Date: Sat, 30 Jan 93 22:01:33 CST
From: CuD Moderators <tk0jut2@mvs.cso.niu.edu>
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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