[Hcoop-discuss] Congressional letter

[Nathan Kennedy]

Here is a letter I have written to New Jersey Assemblyman Peter Biondi.  
He has introduced a bill which would require any Internet hosts in NJ to 
collect the name and address of anyone posting to forums they host, and 
impose liability for such posts if they do not.  Obviously this is 
completely impractical, and hopefully the state assembly will realize 
this and not make such a ridiculous law.  You may read the bill at:
http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2006/Bills/A1500/1327_I1.HTM


To the Honorable Peter Biondi,

I am writing to you out of deep concern regarding your bill A1327.  I am 
on the board of HCOOP Inc, a Pennsylvania nonprofit internet hosting 
cooperative which provides a variety of Internet services to its 
members.  While our members come from all over the world, you will be 
pleased to know that our main server is hosted in Secaucus, New Jersey.  
So I thought that perhaps you would like to know what your bill would 
mean for our organization.

The bill would require obtaining the legal name and address of anyone 
posting to a forum hosted on our servers, and impose liability for such 
postings if we did not.  This would require us to cease functioning.  
First, there is absolutely no way of authenticating this information 
even if it were requested.  It would intrude upon the privacy of honest 
users, while doing absolutely nothing to stop those malicious persons 
who wish to anonymously publish defamatory material.  Secondly, it would 
impose this egregious requirement upon all of our members, and force 
them to change their software.  No doubt most of them would instead 
choose to abandon HCOOP for another provider.

You can be sure that if this bill became law in New Jersey, rather than 
expose our organization to liability I would certainly vote in a 
heartbeat to move our servers to a state with more rational Internet 
laws.  As a law student I know it would be irresponsible to do 
otherwise.  Such a law could only mean a mass exodus from New Jersey of 
Internet services and a huge blow to the state's IT sector.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Sincerely,
Nathan Kennedy
Secretary, HCOOP Inc.