[45536] in Cypherpunks
Re: Oklahoma University: Is this legal?...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (sethf@MIT.EDU)
Sun Dec 17 19:37:12 1995
From: sethf@MIT.EDU
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 1995 19:09:46 -0500
To: cypherpunks@toad.com, fight-censorship+@andrew.cmu.edu,
Michael.W.Speck@uoknor.edu, editor@adserv.dsa.uoknor.edu,
holovacs@styx.ios.com
Going on my past experiences with this sort of situation, I
think the problem is
a) Oklahoma University is public (seems true from
http://www.uoknor.edu/)
b) The state of Oklahoma has an "open public records" law
so
c) someone decided that everything stored on the University's
computer system was therefore a "public record" (since the computer is
"owned" by the public), and thus had to be accessible by law.
This seems to be approximately what's going on:
"Drafted by Associate Chief Counsel Kurt Ockershauser a year
ago, the policy will make a legal statement that e-mail is running on
state property, Colaw said. He said the policy is not an invasion of privacy."
http://www.uoknor.edu/okdaily/issues/fall1995/dec-7/1-email.processed.html
Someone needs to explain to him that what he is doing is not
legally required, and perhaps violates the ECPA.
================
Seth Finkelstein
sethf@mit.edu
