[Politech] Steve Mann asks about filtering anonymous threats from incoming email [priv]

From: Declan McCullagh (declan@private)
Date: Thu Jan 06 2005 - 21:01:45 PST


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Filtering out anonymous threats
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 13:38:09 -0500 (EST)
From: Steve Mann <mann@private>
To: declan@private (Declan McCullagh)
CC: mann@private (Steve Mann), joehall@private, 
  dave@private, iankerr@private

Would it not be a legally reasonable Personal Policy (TM) to filter
out anonymous threats coming into one's self?

I know the Maffia like to pull someone over to a quiet corner and
whisper a threat in their ear.  If a person were to broadcast everything
he or she saw and heard, it would eliminate this kind of anonymous
or private threat.

In particular, I think a person, in addition to having a right of
privacy should have a right of inverse privacy if and when they want it.

We are currently studying "anonauthority" and "anonequity" issues
in colaboration with University of Ottawa (Ian Kerr, Faculty of Law,
etc.), so these issues would be of great interest.

Personal Policy (TM) is like saying "by exposing me to informatic
content, you agree to the following Terms and Conditions...
if you do not agree to these Terms and Conditions, do not expose
me to informatic content".

For example, if I built a machine that automatically opened all of
my unsolicited mail and scanned it and published it on my 'blog/'glog
what would be the legal implications, assuming that I notified
anyone of this, e.g. I could have an address like
...Street, Suite "World wide publishing of any mail sent to this address..."

Obviously solicited mail like credit card statements would go to a
separate address, but nastygrams would go to a spam folder, and it would
be Personal Policy to make all spam (whether by email or by snail mail)
publically readable, to deter receiving private threats like ransom
notes, and nastygrams.

Maybe we need a better formulation of my idea (legally speaking) but
I welcome thoughts on the desirability of finding a good implementation
of this idea.



> [Yes, the C&D letter is copyrighted; the real question is (or should be) 
>   whether copyright law extends so far as to prevent the recipient from 
> redistributing it freely. ChillingEffects.org gets around this problem 
> by providing a modicum of commentary with the nastygram. --Declan]
> 
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Copyrighting Cease and Desist Letters?
> Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2005 13:43:38 -0800
> From: Joseph Lorenzo Hall <joehall@private>
> Reply-To: joehall@private
> To: Declan McCullagh <declan@private>, Dave Farber <dave@private>
> 
> Hi Declan, Dave,
> 
> I thought either or both of you would be interested in this.
> Attorneys for a resort are claiming that a cease and desist letter
> that they sent in a trademark issue is covered by copyright and,
> therefore, not forwardable.  (The below is written in [Markdown][0]
> format.)
> 
> best and happy new year, Joe
> 
> [0]: http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/
[...]

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