Monitoring, Flow Stats (Re: spam whore, norcal-systems)

Wed Feb 3 21:08:39 UTC 1999

On Wed, 3 Feb 1999, Dean Anderson wrote:
> One doesn't lose privacy protections merely because they are or might
> be doing something you don't approve of.

In regards to electronic communication and undesirable activity (or in
violation of a signed AUP), the privacy protection defense is an extremely
weak one, and has been rejected by judges. Basically if what youre doing
is in violation of an AUP that you signed, judges have ruled that
the privacy protection claim is no defense. You voluntarily waived those
rights by signing them away.

Also, the privacy protection defense is almost always rejected if it
involves outright criminal activity eg smurfs, theft, etc.

So there is at least some case law here. The stuff I saw was from the
early 80s though, dont know about more recent cases.

-Dan