FC: More on Univ. of NC, private email, and a twist on open records

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

The university's view is here:
http://www.thefire.org/issues/uncw_denial.php3

Previous message:
http://www.politechbot.com/p-02957.html

It does seem clear that a case can be made for reading another UNCW-er's 
email via the simple expedient of an open records request. If that is true, 
the law won't help to protect privacy. Instead UNCW-ers should forward mail 
from university servers to their own account. For further protection, make 
sure the server's out of the country and has *prearranged* instructions not 
to comply with nuisance subpoenas. For even better protection, write a cron 
job to encrypt your email with your public key after you've read it. For 
ultimate protection, use procmail/formail to encrypt all email to your 
public key *before* you read it. :)

-Declan

---

From: "David Smith" <david_smith () unforgettable com>
To: <declan () well com>
Subject: RE: Did Univ. of NC at Wilmington divulge a professor's private email?
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 22:10:37 -0600

According to the University of North Carolina at Wilmington's Acceptable Use
Policy, e-mail is subject to the Public Records Law, unless there is a
specified exception in the statute.

UNC-Wil Acceptable Use Policy
http://www.uncwil.edu/dcs/information/advisory.htm

North Carolina page @ FOIC
http://www.reporters.net/nfoic/web/resource/northcar/northcar.htm

The Wilmington Star ran an article on November 3rd, which discusses how
University officials rejected the first request for all emails as being too
broad, but complied with the second request for emails that don't violate
state and federal privacy laws.
http://www.thefire.org/offsite/wilmingtonstar_110501.html

If FIRE believes that privacy laws trump state open records policy, or that
the University interpreted the open records law incorrectly, then they
should explicitly say so, and say why they believe so, instead of depending
on the ignorance of their readers.

David Smith
david_smith () unforgettable com

---

Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 19:44:17 -0500
To: declan () well com
From: "Tom Mashberg" <tmashberg () bostonherald com>
Subject: Re: FC: Did Univ. of NC at Wilmington divulge a professor's
  private email?

Declan: I thought your readers might enjoy reading the e-mail exchange
between the student and the prof that set off the UNC-Wilmington tiff:

>From the FIRE web site:

Email from (student) Rosa Fuller

At 04:29 PM on 9/15/01, Rosa Fuller wrote:

To: the students and faculty of the University of North Carolina at
Wilmington
From: Rosa Fuller
Subject: In Dedication to An Undivided Humanity

The summary murder of thousands of people on the morning September 11th was
a tragedy for the entire human species. It was an irrational act that can
only serve the cause of irrationality. As we are members of a university,
all irrationality deserves from us unequivocal condemnation. This is the
place where, above all else, rationality must be kept alive. We must keep
discussion alive. We must untiringly examine causes and effects, and not
allow any feelings of anger or depression to permanently cloud our vision.
In light of this, we must not for a moment forget the following: (1) the US
government has been engaged in a combination of occupation and imperialist
warfare in the Middle East, aimed at domination of its oil resources, for
nearly two decades; (2) the US government gives its unequivocal support to
Israel's assassination of Palestinians who are 'suspected' of being
terrorists, falsely claiming that any opposition to murder committed in the
name of the Israeli government amounts to Nazism; (3) as the World
Socialist Website put it "far from America being 'the brightest beacon for
freedom and opportunity in the world,' the US is seen by tens of millions
as the main enemy of their human and democratic rights, and the main source
of their oppression. The American ruling elite, in its insolence and
cynicism, acts as if it can carry out its violent enterprises around the
world without creating the political conditions for violent acts of
retribution" and; (4) "both bin Laden and the Taliban mullahs, whom the US
accuses of harboring him, were financed and armed by the Reagan-Bush
administration to fight pro-Soviet regimes in Afghanistan in the 1980s. If
they are involved in Tuesday's operations, then the American CIA and
political establishment are guilty of having nurtured the very forces that
carried out the bloodiest attack on American civilians in US history"; (5)
innocent Arab and Muslim Americans, including children, are being attacked
and threatened in the chauvinist, racist fervor stirred by the
war-mongering US media; (6) whatever their true feelings, the Bush
administration stands, in several respects, to benefit from the results of
the 'attack on America': (i) the current situation serves as a distraction
from the fact that President Bush was illegally appointed to office by the
reactionary majority of the US Supreme Court, through suppression of votes,
in stark violation of the US constitution, and (ii) the current crisis
serves as justification, to the American people, for the continuation and
intensification of US imperialist repression already in progress throughout
the world.

The future is not about revenge, but about life. A humanity worth fighting
for is a humanity undivided by petty nationalistic, imperialist, bourgeois
squabbling. When this squabbling takes the form of all out war and the
deaths of untold thousands of 'Americans' and 'foreigners,' the struggle
for rationality is transformed into the struggle between life and death.
The time for silence is ended; the time for rational discussion is now.

If you support open, unbiased, democratic discussion of all the facts,
please forward this e-mail to friends and acquaintances both on an off
campus. For more detailed information, see www.wsws.org.

Rosa Fuller


Email from (Prof.) Mike Adams


At 09:45 AM on 9/17/01 Mike Adams wrote:

To: Rosa Fuller
From: Mike Adams
Subject: Re: In Dedication to An Undivided Humanity

I will certainly forward this to others and I hope they will respond. My
response will be brief as your "statement" is undeserving of serious
consideration. Your claimed interest in promoting rational discussion is
dishonest. It is an intentionally divisive diatribe. The Constitution
protects your speech just as it has protected bigoted, unintelligent, and
immature speech for many years. But, remember, when you exercise your
rights you open yourself up to criticism that is protected by the same
principles. I sincerely hope that your bad speech serves as a catalyst for
better speech by others.

Mike Adams 




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