[93308] in Cypherpunks
Re: Legality of faxed signatures.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert A. Costner)
Fri Jan 16 15:34:06 1998
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 14:59:28 -0500
To: cypherpunks@ssz.com
From: "Robert A. Costner" <pooh@efga.org>
Reply-To: "Robert A. Costner" <pooh@efga.org>
At 10:07 AM 1/16/98 -0800, James A. Donald wrote:
>I believe that there is case law or legislation that a faxed
>signature is worthless if it is bit for bit identical with
>another signature, which of course it usually is these days.
>
>Can anyone with a spot of legal knowledge give me something
>impressive sounding to scare people who rely on those
>signatures.
In Georgia, the state appeals court declared that faxes are "beeps and
chirps" and therefore not writings. As a fax is not a writing, it cannot
have a signature. Therefore the signature cannot be valid. This was in a
case that involved a required notice to arrive by a certain time.
Traditionally, on a writing anything is a signature including an 'X', spit,
and the words "Mickey Mouse".
-- Robert Costner Phone: (770) 512-8746
Electronic Frontiers Georgia mailto:pooh@efga.org
http://www.efga.org/ run PGP 5.0 for my public key
