From: Kamela G White <kw2k+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Revised Draft as of 4/27/95
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 1995 20:24:48 -0400

Draft B   4/27/95


PROPOSED POLICY FOR PROVIDING ACCESS TO NETWORKED ELECTRONIC RESOURCES

PREAMBLE:

Locally mounting  data from external sources necessarily involves making
some judgments about allocation of local computing resources and overt
decisions about selection of data to be mounted.  In undertaking this
work, the university exercises diligence to honor legal rights of others
and legal obligations which it has.  For instance, when mounting
licensed material the university honors 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 which violates Federal and Pennsylvania law, such as 
obscenity.  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.  

The policies adopted by the university should have the following
characteristics: 
 - they should first and foremost foster the free exchange of ideas, 1 
 - they should allow the university to operate within the law, 
 - they should require minimal administrative oversight, and 
 - they should make wise use of finite university resources.  
To the extent that these objectives are incompatible, selection of a
university policy should reflect a careful weighing 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 will
always be uncertainty in the application of the law to electronic
information.  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 mount  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. [Charles will send
reference to CMU's copyright policy]

Newsgroups in this document will  refer to  USENET newsgroups and
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 mounting 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 "mount" 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 forthe 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 must 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 their nature, 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.


CRITERIA FOR NEWSGROUPS

The decision to mount 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 effort to police networked
access to any group, that is the university should make no attempts to
prevent individuals from using networked resources available at other
sites.  However, the university must make judicious decision concerning 
groups mounted 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 most cases where the university has decided that mounting a newsgroup
is illegal under this policy, any mounting of this newsgroup on computer
equipment owned and operated by the university is prohibited.



The university  will not mount 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 displays child pornography or besteality  or
mounts 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 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.

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
mount, remove, or reinstate a newsgroup. The Provost  may either canvass
the members of the 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 mounted 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.


                                APPENDIX A  [The PA statute]

                                

                                APPENDIX B

                        The Current Practice for Andrew 


 -      Accept newsgroup commands 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 newsgroup commands for other groups such as (alt.* or biz.*)
that do not have a specific owner or administrator may be refused 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.