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The conviction of two Californians who operate an adult computer bulletin
board has caused consternation among both ‘cybernauts’ and civil liberties
groups. The pair were convicted of transmitting pornographic images across
interstate telephone lines, in a case tried in Memphis, Tennessee, where
obscenity laws are much stricter than in California.

Regular users of bulletin boards and civil liberties advocates who specialise
in issues arising from high technology fear that the content of bulletin
boards could one day be dictated by the most conservative regions of the
country. They say the Memphis case marks the start of the government’s attempt
to clean up cyberspace.

Robert and Carleen Thomas, of Milpitas, California, operate the Amateur
Action Bulletin Board System, whose members pay $99 a year for access.
The Thomases were prosecuted in federal court after a postal inspector investigating
complaints joined their bulletin board using a fake name and downloaded
pornographic images onto his computer in Memphis. On 28 July, the Thomases
were convicted of illegally transmitting obscene material down a telephone
line. They face a fine of $250 000 and up to five years in prison for each
offence.

This is the first time anyone has been tried for obscenity in one state,
based on the contents of a computer bulletin board operated out of another.
By law, each community in the US is allowed to set local standards for
obscenity. In the Thomases’ case, it is generally agreed that the material
on their bulletin board would not have led to a prosecution in their local
community in California. But bulletin board operators cannot stop someone
in a less liberal community from logging on – there is no technology in
place to block calls from certain areas.

‘Here we have a bulletin board operator who has made no explicit decision
to deliver obscene material into Tennessee and who’s abiding by the community
standards of his own community – and nevertheless has incurred legal liability
in Tennessee where the standards are far more conservative,’ says Mike Godwin,
lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group
based in Washington DC.

The Thomases are planning to appeal against their conviction. If it
is upheld, it could herald the start of a cleansing of cyberspace, says
Stephen Bates, senior fellow with the Annenberg Washington Program, a communications
think-tank based in Washington DC. ‘A great deal of the law is based on
geography,’ says Bates. ‘But now the Internet and related technologies are
erasing geographic jurisdictional lines.’ Until now, Memphis could enforce
its rules on obscenity without having much effect on the wider world around
it, he says. ‘But now there’s at least the possibility that Memphis – or
whatever place has the most restrictive, bluenose standards – will start
to set the national standard.’

That is just what the government has in mind, insists Stanley Fleishman,
a Los Angeles-based lawyer who has defended many obscenity cases in the
US Supreme Court. ‘The government deliberately brought this case into the
Memphis area where they thought they had the best chance of getting a conviction
and scaring the bejesus out of everybody,’ he says.

Discussion about the case has been fast and furious on the information
superhigh-way – and some bulletin board operators are cleaning up their
own services. ‘The vast majority of people are responding negatively to
this decision,’ says Godwin. ‘They believe that it does not bode well for
the proprietors of online forums.