While the actions in Texas and Florida may be old news to a lot of you by
now, the Proposed NY state law and the NY PSC. hearing may have the most
potential for killing off the BBS hobby. NY Senate Bill S5604, proposed by
State Senator John R. Dunne (R-C, Nassau County) would have far reaching
impact on the BBS hobby. Sen. Dunne's law, if enacted would seen to require
that a SYSOP must validate each and every message posted on his board, in
addition, it would require him to have a signed sworn affidavit in hand
before any message containing a real name, an address or a phone number
could be released on the board. 
Further, it would also seem to require that he install, at his own expense,
a device that would automatically record the telephone number of each
person who calls his BBS. It would affect small, free hobby type BBS
systems, as well as systems such as Compuserve and GEnie. Communications
such as E-mail, which are considered private would have to be monitored to
ensure compliance with this law. This would seem to fly in the face o
numerous Federal laws governing the right to privacy, if not the First
Amendment to the Constitution. 
While I can applaud Senator Dunne's ultimate goal (preventing a repeat of
an incident on a BBS in Nassau County, NY where the name address and phone
number of a 12 year old girl was posted on an adult BBS stating that she
was available for "fun and games"). He is going about it in the wrong
manner. NY already provides for criminal sanctions against those who gain
access to computer systems without authorization. It would seem that the
expense to the SYSOP imposed by this law would mean the death of the small
free hobby type BBS that many of us now use or run, and it would also mean
an increase in the cost of using commercial services such as Compuserve as
the would have to comply with the provisions of this proposed statute. It
could, in fact, mean the cessation of operations by Compuserve within the
New York State as NY would become the only state requiring such safeguards.
Sen.. Dunne would better serve his constituency by addressing the problem
through strengthening and fine tuning the existing laws. I urge those of
you who run a BBS or who frequently call them to write to Sen. Dunne and
explain the position of those of us who are active in this hobby. If you
desire further information you can contact one of the following BBS
systems:

All times are Eastern Time Zone.

Rainbow BBS (518)356-2606  24hrs 

The Big Experiment (TBE) (518)767-3316 7pm to 9am Monday thru Friday (noon 
                         weekends)

Minas Morgul BBS:(518)436-0581 11pm to 7am Monday thru Friday
                 9pm to 8am Sat, Sun, Holidays. You can log on under
                 account #51
                 Password "GUEST" Phone #0581

These Albany area BBS's are acting as a clearing house for information
concerning legislation which would affect the operation of the "hobby" type
of BBS that many people run out of their homes. The SYSOPS of these boards
are making every effort to ensure timely disemenation of accurate
information concerning Bill S5604 and NY Telephone Co. Response to the
recent PSC order.

If you reside within NY I urge you to write to your state Senator and your
Legislator and tell him how you feel about this proposal. Cite NYS Bill S
5604 when writing. I also urge you to write directly to Senator Dunne. His
address is as follows:

The Honorable John R. Dunne
Capitol, Room 417
Albany, N.Y. 12247.

If you do not reside within NY. please write directly to Senator Dunne and
give him your opinion of his bill. Please, when you do write try to give a
well reasoned narrative of why you oppose this bill. If you are a SYSOP
please state that in you letter and give the name of your BBS as well as
its phone number. Also it may be helpful if you leave a standing invitation
to the Senator of Legislator to log on to your board and see for himself
just what this bill would be regulating. It is an unfortunate fact, but it
would seem that the vast majority of those in the State Senate and the
Legislature do not have the faintest idea of just what this bill would be
regulating. Some of them are under the impression that the local BBS's are
running on huge mainframe type computers with gigibytes of storage space
capable of supporting tens of thousands of users. It is only by informing
them as to just what we are and what we do that we can protect our hobby
and our freedom to engage in it.

                    Martin Winter 76407, 3521 (CompuServe ID#)
                    (NAZGUL, The Morgul Lord)
                    SYSOP, Minas Morgul BBS
                    Albany, N.Y.