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Here is my growing file of info. on FBI and other govt. agencies messing
with BBSes. If you got any more info. please upload it!
- Big Boy's BBS, Denver, 303-458-3832
Colonel guilty of sending porn over computer
Associated Press
SAN ANGELO -- The former commander of Goodfellow Air Force Base was
convicted in a court martial Monday of sending obscene material via
his home computer.
A jury of four men and one woman, all Air Force colonels, deliberated
about two hours before returning guilty verdicts on all counts again
Col. James Maxwell.
He was convicted of transmitting obscene material via home computer,
of transmitting child pornography through his computer and using
indecent language with a junior Air Force officer.
Maxwell, a 26-year Air Force veteran, now faces a possible 16-year
prison sentence and loss of his military retirement benefits.
Charges were filed against Maxwell after the FBI found his name among
users of an on-line computer network who accessed computer-generated
pornographic images of children.
Maxwell also was said to have used the computer network to inquire
about the location of homosexual meeting places.
Maxwell's attorney had sought to have the charges dropped on grounds
his transmissions on the computer from the privacy of his home were
protected under the constitution.
But the trial judge, Col. Donald Weir of Randolph Air Force Base,
allowed the charges to stand last week, ruling that freedom of speech
can be limited when it involves conduct unbecoming an officer.
"That the writings were private between consenting adults, that they
may have been welcome doesn't place them under the judicial umbrella
of a constitutional protected condition," Weir had ruled.
Weir dismissed a count alleging Maxwell had disgraced the Air Force by
allegedly using electronic mail to ask about homosexual bars and child
pornography.
Maxwell, 48, was removed from command at the Goodfellow Air Force Base
training center last summer after the charges were filed.
+++++++++++++++++++++
COMMENT: Looks to me like this thing is full of red flags. Isn't it
coincidental that the story breaks just as there's a flap over gays in
the military?!
And where it says "the FBI found his name among users of an on-line
computer network who accessed computer-generated pornographic images
of children", one might ask what network? what was the FBI doing
there? how did the images get there? how did the FBI think to track
them? who else is getting snared? civilians? were the images really
"computer-generated" or just scanned?
It's enough to restore one's healthy paranoia...
******************************************************************************
Offworld BBS Busted
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Tuesday, January 19, 1993
Pages 1A, 10A
COMPUTER OPERATOR DENIES PORN MENU
By Christine Bertelson
Of the Post-Dispatch Staff
The owner of a St. Louis computer bulletin board that was shut down
by the FBI last week denied Monday that he is responsible for the
pornographic images seen by some users.
On Friday night, the FBI confiscated more than $40,000 worth of
computer equipment at Offworld, a computer company owned and operated
by Joey Jay. Jay, 28, ran the business from his residence in the
basement of his father's house on Tecumseh Drive in Chesterfield.
Jay was not arrested, and no charges have been filed against him.
Jay said his father threw him out of the house after the raid.
"Everyone assumes we are some kiddie porn ring," Jay said. "We are
not. We are a nonprofit community service."
A spokesman for the FBI said that someone had reported that Offworld
had images available showing bestiality, as well as child pornography.
It is a federal offense to have child pornography, and any property
used to promote it is subject to being seized and forfeited to law
enforcement authorities, an FBI spokesman said.
"We get all kinds of files across the system, and one or two at most
showed up in terms of a private conversation," Jay said. "When I
found them, I deleted them immediately."
Offworld began operating in St. Louis last June, and is free to its
4,300 users. Jay said it cost him $1,800 a month to operate the
system, using money from family inheritance.
About 100 people showed up Monday morning in Chesterfield at a rally
in support of Offworld, Jay said. He said he was soliciting
contributions of computer hardware, or cash, to get his system up and
running again.
Computer bulletin board systems, or BBSs, as they are known, allow
users to chat electronically, and share information on a variety of
subjects. Offworld has bulletin boards that feature job listings,
book and movie reviews, restaurants and clubs, and discussion groups
for people with "diverse lifestyles."
Jay said that any time illegal material appears on a bulletin board
--whether it is child pornography, offers of sex for sale, or drugs
--it is purged and the people who posted such messages are kicked off
the system.
"Unfortunately, that doesn't prevent them from coming back and using
another fictitious name," Jay said.
FBI seizures of electronic bulletin board systems are "quite common,"
said Mike Godwin, a lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The
foundation is a civil liberties group based in Washington for those in
computer communications.
Godwin said that pornography is widely available on the thousands of
electronic bulletin boards in use across the country. New computer
users often use their scanners to recreate sexy pictures, much the
same as children who delight in using a newly acquired dirty word.
"Usually the novelty wears off," Godwin said.
Child pornography is relatively rare, Godwin said. When it shows up,
the operator of the system is faced with a choice: delete it
immediately, or keep it on the system and report it to the police.
The FBI finds raids effective because they are punitive in and of
themselves, whether or not a computer systems operator is ever charged
with a crime.
But even the most conscientious systems operator cannot keep all
pornography off a bulletin board, Godwin agreed.
Jay had previous conversations with the St. Louis County Police about
his system, he said.
"I told them I would simply try to use responsibility and common
sense and ... keep the system legal," Jay said. "I extend the First
Amendment right to all aspects of the system, unless it violates the
law."
Jay said he was seeking legal advice to help him get his computer
equipment back.
+++++++++++++++
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Tuesday, January 19, 1993
Page 10A
GIF GETS BULLETIN BOARD IN A JIFF
'We Celebrate Human As Art Forum,' One Manager Says of Nude Issue
By Daniel R. Browning (Of the Post-Dispatch Staff)
Dirty pictures transmitted over the telephone to your home computer?
It had to happen.
Computer bulletin board systems, called BBSs, proliferate not only
locally, but nationally and internationally. The biggest ones call
themselves "information services," and the granddaddy is CompuServe.
It has nearly 1.2 million members from China to Chile.
St. Louis Computing, a free monthly computing newspaper, publishes a
list of local bulletin boards and their phone numbers.
Within these bulletin boards people interested in particular topics
go to chat, share information, and yes, show their favorite slides.
The pictures are transmitted in a special computer code called GIF
(pronounced jif), which is short for Graphics Interchange Format. To
see them, you need the special "viewers" included in some
communications software.
To capture an image, you have your computer's modem dial the bulletin
board, then search for whatever you find interesting.
In the giant databases, that means logging on to a special-interest
section within the information service or bulletin board. CompuServe
calls these "forums."
A forum exists for just about any professional interest or hobby.
Journalists, lawyers, doctors, aerospace workers, artists,
photographers, beer and wine enthusiasts, automobile buffs -- you'll
find them all in the forums.
Within these, you can find thousands of pictures ranging from NASA
space shots, to great works of art, to travel photos, to The Girl (or
Boy) Next Door in a birthday suit.
A wary technician overseeing the forum warns members that they had to
be older than 18 to get nude images.
But practically speaking, there's no way to prevent a minor from
capturing a nude photo on CompuServe, said Dave Kishler, a company
spokesman. The Federal Communications Commission does not regulate
BBSs, he said. So the BBSs have worked up their own sets of rules and
regulations.
Dave Shaver, operations manager of CompuServe's Fine Arts Forum, said
all the images are screened for content before they are made available
to the members. That's why you'll find hundreds of nudes under a
category called "Plain Brown Wrapper," but no XXX-rated pictures, he
said. "We celebrate the human as an art form."
Some bulletin boards are free. The big ones charge a flat monthly
fee of $5 to $8. Certain activities within the databases may also
include hourly surcharges, which vary in price to about $15 an hour.
Joining a special interest forum and capturing pictures would fit in
that category on most information services.
That cost -- and the requirement that members have a credit card or a
checking account -- helps limit memberships to adults, Shaver said.
****************************************************************************
Akron BBS trial update: Dangerous precedents in sysop prosecution
You may already know about the BBS 'sting' six months ago in Munroe
Falls, OH for "disseminating matter harmful to juveniles." Those
charges were dropped for lack of evidence. Now a trial date of
1/4/93 has been set after new felony charges were filed, although
the pretrial hearing revealed no proof that *any* illegal content
ever went out over the BBS, nor was *any* found on it.
For those unfamiliar with the case, here's a brief summary to date.
In May 1992 someone told Munroe Falls police they *thought* minors
could have been getting access to adult materials over the AKRON
ANOMALY BBS. Police began a 2-month investigation. They found a
small number of adult files in the non-adult area.
The sysop says he made a clerical error, causing those files to be
overlooked. Normally adult files were moved to a limited-access
area with proof of age required (i.e. photostat of a drivers
license).
Police had no proof that any minor had actually accessed those
files so police logged onto the BBS using a fictitious account,
started a download, and borrowed a 15-year old boy just long enough
to press the return key. The boy had no knowledge of what was going
on.
Police then obtained a search warrant and seized Lehrer's BBS
system. Eleven days later police arrested and charged sysop Mark
Lehrer with "disseminating matter harmful to juveniles," a
misdemeanor usually used on bookstore owners who sell the wrong
book to a minor. However, since the case involved a computer,
police added a *felony* charge of "possession of criminal tools"
(i.e. "one computer system").
Note that "criminal tool" statutes were originally intended for
specialized tools such as burglar's tools or hacking paraphenalia
used by criminal 'specialists'. The word "tool" implies deliberate
use to commit a crime, whereas the evidence shows (at most) an
oversight. This raises the Constitutional issue of equal protection
under the law (14'th Amendment). Why should a computer hobbyist be
charged with a felony when anyone else would be charged with a
misdemeanor?
At the pretrial hearing, the judge warned the prosecutor that
they'd need "a lot more evidence than this" to convict. However the
judge allowed the case to be referred to a Summit County grand
jury, though there was no proof the sysop had actually
"disseminated", or even intended to disseminate any adult material
"recklessly, with knowledge of its character or content", as the
statute requires. Indeed, the sysop had a long history of
*removing* such content from the non-adult area whenever he became
aware of it. This came out at the hearing.
The prosecution then went on a fishing expedition. According to the
Cleveland Plain Dealer (7/21/92)
"[Police chief] Stahl said computer experts with the Ohio
Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation are reviewing
the hundreds of computer files seized from Lehrer's home. Stahl
said it's possible that some of the games and movies are being
accessed in violation of copyright laws."
Obviously the police believe they have carte blanche to search
unrelated personal files, simply by lumping all the floppies and
files in with the computer as a "criminal tool." That raises
Constitutional issues of whether the search and seizure was legal.
That's a precedent which, if not challenged, has far-reaching
implications for *every* computer owner.
Also, BBS access was *not* sold for money, as the Cleveland Plain
Dealer reports. The BBS wasn't a business, but rather a free
community service, running on Lehrer's own computer, although extra
time on the system could be had for a donation to help offset some
of the operating costs. 98% of data on the BBS consists of
shareware programs, utilities, E-mail, etc.
The police chief also stated:
"I'm not saying it's obscene because I'm not getting into that
battle, but it's certainly not appropriate for kids, especially
without parental permission," Stahl said.
Note the police chief's admission that obscenity wasn't an issue at
the time the warrant was issued.
Here the case *radically* changes direction. The charges above were
dropped. However, while searching the 600 floppy disks seized along
with the BBS, police found five picture files they think *could* be
depictions of borderline underage women; although poor picture
quality makes it difficult to tell.
The sysop had *removed* these unsolicited files from the BBS hard
drive after a user uploaded them. However the sysop didn't think to
destroy the floppy disk backup, which was tossed into a cardboard
box with hundreds of others. This backup was made before he erased
the files off the hard drive.
The prosecution, lacking any other charges that would stick, is
using these several floppy disks to charge the sysop with two new
second-degree felonies, "Pandering Obscenity Involving A Minor",
and "Pandering Sexually Oriented Matter Involving A Minor" (i.e.
kiddie porn, prison sentence of up to 25 years).
The prosecution produced no evidence the files were ever
"pandered". There's no solid expert testimony that the pictures
depict minors. All they've got is the opinion of a local
pediatrician.
All five pictures have such poor resolution that there's no way to
tell for sure to what extent makeup or retouching was used. A
digitized image doesn't have the fine shadings or dot density of a
photograph, which means there's very little detail on which to base
an expert opinion. The digitization process also modifies and
distorts the image during compression.
The prosecutor has offered to plea-bargain these charges down to
"possession" of child porn, a 4'th degree felony sex crime
punishable by one year in prison. The sysop refuses to plead guilty
to a sex crime. Mark Lehrer had discarded the images for which the
City of Munroe Falls adamantly demands a felony conviction. This
means the first "pandering" case involving a BBS is going to trial
in *one* month, Jan 4th.
The child porn statutes named in the charges contain a special
exemption for libraries, as does the original "dissemination to
juveniles" statute (ORC # 2907.321 & 2). The exemption presumably
includes public and privately owned libraries available to the
public, and their disk collections. This protects library owners
when an adult item is misplaced or loaned to a minor. (i.e. 8 year
olds can rent R-rated movies from a public library).
Yet although this sysop was running a file library larger than a
small public library, he did not receive equal protection under the
law, as guaranteed by the 14'th Amendment. Neither will any other
BBS, if this becomes precedent. The 'library defense' was allowed
for large systems in Cubby versus CompuServe, based on a previous
obscenity case (Smith vs. California), in which the Supreme Court
ruled it generally unconstitutional to hold bookstore owners liable
for content, because that would place an undue burden on bookstores
to review every book they carry, thereby 'chilling' the
distribution of books and infringing the First Amendment.
If the sysop beats the bogus "pandering" charge, there's still
"possession", even though he was *totally unaware* of what was on
an old backup floppy, unsolicited in the first place, found unused
in a cardboard box. "Possession" does not require knowledge that
the person depicted is underage. The law presumes anyone in
possession of such files must be a pedophile. The framers of the
law never anticipated sysops,or that a sysop would routinely be
receiving over 10,000 files from over 1,000 users.
The case could set a far ranging statewide and nationwide precedent
whether or not the sysop is innocent or guilty, since he and his
family might lack the funds to fight this--after battling to get
this far.
These kinds of issues are normally resolved in the higher courts--
and *need* to be resolved, lest this becomes commonplace anytime
the police or a prosecutor want to intimidate a BBS, snoop through
users' electronic mail, or "just appropriate someone's computer for
their own use."
You, the reader, probably know a sysop like Mark Lehrer. You and
your family have probably enjoyed the benefits of BBS'ing. You may
even have put one over on a busy sysop now and then.
In this case; the sysop is a sober and responsible college student,
studying computer science and working to put himself through
school. He kept his board a lot cleaner than could be reasonably
expected, so much so that the prosecution can find very little to
fault him for.
*Important* Please consider a small contribution to ensure a fair
trial and precedent, with standards of evidence upheld, so that
mere possession of a computer is not grounds for a witch hunt.
These issues must not be decided by the tactics of a 'war of
attrition'; *however far* in the court system this needs to go. For
this reason, an independent, legal defense trust fund has been set
up by concerned area computer users, CPA's, attorneys,etc.
Mark Lehrer First Amendment Legal Defense Fund
(or just: MLFALDF)
Lockbox No. 901287
Cleveland, OH 44190-1287
*All* unused defense funds go to the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, a nonprofit, 501c3 organization, to defend BBS's and
First Amendment rights.
Help get the word out. If you're not sure about all this, ask your
local sysops what this precedent could mean, who the EFF is--and
ask them to keep you informed of further developments in this case.
Please copy this file and send it to whoever may be interested.
This case *needs* to be watchdogged.
Please send any questions, ideas or comments directly to the sysop:
Mark Lehrer
CompuServe: 71756,2116 InterNet: 71756.2116@compuserve.com
Modem: (216) 688-6383 USPO: P.O. Box 275
Munroe Falls, OH 44262
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Sysops' Sig received this letter from the Lehrer defense people,
with a request that their side of the story be made available to
Free-net users. DISCLAIMER: The Sysops' Sig takes no position on this
case, since each Free-net sysop speaks for himself/herself.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
FOOTNOTE: The above says the framers of the Constitution weren't aware of BBSs
when drafting the Constitution....to this I say-THEN WHAT IS FREEDOM?
The Constitution's 1st Amendment and the 9th Amendment clearly
addresses this issue. This case is another case of the actual "police
power" against Americans.
There is NO crime here! There is NO property damaged and there is NO
human victim here. Then there should be NO crime but our present
system has the power to invent a crime which is exactly what is going
on here.
PLEASE contribute monetarily or at least in writing to Mark Lehrer at
the above address. Send proof of such contribution and a 3 months
FREE access will be granted by "HOME" BBS at (909) 735-2573.
*****************************************************************************
FBI raids major Ohio computer bulletin board; action follows joint
investigation with SPA
The Federation Bureau of Investigation on Saturday, Jan. 30, 1993,
raided "Rusty & Edie's," a computer bulletin board located in Boardman,
Ohio, which has allegedly been illegally distributing copyrighted
software programs. Seized in the raid on the Rusty & Edie's bulletin
board were computers, hard disk drives and telecommunications equipment,
as well as financial and subscriber records. For the past several
months, the Software Publishers Association ("SPA") has been working
with the FBI in investigating the Rusty & Edie's bulletin board, and as
part of that investigation has downloaded numerous copyrighted business
and entertainment programs from the board.
The SPA investigation was initiated following the receipt of complaints
from a number of SPA members that their software was being illegally
distributed on the Rusty & Edie's BBS. The Rusty & Edie's bulletin board
was one of the largest private bulletin boards in the country. It had
124 nodes available to callers and over 14,000 subscribers throughout
the United States and several foreign countries. To date, the board has
logged in excess of 3.4 million phone calls, with new calls coming in at
the rate of over 4,000 per day. It was established in 1987 and had
expanded to include over 19 gigabytes of storage housing over 100,000
files available to subscribers for downloading. It had paid subscribers
throughout the United States and several foreign countries, including
Canada, Luxembourg, France, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, Spain,
Sweden and the United Kingdom.
A computer bulletin board allows personal computer users to access a
host computer by a modem-equipped telephone to exchange information,
including messages, files, and computer programs. The systems operator
(Sysop) is generally responsible for the operation of the bulletin board
and determines who is allowed to access the bulletin board and under
what conditions. For a fee of $89.00 per year, subscribers to the Rusty
& Edie's bulletin board were given access to the board's contents
including many popular copyrighted business and entertainment packages.
Subscribers could "download" or receive these files for use on their own
computers without having to pay the copyrighted owner anything for them.
"The SPA applauds the FBI's action today," said Ilene Rosenthal, general
counsel for the SPA. "This shows that the FBI recognizes the harm that
theft of intellectual property causes to one of the U.S.'s most vibrant
industries. It clearly demonstrates a trend that the government
understands the seriousness of software piracy." The SPA is actively
working with the FBI in the investigation of computer bulletin boards,
and similar raids on other boards are expected shortly. Whether it's
copied from a program purchased at a neighborhood computer store or
downloaded from a bulletin board thousands of miles away, pirated
software adds to the cost of computing. According to the SPA, in 1991,
the software industry lost $1.2 billion in the U.S. alone. Losses
internationally are several billion dollars more.
"Many people may not realize that software pirates cause prices to be
higher, in part, to make up for publisher losses from piracy," says Ken
Wasch, executive director of the SPA. In addition, they ruin the
reputation of the hundreds of legitimate bulletin boards that serve an
important function for computer users." The Software Publishers
Association is the principal trade association of the personal computer
software industry. It's over 1,000 members represent the leading
publishers in the business, consumer and education software markets.
The SPA has offices in Washington DC, and Paris, France.
CONTACT: Software Publishers Association, Washington
Ilene Rosenthal, 202/452-1600 Ext. 318
Terri Childs, 202/452-1600 Ext. 320
************************************************************************
From: WALLY SCHWARZ of Wally World 415/349-6969 (1:204/6969)
To: ALL Date: 11-25-90 02:00
Re: FBI & YOUR BBS
The FBI Comes Rapping, Rapping At Your BBS
Brock N. Meeks
The dog-eared manila envelope spilled a coffee stained report onto
my cluttered desk. The title, "The FBI and Your BBS" sounded a
little too nefarious, even for this curmudgeon of the information
age. But I figured the report was worth at least a quick read.
After all, somebody had gone to the effort to track down my address
and forward a copy of the report to me. That someone turns out to
be the report's author, Glen L. Roberts, director of The FBI
Project an organization which publishes a newsletter, Full
Disclosure, under the self defined category "privacy/surveillance."
The report is chilling, almost paranoid. And if more people had
known about its existence, a lot of grief might have been saved. As
I read I remembered an old, coffee-ringed file folder I'd
squirreled away. I remembered something about it's containing
information on what I'd off-handedly labeled "FBI Computer Hit
Squad." When I found the file, Roberts' report didn't seem so
paranoid and knew I was in for a long night of research and bunch
of early morning wake up interviews.
If you dig, you hit dirt
In 1984 a short series of discreet advertisements, placed by
the FBI, appeared in a few computer trade publications and in The
Wall Street Journal~ The message was simple, and went something
like: "We're looking for computer literate persons to join the
Bureau." There was no mention of any special task force; however,
it was clear that the Bureau wanted to upgrade their high-tech
prowess.
Although the FBI won't confirm the existence of a computerized
"hit squad," an FBI public relations officer did confirm that they
"have made an extraordinary effort to recruit more technically
oriented personnel" since 1984.
If you dig hard enough, you'll find substantial evidence that
the FBI is most definitely working overtime in its efforts to
monitor the electronic community. "They are desperately wary of the
way information flows so freely in this medium," says Roberts.
Indeed, one has only to recall this past May when some 150 Secret
Service agents, assisted by local police (backed up with electronic
"intelligence" gathered and provided by the FBI) served some 27
search warrants in a dozen cities across the U.S.
The bust, code-named Operation Sun Devil, was patterned after
the tactics used to take down suspected drug rings: simultaneous
busts, synchronized arrests. All in an effort to preclude any
"early warnings" reaching the West via grapevine information moving
from the East.
I was curious about all these high tech hit tactics and armed
with my file folder and Roberts' report I called a number scrawled
on the inside flap of my file folder. It was annotated "Former
agent; possible source." I called the number, and got a story.
"I was recruited in 1983 by the FBI for my computer skills,"
the former agent told me. Because he still does some consulting for
the Bureau, he asked not to be identified, but he laid out a very
specific plan by the FBI to increase their knowledge of the
electronic communications world. He confided, "During my time the
Bureau's monitoring of BBSs was extremely limited; we just didn't
know how." In those days, he said, the FBI drew on the expertise of
a small band of high-tech freelance snoops to augment their staff,
"while we all honed our own skills."
Tradition
Certainly the FBI has a tradition of "investigating" groups of
people it deems "unsavory" or threatening.
In Roberts' The FBI and Your BBS, there's a brief history of
the FBl's willingness to gather all known information on a target
group. Pulling from the Final Report of the Select (Senate)
Committee to Study Governmental Operations with respect to
Intelligence Activities, Book IV, Supplementary Reports on
Intelligence Activities, Roberts includes this excerpt:
"Detectives were sent to local radical publishing houses to
take their books. In addition, they were to find every private
collection or library in the possession of any radical, and to make
the arrangements for obtaining them in their entirety. Thus, when
the GID (General Intelligence Division) discovered an obscure
Italian born philosopher who had a unique collection of books on
the theory of anarchism, his lodgings were raided by the Bureau and
his valuable collection become one more involuntary contribution to
the huge and ever-growing library of the GID. [pages 87-88]."
Change "any radical" to "any BBS" and "book" to "disk" and
quite suddenly the electronic landscape turns into a winter still-
life.
Data collection
Roberts, quoting from his report, says, "Unlike other
communications media, information on a BBS does not get read by
anyone before its instantancous publication. Therefore, the FBI has
much less of a possibility of intimidating the owner of a BBS into
not publishing certain inlormation. The FBI also acts as if BBSs
have a monopoly on the distribution of so-called 'illegal
information.' The FBI often uses this 'danger' as justification to
monitor the activities on these systems. In reality, however, BBSs
transfer much less 'illegal information' than the [voice] phone system."
Roberts statements are worth noting in light of the
goverment's increased interest in the marriage of criminal
activity and electronic communications.
A 455-page report issued by the President's Commission on
Organized Crime, dealing with drug abuse and trafficking cites that
fact that crime has moved into the high-tech arena. The report
states "To the extent that law eniorcement agencies' capabilities
and equipment are inferior to those of drug traffickers, immediate
steps should be taken to rectify the situation." The report then
recommends that data-gathering efforts of several agencies (in-
cluding the FBI) should be tied together in one "all-source
intelligence and operations center."
Any problem here?
There are no laws prohibiting the FBI (or other agencies) from
monitoring the public message traffic on a BBS; the Electronic Com-
munications Privacy Act of 1986 protects private messages and
privately stored files only. But what about an FBI agent monitoring
a BBS solely for the purpose of gathering intormation on the
board's users? Any problem here?
The former FBI agent I spoke with raised the concern that such
casual monitoring might be a violation of the 1968 Wiretap Act. "In
order for a wire tap, you have to get a court order. Now if an FBI
agent is monitoring a BBS to gather information, that becomes an
interesting question, because there are very specific federal rules
about a wire tap. My question to you about a BBS [being monitored]
is: "At what point does monitoring turn into a wiretap-like act?"
Good point. The reality is, however, that there are no rules.
Unless that agent is asking for private message traffic, he can,
without impunity, monitor, store, and otherwise manipulate your
public messages as he sees fit.
Roberts points out that a BBS with public access is fair game
for any kind of governmental snooping. But there is a way to make
such casual snooping by a federal agent a crime.
"If you want your BBS readily accessible to the public but want to
protect against unwarranted monitoring, you have to provide a
warning to prospective users," says Roberts. "It should read: 'This
BBS is a private system. Only private citizens who are not involved
in government or law enforcement activities are authorized to use
it. The users are not authorized to divulge any information gained
from this system to any government or law enforcement agency or
employee."'
This does two things. It makes the entire board "private."
Second, it makes any kind of monitoring by the FBl (or other
agencies, such as the Secret Service) a criminal offense (because
they are would be guilty of unauthorized access; it also forces
them to use the established guidelines of gaining information via
a court ordered search warrant. The warning also protects you in
another way: it stops "freelancers" from doing the Bureau's work.
Get real
How real is the possibility of the FBI monitoring your BBS?
Much more than I'd like to believe. Although details of Operation
Sun Devil are still sketchy, it's clear that the FBI, working in
tandem with the Secret Service, is monitoring several hundred
"suspected" boards across the electronic landscape. What kind of
board is a potential monitoring target? "Any board that advocates
hacking," said a Secret Service spokesman. Yet when I asked for a
definition of hacking, all I was told was "illegal activity."
The information provided here bears out, if nothing else, an
increased interest by the FBI in the hard ball practice of going
after electronic criminals. But are the "good guys" getting caught
up with the bad?
How extensive is the FBl's actual fact gathering by monitoring
BBSs? No one knows really knows. However, given the history of
Bureau, and the hard facts that crime in the information age makes
full use of all the technology it can get its hands on, it's a
small leap to believe that at least specific monitoring, of certain
target groups, is taking place.
Where does that leave you and me in all this? Back to square
one, watching carefully what we say online. If you're a member of
a "controversial" BBS, you might pass the concerns of Roberts on to
your sysop. If you are a sysop, you might want to consider adding
a bit of protection to the board . . . for the rest of us.
Brock Meeks is a Washington, D.C.-based columnist whose
articles have appeared in several publications including Byte
Magazine. His favorite radical BBS is ... well...private.
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