On Tuesday, May 1, 2001, at 07:33 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > At Tue, 1 May 2001 18:14:38 -0700, Tim May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> The real argument is that commanding a person to keep records of whom >> he communicates with (which is what a log of messages is all about) is >> a slam dunk violation of the First Amendment. It is no more acceptable >> than an order commanding Alice to record in a log the names of all >> those >> persons she speaks with. > > Isn't she effectively so commanded insofaras there is a compulsory > testomony > requirement enforced by contempt of court? I was addressing the general issue of a law requiring ISPs to keep logs, not the specific issue of a specific person being ordered by a court to keep logs or to assist in an investigation. --Tim May > Also, as I mentioned before there are also a series of regulations that > require exactly these kind of recordings for otherwise "private" > transactions > between independent parties. (Banking regulations was one of the > examples > that others poo-pooed away at the time without explaining why they > didn't > apply). > I didn't "pooh pooh" such laws. But I believe that any laws requiring parties to inform government of their economic transactions is in violation of the First. The First does not declare "economic speech" to be outside its protection (nor does the oft-cited power to "regulate commerce" have anything of relevance to say about this). Spending is both free association and speech, both covered by the First. Cf. the discussion about "uttering a check." There were some good debates about this at a CFP Conference in San Francisco between Michael Froomkin and myself. --Tim May
