1st Circuit rules on Councilman

["David Farber" <dave () farber net>]

-----Original Message-----
From: "Dave Crocker"<dhc2 () dcrocker net>
Sent: 06/09/05 1:03:21 PM
To: "dave () farber net"<dave () farber net>
Cc: "ip () v2 listbox com"<ip () v2 listbox com>
Subject: Re: [IP] 1st Circuit rules on Councilman



>       It's remarkable, is it not, that the First Circuit en banc held
> that it's OK to convict someone criminally who is presumed to know what
> the law requires, ...  This is just the latest
> example of a pernicious trend in federal criminal law - the ability and
> willingness of prosecutors to prosecute, harass, and persecute citizens
> and companies for violating utterly vague and/or overbroad federal
> criminal statutes and endless turgid regulations, 


Dave.

I, too, found the latest appelate court decision remarkable.  I found it 
remarkable that the lower reviews had bought any of the artificial, lame 
arguments brought by Councilman.

Are we to believe that it is the slightist bit reasonable for a provider of a 
general-purpose communication service to me to inspect the content of messages 
-- without my knowledge, of course -- and to use that content to competitive 
advantage?

What is apparently often missed in this debate is that the lower courts were 
playing around with what the rest of us would call legal technicalities, rather 
than the meat of the offense.

The latest decision put logic and legal games aside and focused on reasonable 
expectations and reasonable interpretations of the law -- and, by the way, the 
intentions of those who wrote those laws.

The previous decisions worked in the detached vaccuum that can make the legal 
process pure but destructive.  What is remarkable about the latest decision is 
that it stayed in the real world.

 
   d/

  Dave Crocker
  Brandenburg InternetWorking
  +1.408.246.8253
  dcrocker  a t ...
  WE'VE MOVED to:  www.bbiw.net

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