from Brock N. Meeks for the list

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

Posted-Date: Sat, 23 Apr 1994 18:12:33 -0400
Date: Sat, 23 Apr 1994 15:12:31 -0700
From: "Brock N. Meeks" <brock () well sf ca us>
To: farber () central cis upenn edu
Subject: for the list




CyberWire Dispatch has brought its voice to bear on several
subjects of interest to the Internet community.  From the
Administration's ill-conceived Clipper Chip encryption mandate to
the FBI's flawed Digital Wiretap Proposal to uncovering the warp
and woof of the International Internet Association.


But when it turned its investigative eye toward an unknown
service called the Electronic Postal Service which sent its
solicitations throughout the Internet in February, Dispatch
apparently hit a raw nerve.  Because the people sponsoring EPS,
Suarez Corporation Industries, have now sued Dispatch and its
entire staff of one -- me --  for on a variety of charges.  For
the record, all of them are unfounded.


The Wall St. Journal ran an article on Friday, April 22 page B1
that detailed the suit.  For the most part, the WSJ article, by
Jared Sandberg, was right on target.  A few minor details were
skewed.  First, Dispatch is a *newswire* service (albeit, an
infrequent one), not a *newsletter*.  Second, the article says I
was "outraged" and "flamed" the Net by zapping out a Dispatch
article.  Not quite right.  I was, indeed, curious to find out
the extent of EPS.  So I began an investigation, one that latest
a month, as my original article on the EPS said.  But these are
really  minor points and not worth belaboring.


Dispatch questioned the claims made in the original Internet
solicitation of EPS.  The WSJ article says: "Suarez's in-house
counsel, Steven L. Baden concedes that the Electronic Postal
Service isn't yet 'commercially viable' and doesn't yet provide
Internet access, despite the ad's claim to the contrary."


The real point here is what's to become of the self-policing
environment that's grown up around the Internet as part of its
culture.  That culture says you have a right to question any
posting you read on the Net, just as the person you're
questioning has a right to debate your questioning.


Through that open and frank debate, the readership, the users of
the Net at large, can make up their minds for themselves.  Such
is not the case in these times, or so it seems.


Suarez, instead of rebutting any statements he thought Dispatch
got wrong, instead choose another route:  Litigation.


As the WSJ article pointed out, after speaking with Kent Stuckey,
counsel for CompuServe, the "central issue is whether electronic
newsletters are entitled to First Amendment protection."  The
article goes on to say that a ruling against Dispatch would "put
other vociferous inhabitants of the Internet at 'substantial risk'
and have a 'chilling effect,'" according to Stuckey.


Dispatch has its own counsel now, the heavyweight law firm of
Baker & Hostetler, with one of the nation's foremost First
Amendment attorney's, Bruce Sanford, acting as its counsel.


But what about does the Net think of such issues?  Do formal
publications, such as Dispatch, and the much larger, informal,
yet just as vital, postings of the Internet community at large
deserve formal protections?  Or will open and frank discourse dry
up and wither away under the threat of blistering litigation?