Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc,rec.games.board,comp.org.eff.talk
From: [m--mo--c] at [eff.org] (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: SJG wins lawsuit vs SS!
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1993 05:26:41 GMT


eff.187: Steve Jackson and EFF file suit against the Secret Service

eff.187.430: Mike Godwin (mnemonic)  Sun 14 Mar 93 14:32

 
 NEWSFLASH! STEVE JACKSON GAMES WINS LAWSUIT AGAINST U.S. SECRET SERVICE
 
 A games publisher has won a lawsuit against the U.S. Secret Service
 and the federal government in a groundbreaking case involving 
 computer publications and electronic-mail privacy.
 
 In a decision announced Friday, March 12, Judge Sparks of the
 federal district court for the Western District of Texas
 announced that the case of Steve Jackson Games et al. versus the
 U.S. Secret Service and the United States Government has been
 decided for the plaintiffs.
 
 Judge Sparks awarded more than $50,000 in damages to the plaintiffs,
 citing lost profits for Steve Jackson Games, violations of the
 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and violations of the Privacy
 Protection Act of 1980. The judge also stated that plaintiffs would
 be reimbursed for their attorneys' fees.
 
 The judge did not find that Secret Service agents had "intercepted"
 the electronic communications that were captured when agents
 seized the Illuminati BBS in an early-morning raid in spring of
 1990 as part of a computer-crime investigation. The judge did
 find, however, that the ECPA had been violated by the agents'
 seizure of stored electronic communications on the system.
 
 Judge Sparks also found that the Secret Service had violated
 Steve Jackson Games's rights as a publisher under the Privacy
 Protection Act of 1980, a federal law designed to limit the
 ability of law-enforcement agents to engage in searches and
 seizures of publishers.
 
 Mike Godwin, legal services counsel for the Electronic Frontier
 Foundation, which has underwritten and supported the case since
 it was filed in 1991, said he is pleased with the decision.
 "This case is a major step forward in protecting the rights of
 those who use computers to send private mail to each other or
 who use computers to create and disseminate publications."
 
 "Judge Sparks has made it eminently clear that the Secret
 Service acted irresponsibly," Godwin said. "This case should
 send a message to law-enforcement groups everywhere that they
 can't ignore the rights of those who communicate by computer."
 
 
 Press can contact Mike Godwin at 617-576-4510, or by
 pager at 1-800-SKYPAGE, 595-0535.
 
 
 



-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"I'm waiting for the one-man revolution
[m--mo--c] at [eff.org]| The only one that's coming."
(617) 576-4510  |                           
EFF, Cambridge  |                   --Robert Frost