Previously on rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated, Bill said:

> While I am not familiar with this specific "request," it sounds to me
> as though the NY AG is pushing the extremely conservative agenda of
> removing *all* adult material from the internet. Once again, it's
> Chicken Little thinking: "The perverts are coming! The perverts are
> coming!"

So far as I know, it's specifically child porn, which happens to be
illegal.

The ISPs have been able to successfully claim that since they are not
the creators of the content, they are nothing more than a common
carrier.  This is the same logic that protects the phone company from
prosecution over illegal content being transmitted over their lines.

The wrinkle here, that the NY AG is apparently using, is that since the
ISPs actually +store+ the content on their own hard drives for a period
of time (days, weeks) in order to be available they cannot claim common
carrier status for that content.

So some service providers are opting to not test their legal protection
against this new strategy and are eliminating at least some usenet
groups from their servers.

-- 
Jeffrey Kaplan                                         www.gordol.org
The from userid is killfiled             Send personal mail to gordol

"That's a lie."  "Yes, it is.  What's your point?" 
(PsiCop Bester and
Cmdr. Sinclair, B5 "Mind War")
--- SBBSecho 2.12-Win32