] Seven years after my arrest, and nearly six years after my conviction,
] and almost two years after our Appeals Court argument presentation,
] the Oregon Appeals court has filed their decision on 4 Apr 2001.
] Here's the summary from the newsletter... the referenced URL is the
] full text of the decision.
]
] State v. Schwartz (CA A91702)
]
] http://www.publications.ojd.state.or.us/A91702.htm
]

The Court seemed to be hinting that while it didn't think the statute
was "vague", another avenue would be to suggest that it was "over-broad"
``
Defendant does not argue that ORS 164.377(3) is unconstitutionally
overbroad because it reaches speech protected by Article I, section 8.
''

Hmm, interesting. Let's see where this takes us.

I want to send a message to my friend, John Public <john@...>.
It's about what I think of a movie I saw yesterday. So I compose an
email and send it. It is transmitted to Oregon ISP's mail server,
which appends my message into /var/mail/john.

Now ORS 164.377(3) says
"Any person who knowingly and without authorization alters, ...
any computer ... or any data contained in such computer, ...,
commits computer crime."

Did I alter the data contained in an Oregon ISP computer? Yes, the
file /var/mail/john was altered. Did I knowingly alter that data?
Well, I wanted my e-mail transmitted to John Public's mailbox, so I
guess so. Did I have authorization from Oregon ISP to do that? No.

Oops, looks like I broke Oregon law.

Now, suppose I was a US citizen. What does this do for my right to
freedom of speech? I'm expressing my personal opinions to another
US citizen who wants to hear what I have to say.

But this law stops me from exercising my First Amendment rights, unless
I first get permission from John's ISP. And how do I get authorization?
E-mailling postmaster@... would cause the same problem.

Now let's look at another scenario.

I set up an account with www.oregon-web-mail.com to maintain a mailbox
for me at their facilities in Oregon. Later I get sent an e-mail from
a spammer to that mailbox.

Now I can point Oregon law enforcement at the spammer (assuming I can
find the spammer's real details), and tell them to prosecute the spammer
for violation of ORS 164.377(3). The spammer didn't get authorization
from oregon-web-mail.com to alter my mailbox there.

I don't even need to live in Oregon to do this, as long as my mailbox
is in Oregon.

Maybe this ridiculously stupid statute has a silver lining after all.
At least by targetting almost everyone who interacts with someone else's
computer, it can also be used against spammers.

__________________________________________________________________________
David Keegel <djk@...> URL: http://www.cyber.com.au/users/djk/
Cybersource P/L: Unix Systems Administration and TCP/IP network management