Is porn scanning interception?

[Nicholas Bohm]

At 21:10 17/07/2002 +0100, Graham wrote:
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>Hash: SHA1
>
>On Wednesday 17 Jul 2002 7:18 pm, Nicholas Bohm wrote:
>
> > In the case of RIP "interception", we have an example of lawyer's jargon
> > which does not correspond with the all the meanings of the same word in
> > ordinary English.  That's life:  the law takes the word to mean what the
> > Act says, and that's it.
>
>But what does the Act MEAN?  Its alright to say that the wording of the Act
>conveys the meaning of "interception", but I always understood that as a
>layman for me "ignorance of the law is no excuse".  If I follow the letter of
>the law yet the meaning in the law is obscured by specialist language or
>interpretation that I have to know to understand it, but not being a lawyer I
>do not, where does that leave me?

In trouble, if you're in charge of online virus scanning procedures without 
access to legal advice.


>You have all been so kind, so patient with me in my quest for knowledge, but
>it still leaves me inescabably to the conclusion that the RIP Act was badly
>drafted and they should have used a different word to convey their meaning.

The problem is not with the word being defined, but with the words used to 
define it, and in particular with the words "made available", which are not 
very good at segregating one class of mail from another in the context of 
Internet traffic.  This seems to have resulted from poor understanding on 
the part of the draftsman and those instructing him/her of the differences 
between the Internet and other channels of communication.

Regards

Nicholas

Salkyns, Great Canfield,
Takeley, Bishop's Stortford CM22 6SX, UK

Phone   01279 871272    (+44 1279 871272)
Fax     01279 870215    (+44 1279 870215)
Mobile  07715 419728 (+44 7715 419728)

PGP RSA 1024 bit public key ID: 0x08340015.  Fingerprint:
9E 15 FB 2A 54 96 24 37  98 A2 E0 D1 34 13 48 07
PGP DSS/DH 1024/3072 public key ID: 0x899DD7FF.  Fingerprint:
5248 1320 B42E 84FC 1E8B  A9E6 0912 AE66 899D D7FF