On Mon, 14 Nov 1994, David L. Carlson (at Texas A&M) wrote:
> Listowners should give careful thought to issues of security on their
> lists.  My list is wide open and the logfiles are available to anyone
> who knows how to retrieve them.  My list is housed on a university
> computer in a state (Texas) with an Open Records Act.  I doubt that I
> could block or refuse a direct request from a citizen of the state
> to view those files.  I suspect many other states have similar laws
> on the books.  Lists on public computers should not be assumed to
> be private no matter what the listowner says.
 
Goody, another one I can't resist on this topic, and from my native
state, about who's laws I *do* know something.  And as a former
student and employee, have to say Gig 'em, Aggies!
 
I'll see your Open Records and raise you several things.
 
First, Open Records pertains to "official" government records only,
and lists and their notebooks, unless they are lists for state officials
to conduct state business, hardly fall under that category.  In addition,
not all government records are open to the public.  As a small example,
the academic records of students at state supported universities, such as
Texas A&M, are official government records, but they are not open records,
nor should they be.  And with the new anti stalking/harassment law some
records, which used to be open, are being restricted because they contain
names and addresses.
 
In addition, Texas has laws prohibitting misappropriation of state property.
That is, you can't use state property (the computers the lists are running
on) for private fiduciary or political gain.  Commercial concerns do use
official records for private gain, *but* they have to pay the state to
obtain the records, so they aren't misappropriating anything, though they
may use it inappropriately, in the opinion of some.  But if commercial
concerns have free access to the various records attendant on any list
for the purpose of building advertisement bases, they are misappropiating
state property and/or services, at least to the extent of the cost to
the state of maintaining the information plus the cost of providing the
requested information to those concerns.
 
And, if you want to argue that being on a state university computer means
everything on that computer falls under Open Records, then everyone should
be able to get an account on that computer, and everything, and I mean
*everything* right down to the tiniest of computer maintenance files
keeping the system running, should be open to everyone, merely because
they are official records on state owned computers.  Not something I would
care to pursue as there wouldn't be any functional systems left to house our
lists.
 
The point is, just because something is housed by an official state
entity does not mean it falls under Open Records, and saying that lists
and their attendant files do so is trying to stretch the law a bit further
than it will reach.
 
For now, I'm ignoring such things as copyright, privacy rights, etc.  but
we can get into that also.
 
        Douglas Winship    Austin, Texas    [log in to unmask]
                    Secondary AUTOCAT Listowner