herring.

Not for students, like me, who are not employees of the University.

>  After all, if I, in my capacity as
>system administrator at Podunk U. mail my boss alerting him to a
>break-in and student X's account that was broken into/did the breaking
>in, is that not an official record?
[...]

Maybe.

But email between student A and student B about student X (archived in
the home directories of A and B), should not be considered a
University maintained record about X.

If it is
  1) The A&B's email could not be disclosed to any nonuniversity
     personnel without X's consent. In other words, A&B could
     not read their own email archive.
  2) X could see A&B's email
  3) X could demand a hearing to challenge and possibly amend
    inaccurate information in A&B's email.
  4) The University must make a "reasonble effort" to notify
     students mentioned in the email before releasing the
     email under a subpoena. Timely notice is to allow
     the students mentioned the opportunity to contest
     the validity of the subpoena on their own behalf.
  5) All requests for disclosure would need to be logged.
     The log becomes part of X's record (and A's and B's)

(Based on _Your Right To Privacy_, 2nd edition, by Even Hendricks, et al)
     
- Carl
-- 
Carl Kadie -- kadie@cs.uiuc.edu -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

From caf-talk Sun Jan 19 00:00:00 1992
From: rogue@cellar.org (Rachel McGregor)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject:  Re: Effect of the Compuserve decision
Date: 18 Jan 92 18:54:35 GMT

Harry.Lee@p0.f10.n396.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Harry Lee) writes:

>  I wasn't clear.  Consider the following two situations: let's say I get
>  what you call rec.funny (?) or what we would call Humor.  Let's assume that
>  in the main, these conferences don't violate prevailing community standards.
>  However, perhaps 1% of the traffic is questionable.  You seem to be saying
>  that if I post-screen, my liability is small.  But in the other case, if I
>  pre-screen, and I let something through that does violate prevailing
>  community standards, would my liability be greater?
> 
>  I hope I don't seem pedantic here.

And I hope I don't blow Mike's argument.

I believe what Mike is saying (colored by my own interpretation, natch) is 

that a censor bears some liability for the material he or she approves.  

If you run your system with a policy of no censorship, or at least one in 
which you remove offensive or illegal messages only after a complaint has 
been made to you, your liability is less than if you held messages in a 
pre-screening area before you released them to the bbs.  There are four ways 
to censor messages on a system.  With each policy, your liability increases 
with they level of the censor's activism.

Least activist: No censorship
             2: Evaluation and/or removal of offensive messages after a user
                has complained to you about them.
             3: Your decision, based on your interpretation of the board's
                community standards, to remove a message you've seen after a
                user posted it, regardless of how long it's been visible to
                the user community.
 Most activist: Messages must be pre-screened by you or another user before
                they will be released into the public message bases.  After
                a user posts a message, it is held for your next login and
                approval based on your interpretation of community standards.

Censorship in the most activist case above carries the implication that if an 
offensive message is posted, it reached the public because of the agreement 
or negligence of the censor.  Therefore, the censor can be held responsible 
for the message and the effects of its release.  (In no case does it absolve 
the original author, though, if there is a criminal intent behind the 
message.)

(Just to remind you: I'm not a lawyer, just another bitch with an opinion.)

----
Rachel McGregor  | "Once in a wile an idea comes along that is so wonderful
rogue@cellar.org |  that you forget it immediately."




Computers and Academic Freedom News
Vol. 02, No. 04

[Week ending January 26, 1992

========================== KEY ================================
The words after the numbers are a short PARAPHRASES of the
articles, NOT AN OBJECTIVE SUMMARY and not necessarily my opinion.
===============================================================

Notes 1-4 discuss whether unauthenticated dial-in Internet access
should be provided.  

1. The problem with providing unauthenticated Internet access is that
it is not possible to trace responsibility for an action back to its
source.
    <25353.Jan1904.08.2692@virtualnews.nyu.edu>

2. MIT's TERMINUS provides anonymous access by default.  It has been
and will be used by crackers.  If someone has an Internet machine,
they are responsible for that machine; no one takes responsibility for
TERMINUS. 
    <4342.Jan2010.33.3392@virtualnews.nyu.edu>

3. A partial solution to authentication problems is RFC 931.  If the
originating machine runs an RFC 931-compliant server, other hosts can
find out which user owns the connection from that host to their
machine.  An archive address is provided.
    <26789.Jan1907.36.0392@virtualnews.nyu.edu>

4.  "Net access is not a right; civil liberties do not apply to the
base issue of network access (they can apply to specific services,
such as netnews)."
    <1992Jan21.110534.11426@ms.uky.edu>

Notes 5-6 discuss the right of an administrator at anonymous FTP site
to remove material protected by copyright.


5. A crack program was uploaded to an anonymous FTP area.  The program
appeared to contain portions of a game copyrighted by Sierra. "...
having a publicly writeable upload area does not give someone else the
right to place anything they want there, as it is not a public forum."
    <1992Jan20.225330.1164@ulowell.ulowell.edu>

6. The upsetting part of the administrator's action was that he said
he would notify system administrators.  That notification may assume
illegal actions, when ignorance was actually the cause.
    <27624@sdcc12.ucsd.edu>


Notes 7-10 discuss academic freedom and the right of sites to limit
access to netnews.

7. At Iowa State University, by default, a machine does not receive
the newsgroups alt.sex.*, alt.drugs, alt.psychoactives.  The head of
the department where the machines are located can request that the
machines have access to the omitted groups.  Students and staff are
attempting to change the policy.
    <1992Jan24.160039.20161@news.iastate.edu>

8. The first amendment does not mean that a government entity cannot
edit or restrict the material it carries.  "Your right to free speech
does not extend itself to include complete, unrestricted access to the
state's possessions."
    <1992Jan25.193640.25341@anomaly.sbs.com>

9.  Iowa State is not required to provide netnews.  They may limit
which groups they carry.  However, they have a moral responsibility
not to censor articles in a newsgroup.
    <1992Jan26.170429.27078@eff.org>

10. "If universities are bound to keep their libraries free of
arbitrary censorship, they are just as bound to keep Usenet free of
arbitrary censorship, as Usenet has become nothing less than an
electronic library of ideas."
    <1992Jan26.045844.10853@zip.eecs.umich.edu>


Note 11 discusses security and privacy issues raised by a proposed
public directory service.

11.  The North American Directory Forum (NADF) introduced a "User Bill
of Rights" to address security and privacy issues regarding entries
and listings in its proposed cooperative X.500 public directory
service.  The proposed bill of rights is included.
    <9201232252.AA04537@psi.com>

- Paul]


In this issue:

Dan Bernstein    56  >Announcing AntiTERM: The Anti-TERMINUS Alliance!
Dan Bernstein    51  >
Dan Bernstein    43  >
Wes Morgan       85  >[alt.security] Re: Announ<> AntiTERM: The Anti-TERMINUS
Brian ' O'Neill  44  Copyrights and program cracks....
Dennis Lou       45  >Distributing program cracks #10000000000000
John Hascall     66  >Duties of state universities regarding 1st amendment
Michael Deignan  69  >
Carl M. Kadie    48  >
Brad Baillod     72  >
M L Schoffstall  86  Norther American Director<>troduces "User Bill of Rights"


Computers and Academic Freedom News

Managing Editor:  Carl M. Kadie (kadie@eff.org)
Administration:   William W. Arnold (caf-talk-request@eff.org, warnold@eff.org)
Associate Editor: Elizabeth M. Reid (emr@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au)
Associate Editor: Paul Joslin (joslin@tso.uc.edu)

To contribute to the list, send email to "caf-talk@eff.org". Your note
will appear immediately on the caf-talk mailing list and in the
alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk newsgroup.

Back issues are available via anonymous ftp to ftp.eff.org. The
directory is pub/academic/news. Abstracts of CAF-news are in file
pub/academic/abstracts. The CAF archive is also available via email.
For information, send email to archive-server@eff.org. Include the
line:
  send acad-freedom README

Disclaimer: This CAF-News abstract was compiled by a guest editor or a
regular editor (Paul Joslin, Elizabeth M. Reid, or Carl M. Kadie). It
is not an EFF publication. The views an editor expresses and editorial
decisions he or she makes are his or her own.

The addresses for the list are:
	comp-academic-freedom-talk@eff.org     - for contributions to the list
		or	caf-talk@eff.org
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                (send email with the line "help" for details.)
	caf-talk-request@eff.org    - for administrivia

        Also, if you read newsgroups, look for alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
        and alt.comp.acad-freedom.news.
------------            
From caf-news Fri Jan 24 08:49:01 1992
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject:  Re: Effect of the Compuserve decision
Date: Mon, 6 Jan 1992 20:43:41 GMT

In article <1992Jan5.144430.23171@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> an104@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ric Helton) writes:

>What, if any, effect did the decision have that held Compuserve
>not liable for the contents of the newsletter defaming some other
>individual have on the rest of the industry?  Is this a signal from
>the court that they are ready to treat online systems as common
>carriers, or grant some other protections such as a library or
>bookstore or whatever might have?  What is the state of sysop
>liability?  

The following is an editorial that will appear in the next issue of
EFFector Online:

                         THE COMPUSERVE CASE:
    A STEP FORWARD IN FIRST AMENDMENT PROTECTION FOR ONLINE SERVICES.
                   By Mike Godwin (mnemonic@eff.org)




By now you may have heard about the summary-judgment decision in Cubby,
Inc. v. CompuServe, a libel case. What you may not know is why the
decision is such an important one. By holding that only if CompuServe
had "actual knowledge" of the defamation would it be liable, the court
in this case correctly analyzed the First Amendment needs of most online
services. And because it's the first decision to deal directly with
these issues, this case may turn out to be a model for future decisions
in other courts.


The full name of the case, which was decided in the Southern District
of New York, is Cubby Inc. v. CompuServe. Basically, CompuServe
contracted with a third party for that user to conduct a special-interest
forum on CompuServe. The plaintiff claimed that defamatory material
about its business was posted a user in that forum, and sued both the
forum host and CompuServe. CompuServe moved for, and received, summary
judgment in its favor.


Judge Leisure held in his opinion that CompuServe is less like a
publisher than like a bookstore owner or book distributor. First
Amendment law allows publishers to be liable for defamation, but
not bookstore owners, because holding the latter liable would create
a burden on bookstore owners to review every book they carry for
 defamatory material. This burden would "chill" the distribution of
books (not to mention causing some people to get out of the bookstore
business) and thus would come into serious conflict with the First
Amendment.


So, although we often talk about BBSs as having the rights of
publishers and publications, this case hits on an important
distinction. How are publishers different from bookstore owners?
Because we expect a publisher (or its agents) to review everything
prior to publication. But we *don't* expect bookstore owners to
review everything prior to sale. Similarly, in the CompuServe case,
as in any case involving an online service in which users freely post
messages for the public (this excludes Prodigy), we wouldn't expect
the online-communications service provider to read everything posted
*before* allowing it to appear.


It is worth noting that the Supreme Court case on which Judge Leisure
relies is Smith v. California--an obscenity case, not a defamation case.
Smith is the Supreme Court case in which the notion first appears that
it is generally unconstitutional to hold bookstore owners liable for
content. So, if Smith v. California applies in a online-service or BBS
defamation case, it certainly ought to apply in an obscenity case as well.


Thus, Cubby, Inc. v. CompuServe sheds light not only on defamation law
as applied in this new medium but on obscenity law as well. This
decision should do much to clarify to concerned sysops what their
obligations and liabilities are under the law.


----------
Highlights of the CompuServe decision (selected by Danny Weitzner):


"CompuServe's CIS [CS Information Service] product is in essence an
electronic, for-profit library that carries a vast number of
publications and collects usage and membership fees from its
subscribers in return for access to the publications. CompuServe
and companies like it are at the forefront of the information
industry revolution. High technology has markedly increased the
speed with which information is gathered and processed; it is now
possible for an individual with a personal computer, modem, and
telephone line to have instantaneous access to thousands of news
publications from across the United States and around the world.
While CompuServe may decline to carry a given publication altogether,
in reality, once it does decide to carry a given publication, it will
have little or no editorial control over that publication's contents.
This is especially so when CompuServe carries the publication as part
of a forum that is managed by a company unrelated to CompuServe.
"... CompuServe has no more editorial control over ... [the publication
in question] ... than does a public library, book store, or newsstand,
and it would be no more feasible for CompuServe to examine every
publication it carries for potentially defamatory statements than it
would for any other distributor to do so."
"...Given the relevant First Amendment considerations, the appropriate
standard of liability to be applied to CompuServe is whether it knew or
had reason to know of the allegedly defamatory Rumorville statements."


Cubby, Inc. v. CompuServe, Inc. (90 Civ. 6571, SDNY)



-- 
Mike Godwin,     |      Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper (USNR Ret.) 
mnemonic@eff.org |                1906-1992 
(617) 864-0665   |            Requiescat in pace.
EFF, Cambridge   |
-------------------



From caf-news Fri Jan 24 08:55:53 1992
From: RWED@corral.uwyo.edu (Robert Wedlock)
Subject:  IRC outlawed at U Wyoming...
Date: 10 Jan 92 01:38:00 GMT

Hello... this is Surfdog/Zonker

  I wanted to tell all the operators about what happened to IRC here
  at the University of Wyoming, to show what a can of worms it might
  potentially be. You probably want to make real sure that the admins
  of the computers it will be used on know exactly what it is. 

  Anyway... Wyoming has 1 university here in Laramie. However the 7
  community colleges located about the state have direct access to
  our network (129.72). And hence they get accounts on our main 
  computer.. a cluster of 2 VAX 8800's running VMS5.4-2. By virtue
  of being a student at a college in Wyoming you are granted a VMS
  account. It was on this cluster (outlaw/posse) that I compiled a
  client for VMS and gave people easy access to. Then, on another
  ultrix system (master) I installed a server. Master is a computer
  on which grad students & students with projects may use. Anyway
  root@master got a few complaints about IRC. Over 20 people at
  the University of Wyoming were dis-usered. (people who "system" knew
  used IRC. (system is like root for a VMS machine) In order to get thier
  accounts back, they must remove all traces of IRC from thier directories
  and agree to refrain from IRC-related activities while on the cluster.
  After I agreed to do this, my (Cluster) account was reinabled
  and I was told 2 hours later it would be searched for IRC files. If
  any were ever found again, I would be disusered without hope for
  reinstatement. I dont know whats going to happen to the ultrix account.
  I have to attend a meeting to discuss things about it. MAster has been
  down all day, so I dont know... anyway.. The consultant I talked to about
  it said that "IRC was like a disease, you'd get someone an account and
  minutes later she'd see the files in their directory". I feel really bad
  about having a hand in so many people losing their accounts :(

  I send a CC of the letter I wrote to my admin about removing IRC to
  operlist so you can see...

  Learn from my experience... be very careful what you do with your 
  access to computers.. that can really get you in trouble..

  









-------------------



From caf-news Fri Jan 24 08:56:33 1992
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: IRC outlawed at U Wyoming...
Date: 10 Jan 92 08:00:56 GMT

In open email chelsea@vangogh.CS.Berkeley.EDU writes

>  As long at the university is paying for the network services, paying 
>  for the equipment, paying for the people to maintain and operate the
>  equipment, etc, then they can do WHATEVER they like. The equipment is 
>  private owned.

Like any organization, a public university must work within its
charter and rules. For state university, this includes the U.S.
Constitution, the state constitution, and the rules set down in the
university's Student Code. These documents constrain the university
and its agents. Specifically, they prohibit unreasonable searches and
they require some due process.

[see ftp.eff.org:pub/academic/law/constraints.constitutional and
     ftp.eff.org:pub/academic/law/constraints.contractual and
     ftp.eff.org:pub/academic/law/README]

Beyond legal responsibilities, a university and its agents also have a
moral responsibility to respect the academic freedom of its users.

>  By dragging in lawyers,

My original note made no mention of law or lawyers. The statement that
I quoted, the Joint Statement on Rights and Freedom of Students, does
not have the force of law. It does, however, have great moral force,
having been endorsed by, for example, the American Association of
University Professors, the U.S. National Student Association, and the
Association of American Colleges.

The thesis of my original note was that two actions by the University
of Wyoming's were *morally* wrong. Specially, it was wrong for the
University to suspend users from the computer system before
establishing that they had done something wrong. Also, it was wrong
for the university to search user computer files without the same kind
of authorization that would be needed to search a professor's file
cabinet in University-assigned office space.

> and trying to fight this ruling,
>  is feeding the growing fire of animosity towards irc. Give it up. The
>  site is gone. Push your luck, and then only organizations like eff.org
>  and std.com will have irc. I am sad that we lost a site as important
>  as that, however, its a good example for the rest of us.
[...]

My note did not address the wisdom or propriety of prohibiting IRC.

My note did not address the wisdom or propriety of challenging
the prohibition.

--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu, or (anonymous) ap.4352@hri.com
I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
-------------------



From cafnews Fri Dec 13 16:15:02 1991
From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Re: Inappropriate Use by 2714sviatkos
Distribution: usa
Date: Sun, 5 Jan 1992 02:55:18 GMT

hart@vtcc1.cc.vt.edu (Heath) writes:

[...]
>Get a grip.  "Freedom of speech" guarantees an individual the right to
>express an opinion.  It does not, however, guarantee an individual the
>right to express that opinion in any manner s/he sees fit.
[...]

The Freedom of Speech guaranteed by the Constitution (which, by the
way doesn't legally apply here) *does not* require that speakers be
polite:

Paraphrasing from an ACLU handbook on teacher's legal rights:

============== 
Generally, speech, if otherwise shielded from punishment
by the First Amendment, does not lose that protection because its tone
is sharp.  Discussions will not always be models of decorum. A court
observed that "often those with the power to appoint will be on one
side of a controversial issue and find it convenient to use their
opponent's momentary stridency as a pretext to squelch them.
============

Also, from _The First Amendment Book_ by Robert J. Wagmam, p. 157:

========= 
Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote [in _Hustler Magazine v. Falwell_] that
"in public debate our own citizens must tolerate insulting, and even
outrageous speech in order to provide adequate breathing space to the
freedoms protected by the First Amendment."
=================

-- 
Carl Kadie -- kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu, or (anonymous) ap.4352@hri.com
I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
-------------------



------------------------------

End of Computers and Academic Freedom News (Digest)
************************************


-- 
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
 =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu, or (anonymous) ap.3619@layout.berkeley.edu=