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							June 19, 1995
 

Dr. Robert Mehrabian, President
Carnegie Mellon University
 

Dear Dr. Mehrabian:
 

The Bulletin Board Committee which you appointed first prepared the
attached "Proposed Policy for Providing Access to Networked Electronic
Resources."
 
It then applied that policy to the six sets of newsgroups stipulated in
its Mission Statement:

--three sets no longer being stored (pictures):
  alt.binaries.pictures.erotica; alt.binaries.pictures.erotica*; and alt.
  binaries.pictures.tasteless; and

--three sets kept (text):  alt.sex; alt.sex*; and rec.arts.erotica.

Of the three sets dropped, the committee recommends the reinstatement of
four newsgroups:

--alt.binaries.pictures.amateur.female
--alt.binaries.pictures.amateur.male
--alt.binaries.pictures.blondes
--alt.binaries.pictures.orientals

The committee recommends that the following newsgroups not be reinstated:

--alt.binaries.pictures.erotica
--alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.bestiality
--alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.bondage
--alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.female
--alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.male
--alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.teen.male
--alt.binaries.pictures.tasteless

Beyond that, we recommend that no action be taken on the newsgroups in
the alt.sex and rec.arts.erotica hierarchies, which are primarily text.

 
							For the committee,
Encl.							Erwin R. Steinberg, Chair

cc:	Dr. Paul Christiano, Provost
	Members of the Committee

 

PROPOSED POLICY FOR PROVIDING ACCESS TO NETWORKED ELECTRONIC RESOURCES


POLICY STATEMENT:

Locally carrying (storing) data from external sources necessarily
involves making some judgments about allocation of local computing
resources and overt decisions about selection of data to be carried.  In
undertaking this work, the university exercises diligence to honor both
the legal rights of others and  its legal obligations.  For instance,
when carrying licensed material the university acknowledges the
intellectual property owners with proper licensing and payment and by
limiting access as appropriate  to members of the campus community.  
Similarly, the university avoids carrying data, such as obscenity, which
violates federal and Pennsylvania law.  The university recognizes that
it must make judicious choices which honor the traditions of free speech
and inquiry, and that these matters are anything but clear cut.  The
personal taste of individuals is not an appropriate or defensible
criterion for inclusion or exclusion of data from electronic files at
the university.  

This policy is adopted with the understanding that its implementation
should have the following characteristics: 

~  first and foremost, foster the free exchange of ideas,
~  allow the university to operate within the law,
~  require minimal administrative oversight, and
~  make wise use of finite university resources.

To the extent that these objectives are incompatible, application of the
policy should reflect a careful consideration of the relative importance
of the objectives.  


PRINCIPLES:

A.  Carnegie Mellon University endeavors to provide full access to the
resources of the Internet in order to support learning,  research, and
the free exchange of information and ideas for students, faculty and
staff.  Access may come in the form of computing and telecommunications
resources provided to the community in order to enable individuals to
navigate the network beyond Carnegie Mellon, local servers that carry
USENET newsgroups, and local newsgroups created on the Andrew system.  

B.  Carnegie Mellon University will take all reasonable precautions to
conform to the laws governing electronic information transmission. Given
that the courts work by challenge and discovery, and that concepts such
as "reasonable," " defamatory" and "obscene" are malleable, there may be
uncertainty in the application of the law.  Nevertheless, as much as the
law is well defined, the university will obey the law. 

C.  Carnegie Mellon University will use relevant university standards in
determining the use of university operated computer equipment, networks,
or infrastructures.  The university may choose not to carry  on
university-owned servers materials that are deemed inconsistent with the
university's educational mission.  Because of its commitment to freedom
of inquiry and speech, Carnegie Mellon University will not limit the
freedom of individual members of the community to use
university-operated computer equipment, networks or infrastructure to
engage in lawful activities merely because those activities are of a
type in which the university would choose not to engage.


DEFINITIONS:

"Obscene" is defined in the strict legal sense as stated in Pennsylvania
law2 (statutory or case law), which incorporates the principles known as
the three-part Miller Test laid down by the U. S. Supreme Court.3  
"Copyright" refers to the requirements of the 1976 U.S. Copyright Law,
as amended,  and the agreements of intellectual property holders
attendant to that law.  This policy refers solely to the use of
copyrighted material in the electronic setting.  The university has a
separate policy on copying for classroom use ("The Copyright Policy of
Carnegie Mellon University," February 22, 1995).

Newsgroups in this document will  refer to  USENET and other external
newsgroups as well as newsgroups originating at CMU, such as
cmu.misc.market.


SCOPE OF POLICY:

The scope of the policy described in this document shall apply to those
computer resources owned and operated by the university.  This includes,
but may not be limited to, services provided on the Andrew system, ECE,
SCS, PSC, and SEI.  Subject to the constraints outlined in this policy, 
campus units may choose which news hierarchy roots they wish to import
based upon internal needs.  

In most cases carrying a newsgroup is routine and most (>90%) present
little question other than utility and resource commitment.  Regarding
those few newsgroups that are judged by the terms of this policy to be
illegal, the university will not carry them and will act to remove them
when their appearance is evident. Individuals employed by the university
and acting in the scope of their employment as its "agent" are obligated
to enforce these decisions and are indemnified in so doing.  All others
bear responsibility for the legality of their personal actions.

There are two possible areas of legal concern regarding newsgroups. The
first area of concern is that local servers carrying newsgroups may make
the university complicit in the provision of illegal materials to some
or all members of the CMU community.  The second concern is that as an
element of the global network of servers carrying  newsgroups,
university servers provide  feeds to servers at other locations.  It is
neither feasible nor desirable for the university to monitor newsgroup
posts. Consequently, decisions regarding local mounting of newsgroups in
the vast majority of cases will be made at the newsgroup level rather
than the level of a specific post.  

Those newsgroups which, after examination, are found to be dedicated to
clearly illegal activity will not be carried. This restriction does not
apply to the discussion of illegal activities, such as on alt.drugs.
This does apply, but is not limited to, the transmission of copyrighted
material, clearly obscene material without possible educational value,
and wire fraud (such as the transmission of stolen credit card numbers.) 

By the nature of newsgroups, any newsgroup may contain at any moment
some such material.  Only etiquette prevents posting of clearly
inappropriate material to clearly acceptable newsgroups.  Therefore no
decision will be made on any of them on the basis of a limited or
unrepresentative sample of content.  System managers are authorized to
remove individual postings when they clearly and unequivocally contain
material of the type which has been declared illegal by the committee. 
Such action may be initiated only when there is a written or e-mail
request by a member of the university community to examine questionable
posting(s).
 

CRITERIA FOR NEWSGROUPS

The decision to carry some newsgroups is difficult because the content
of each is the result of the contributions of many (often thousands) of
individuals.  The university should make no attempts to prevent
individuals from using networked resources available at other sites. 
However, the university must make judicious decisions concerning groups
carried locally.

These criteria must not place an undue burden on the university.
Therefore, practices which are in force should tend to be "passive,"
allowing for the more or less automatic inclusion of newly established
newsgroups.  However, if the university is made aware that a newsgroup
meets the criteria below, then after appropriate review, that newsgroup
may be withdrawn.

In cases where the university has decided that carrying a newsgroup is
illegal under this policy, any carrying of this newsgroup on computer
equipment owned and operated by the university is prohibited.

The university  will not carry or retain newsgroups that have either of
the following characteristics:

~	The stated purpose and content of the newsgroup violates the law; e.g.,
	a newsgroup which contains child pornography or bestiality  or
	contains text pirated from copyrighted sources would meet this criterion.

~	The newsgroup consistently violates over a reasonable trial period
	legal canons regardless of the stated purpose of the newsgroup.

The university recognizes that the practical considerations of resource
allocation lie within the jurisdiction of the various system
administrators.  The current practice for Andrew is exhibited in Appendix B.
 

ADMINISTRATION OF POLICY:

Subject to the ultimate discretion of the President, the Provost or his
or her delegate will administer this policy.  He or she will chair and
be advised by a ten-person Advisory Committee: two nominated by the
Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate, two nominated by the
Executive Committee of the Staff Council, two nominated by the Executive
Committee of the Alumni Association, two nominated by the Executive
Committee of the Student Senate, and two nominated by the Executive
Committee of the Graduate Student Organization.  For the first round of
nominations,  half of the nominees from each group will be nominated for
one year, the other half for two.

Members of the university community may ask the appropriate system
administrator(s) or the Advisory Committee to have individual postings
removed as provided in this policy.

Any member of the university community may  ask the Provost in writing
to initiate an action under the terms of this policy; for instance, to
carry, remove, or reinstate a newsgroup. The Provost may either canvass
the members of the Advisory Committee by phone or e-mail  or call a
meeting of the committee for advice.   In carrying out its
responsibilities, the committee should follow the principles and
criteria outlined above. It may consult as appropriate.

To keep the campus community informed, the university Computing
Services will provide a list, as extensive as practical, of newsgroups
not currently being carried on Andrew under this policy.  The committee
will provide  an explanation of its procedures and recommendations after
a newsgroup has been reviewed.  The Provost will provide a statement and
explanation of his or her decision.

When a newsgroup has been withdrawn under terms of this policy, the
contents of the newsgroup which was reviewed by the committee will be
archived.  Members of the Carnegie Mellon community who wish to ask for
a review of the expurgated material may do so by making a formal written
request to the Provost.  The Provost will arrange for them to view the
materials for purposes of understanding the recommendations of the
Advisory Committee and subsequent decision to expurgate materials made
by the Provost.  This review procedure is available to insure
appropriate opportunities for comment from the Carnegie Mellon
community.  Requests to review the material which are frivolous or
reflect an attempt to burden the process of review needlessly may be
declined by the Provost.


				APPENDIX A
				(The PA statute)
 

				APPENDIX B


The Current Practice for Andrew 

~	Create  new groups for newsgroup hierarchies that are sent by an
	established owner or administrator.  For instance, currently Clarinet
	corporation "owns" the clari.* groups and David C. Lawrence is the
	established administrator of the big 7 (rec, sci, soc, talk, news, misc,
	and comp).

~	Refuse new newsgroups such as alt.* or biz.* that do not have a
	specific owner or administrator or if the new group:

1) has content which consumes inordinate amounts of system resources.
 
2) is clearly frivolous in nature (such as groups that repeat the same
name over and over as alt.barney.die.die.die).
 
3) comes from sites which allow their users to indiscriminately send out
newsgroup commands.  Sites which flood the net with bogus commands may
have future requests ignored.

4) comes from individuals who are known to make many frivolous newsgroups.

5.) comes from anonymous or clearly forged addresses.
 

~	When possible, deal with  volume problems  by adjusting the amount of
	disk space or increasing the purge rate, rather than removing newsgroups
	or specific posts within the newsgroups.