Date: Sat, 30 Jan 93 22:01:33 CST
From: CuD Moderators <
[email protected]>
Subject: File 1--Steve Jackson Games Trial Summary
The Steve Jackson Games federal trial ended last Thursday in U.S.
District Court in Austin. Participants are now waiting for Judge Sam
Sparks' decision. For those not familiar with the case, here's a
summary excerpted from EFFector Online #1.04 (May 1, 1991).
On March 1, 1990, the United States Secret Service nearly
destroyed Steve Jackson Games (SJG), an award-winning publishing
business in Austin, Texas.
In an early morning raid with an unlawful and unconstitutional
warrant, agents of the Secret Service conducted a search of the
SJG office. When they left they took a manuscript being prepared
for publication, private electronic mail, and several computers,
including the hardware and software of the SJG Computer Bulletin
Board System. Yet Jackson and his business were not only
innocent of any crime, but never suspects in the first place.
The raid had been staged on the unfounded suspicion that
somewhere in Jackson's office there "might be" a document
compromising the security of the 911 telephone system.
In the months that followed, Jackson saw the business he had
built up over many years dragged to the edge of bankruptcy. SJG
was a successful and prestigious publisher of books and other
materials used in adventure role-playing games. Jackson also
operated a computer bulletin board system (BBS) to communicate
with his customers and writers and obtain feedback and
suggestions on new gaming ideas. The bulletin board was also the
repository of private electronic mail belonging to several of its
users. This private mail was seized in the raid. Despite
repeated requests for the return of his manuscripts and
equipment, the Secret Service has refused to comply fully.
Today, more than a year after that raid, The Electronic Frontier
Foundation, acting with SJG owner Steve Jackson, has filed a
precedent setting civil suit against the United States Secret
Service, Secret Service Agents Timothy Foley and Barbara Golden,
Assistant United States Attorney William Cook, and Henry
Kluepfel.
"This is the most important case brought to date," said EFF
general counsel Mike Godwin, "to vindicate the Constitutional
rights of the users of computer-based communications technology.
It will establish the Constitutional dimension of electronic
expression. It also will be one of the first cases that invokes
the Electronic Communications and Privacy Act as a shield and not
as a sword -- an act that guarantees users of this digital medium
the same privacy protections enjoyed by those who use the
telephone and the U.S. Mail."
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