I suppose that his freedom of speech stops short of interfering with others rights to do the same. If someone writes a virus that uses my email to send out messages to 10 of my associates using my contact list without my permission....then he has committed a crime.

Jeez, Bob, are you sure you're not libertarian :-)


>>MSNBC reports that a David Smith of Aberdeen, NJ has been arrested and charged with originating the "Melissa" virus. Interfering with public communication carries a sentence of 5 to 10 years and up to $150,000 dollar fine. Glad to see the "bad guy" won't get away with it this time!
>>
>>Joe
>
>It is truly heartening to know that no longer is it just the message contained within a piece that may be criminal (ie, hate, pornography) but the message itself may be criminal.
>
>Bad Program! Bad Code! Death to programmers who don't write *GOOD* messages!
>
>I wonder:
>
>Would it be criminal offence to send the code in an email message?
>
>Or to send the *BAD* message on a disk to someone?
>
>Would this message be *CRIMINAL* if the complicit mail servers that aided and abetted this code just threw away the forwarded messages?
>
>Do you suppose Microsoft is also *CRIMINALLY* responsible for producing software that can easily be manipulated to interfere with public communications?
>
>Would it be *CRIMINAL* to send the message "Peace on Earth" to everyone in the world (or everyone who has email.)? Or would it only be okay if you sent the message via CNN because broadcasting a message via TV is okay but using email isn't (because our systems can't handle it).
>
>So, is it the systems that make us criminal and not the message?
>
>I wonder too where the concept of Freedom of Speech comes into this. Though the rest of the world doesn't pay it much respect, it does, I thought, have some importance in the USA.
>
>Sure, these viruses are mean, miserable concoctions, but I have to wonder if there aren't more criminal things in the world besides email.