Cuomo strong-arms Comcast over Usenet

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has found a novel way to shake down law-abiding broadband companies: accuse them of harboring child pornography and threaten to prosecute them unless they do what he wants. That might just happen to involve writing Cuomo a hefty check.

The latest company to be honored by Cuomo's personal attention is Comcast, which received a two-page letter on Monday threatening "legal action" on child pornography grounds within five days, if its executives failed to agree to a certain set of rules devised by the attorney general.

In the letter (PDF), the Democratic politico says he wants Comcast and other broadband providers to "volunteer" to take actions "surgically directed" only at child pornography and "not at any protected content." (He's targeting Usenet, the venerable pre-Web home of thousands of discussion groups that go by names like sci.math, rec.motorcycles, and comp.os.linux.admin.)

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, has campaigned against Usenet.

(Credit: Office of the New York Attorney General)

That might be laudable, if it were true. But Cuomo's ham-fisted pressure tactics already have led Time Warner Cable to pull the plug on some 100,000 Usenet discussion groups, including such hotbeds of illicit content as talk.politics and misc.activism.progressive. Verizon Communications deleted such unlawful discussion groups as us.military, ny.politics, alt.society.labor-unions, and alt.politics.democrats. AT&T and Time Warner Cable have taken similar steps.

Cuomo's response: "I commend the companies that have stepped up today to embrace a new standard of responsibility, which should serve as a model for the entire industry." (By that standard of responsibility, an entire library should be burned down if a single obscene book happens to be found on its shelves.)

After that unqualified success in "surgical" targeting, Cuomo took aim at AOL. On July 10, Cuomo lauded AOL for agreeing to "eliminate access to child porn newsgroups." What that press release didn't mention was that the Time Warner unit actually had eliminated all Usenet newsgroups in January 2005.

What makes Cuomo's quixotic campaign doubly inexplicable is that Comcast doesn't actually run its own Usenet servers. It outsources that to a third-party provider based in Austin, Texas, called Giganews.

Ronald Yokubatis, Giganews' chairman and a native Texan, said he couldn't grant a full interview by our deadline today. When we talked to him last month about the earlier stages of Cuomo's campaign, Yokubatis labeled it "fascist crap, ignorant" that came from "Demorats." He added: "We welcome the New York attorney general to the battle against child pornography."

Yokubatis did confirm on Tuesday that he has been contacted by and has had conversations with the New York attorney general's office.

Comcast is no slouch in the child porn fight: it helped organize an industry-wide agreement last week with 45 attorneys general. But what was good enough for the National Association of Attorneys General was not good enough for New York; we're told that Cuomo was one of the handful of officials to withhold his signature.

The odd thing about round three in Cuomo v. Usenet is that Comcast has a minuscule presence in the Empire State, which has been sewn up by rivals Verizon and Time Warner Cable. The company's own figures put its market share at a mere half of a percent of the state's broadband subscribers, and only because Comcast serves communities in Pennsylvania and Connecticut that spill across state borders.

What Cuomo wants the broadband providers to do is sign a so-called code of conduct, which has not been made public. This follows Cuomo's efforts to impose a code of conduct on student loan providers and home lenders (based on the theory that prosecutors, not the New York legislature, should be regulating businesses).

Unfortunately, what Cuomo is doing--sources say the attorney general himself is working the phones--is likely prohibited by the First Amendment. Governmental efforts at censorship must be narrowly focused, and censoring 100,000 newsgroups because 88 may have illegal images fails that test. Courts have ruled that if a government official delivers a credible threat of prosecution, the target may ask a judge to clear things up through what's called a declaratory judgment.

Like its rivals, Comcast seems unwilling to publicly confront a state attorney general, who would surely claim to be trying to protect the children. Spokesman Sena Fitzmaurice said on Tuesday that Comcast's lawyers are evaluating Cuomo's request and that the company may enter into an agreement with New York "substantially similar to the agreements they announced recently with AT&T and AOL."

That might be a good short-term response. But over time, it may encourage more attorneys general to play Net censor, especially if they come to view broadband providers as compliant, off-the-books sources of revenue. This seems to be Cuomo's opinion; his press release said Verizon, Time Warner Cable, and Sprint will pay "$1.125 million to fund additional efforts by the attorney general's office and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to remove child pornography from the Internet."

"It's a shakedown racket, pure and simple," says Jim Harper, a lawyer who is director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute. "These companies know that the New York attorney general can cause them millions in legal bills and PR damage, and they're paying for protection. 'Nice ISP you've got here. It'd be a shame if anything happened to it.'"

If a private-sector lawyer tried that, he might be prosecuted on extortion charges. But for New York's top prosecutor, it seems to be business as usual.

CNET News intern Holly Jackson contributed to this report.

[Kwasiowusu]

Groan! The arrogant, sleazy Democratic Party machine of New York strikes again. For years, we watched Eliot Spitzer, as the attorney general of New York, shake down firm after firm using every dirty trick, and questionable practice known to man. We all know what happened to Sptizer eventually won't we? Turned out the super corrupt Sptitzer was doing the same things he had been persecuting people for while he was attorney general, by soliciting prostitution, engaging in money laundering, and trasporting a woman across state lines for immoral purposes. Now his sucsessor Cuomo, has started where Spitzer left off, with his highly qusetionable shakdown tactics. Don't be too surprised if in a few years, we find out that Cuomu has been enging in what he shouldn't be doing as well.

[gerrrg]

At some point, usenet users will simply obfuscate their discussion group names and file names, if they haven't already. To find illegal images, one can no longer assume that descriptive language is directly related to illicit imagery. Even traditional coded words will be rendered useless, depending upon the nature of usenet users.

That's when blanket searches will be required to find offensive material, and that is when the 1st and 4th Amendments will be violated.

And that's when I switch my party affiliation from Democrat to Libertarian. I'm sick of the political double-speak and the outright deception on both sides of the aisle. They're both in desperate need of being purged from the political cloister of all levels of American Government.

[Laserdisc]

Andrew is a scumbag for his strong-arm tactics to ISPs so he can be in the press. If ISPs want to comply they should, but they are not reimbursing their subscribers for the cut in service. So some ISPs are all too happy to comply if it means they can profit from it.

[t26l]

USENET has NO images. It is just text.

Should we assume that Mr Cuomo has been looking at or for things that he should not?

[Vegaman_Dan]

I'd be tempted to say that this lawyer deserves to be disbarred for his attempts at extortion and that's what it really. I hope Comcast fights back and gets this joker tossed out of office.

[Moozle]

@ t26l

"USENET has NO images. It is just text."

Au contraire - the UseNet has many, many BINARY groups that specifically allow the attachment of documents such as text, software and Jpegs. Lots of Jpegs, mostly junk. Honestly even if you WERE looking you wouldn?t find more than one out of 5000 worth keeping - a waste of time, really. But that's what some people do.

But even so, this is no reason to ban such groups as alt.fan.harry-potter, alt.battlestar-galactica, sci.military.naval, comp.sys.mac.system or soc.history.medieval.

The mentality of these people is the same as those who burnt the Library of Alexandria.

[firewolf4]

Why hasn't anyone taken the NYS AG to the matt on this? This is a CLEAR example of extortion. "do this or else" letters ? While I personally find that certain pornographic material is rather offensive, it's not the JOB of Cuomo to make threats to companies that are paying thei fair share of Taxes (and HIS SALARY). The Usenet provider in TX need to make this as public as they possibly can. Show Andy for the scum he is. Then maybe comcast should pull the plug on broadband service for say... a week due to "usenet restructuring" . then let the voting public go to Cuomo for answers after their ready for blood because they can't even check their email.

[PoorRichard1776]

Does the phrase "Sieg Heil, Mien Furher" ring any bells?????
Our politians at ALL levels need to be voted out of office YESTERDAY !!!!
That is why this election I have made up my mind that I will not vote for ANY current office holder. And as far as I am concerned the TRUELY wasted vote is for ANY DEMOCRAT OR REPUBLICAN.

[Endbringer]

Just another reason not to live in the north. I'm surprised Verizon didn't take the AG to court over the obvious attempt at censorship.

Democrats, and for the past ten years republicans, have ignored the Constitution and the meaning behind it. I will never vote for McCain because of McCain-Feingold and Obama is a tool who ignores everything about the Constitution. The only candidate that has spoken about liberty and returning to the way the country was founded is Bob Barr.

[sisob1]

Declan, the A.G.'s want to hold the communications companies accountable for failing to take action when they have (or should have) knowledge of criminal activity on their system. Hence the NCMEC "MOU". So why is no one holding the A.G.s accountable for failing to take action when they have knowledge of criminal activity in THEIR system? The New York State Police Internet Crimes Against Children task force, for example, has evidence on tens of thousands of child pornography traders and possessors right now. Think of these as crimes in progress that have been reported where a dispatch was never made. Which is more outrageous and egregious: a massive communications company who isn't playing whack-a-mole with URLs fast enough or a sitting Attorney General who is refusing to investigate high-quality child pornography traffickings leads? With all due respect, going after them on privacy grounds won't get you very far. Exposing their hypocrisy and their own criminal negligence might.

[phixious]

Isn't it actually stripping us of our rights? It is taking away our Freedom of speech without saying "you can't speak" instead they are taking away our avenues by which we can communicate with those who have the same interests and wish to obtain the same knowledge. They fear people that could possibly "learn" or communicate something that needs to be said. This is why hackers do what they do to advocate the continuation of their freedoms. Sure they have a seat outside the scope of the law but at least they still have their commended rights; They can still communicate in whatever form they see fit.

What the scum such as this guy are doing to decrease the rights of the users of these broadband companies, it violates everything that we, as the united states, stands for. We allow our country to be run by people that are, by me, lower than some criminals. They push their agenda's at these companies and they threaten to create legislation against them if these demands are not met. If an average person would make threats like this, the company would laugh and call their lawyer.

The users of such companies services needs to stand up for the companies as to keep their freedoms. We need to do something to keep things like this from taking away the rights we have. Sure, get rid of the kiddie porn, but if people want to be able to talk about the star ship enterprise, let them! This needs to really be brought into check!

sorry... [/rant]

[sadchild]

"Cuomo's ham-fisted pressure tactics already have led Time Warner Cable to pull the plug on some 100,000 Usenet discussion groups, including such hotbeds of illicit content as talk.politics and misc.activism.progressive. Verizon deleted such unlawful discussion groups as us.military, ny.politics, alt.society.labor-unions, and alt.politics.democrats. AT&T and Time Warner Cable have taken similar steps. "

i GUARANTEE you that the RIAA and/or MPAA are behind this.

when step one failed (In a lawsuit filed on October 12, the RIAA says that Usenet newsgroups contain "millions of copyrighted sound recordings" in violation of federal law. ) they moved to step two (The RIAA is always waging war against someone on behalf of its masters, Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG, so it?s no surprise to find them targeting Usenet post, although it took them quite a while to zero in. And kiddie porn has long been a weapon used by the labels in their fight to gain total control of online music distribution by suing their own customers.)

there are a few dozen newsgroups (out of several thousand) that have kiddie porn therefore ALL newgroups should be shut down? i think not. that's like saying there are some kiddie porn websites out there so ALL websites should be shut down. or saying there are some kiddie porn magazines out there, so we should stop publication of ALL magazines. or saying there are some videotapes out there that have kiddie porn on them so we should ban ALL videotapes.

but it looks like he's already winning

"It broke last week that New York?s attorney general had targeted Usenet because of the existence of child pornography. Fair enough, no one wants that. But the reaction by several ISPs could set a dangerous precedent, and could threaten the way Usenet works. Time Warner, my ISP (for the time being), will no longer carry Usenet at all once the end of the month rolls around. Not just binary groups, the only place where the offending content could be posted (other than plain text links, I suppose), but all of Usenet. That?s a shame, as I learned a good deal from the comp.sys* groups back in the day. "

[Imalittleteapot]

Like I've said before, the best way to handle this is to shut the entire Internet down. If they shut down Usenet the porn will spread to P2P. If they shut down P2P it will spread to the web pages. If they remove all the web pages people will email it to each other. They may possibly even start encrypting their email, and we just can't have that. If you shut down email it will spread to, wait, what comes after that? I forget. I'm really tired. Oh yeah, it'll spread to Bittorrent. The only way to stop child porn completely is to just shut the whole net down. Like another poster said a month back or so. We may want to consider getting rid of all the children too. I agree with that. Without children there would be no child porn. Burn them instead. You see, we have to stop child porn at all costs. We can't let anything stand in our way no matter how good it seems, especially the children. They're all just going to have to take one for the team on this one. We may have to get rid of all the adults too. You see, you can never really tell if an adult is a pervert or not. Our best bet is for everyone on the planet to be destroyed. You see, even if we get rid of all the children that still won't help us with the child porn that's already been created. Our only hope is to kill every adult too. Some of them may have seen child porn at one point and time. Like Mr. Cuomo has probably seen some at one point while going through evidence. That means those images still exist IN HIS BRAIN! What if one day someone invented technology to extract those images from his mind? We cannot, I repeat, CANNOT take that risk! Mr. Cuomo would certainly understand my point of view. He's willing to destroy anything he can to stop child porn. Nothing will stand in his way, not the Constitution, the Internet, Children, or even himself. That's a man I can get behind, and I think he should show us the way. I think he should be the first adult to drink the cool-aid in our new plan to save the world so the risk of him ever looking at child porn is totally averted. Once we see our fearless leader take the first step into suicide, sacrificing himself to save the world, I'm sure we'll all be proud to follow in his footsteps.

[Penguinisto]

If Comcast has little-to-no presence in New York, the solution is simple enough: Write out exactly why they won't cave in, print that letter in the NYT and Wall Street Journal, and simply shut off Internet access instantly for any and all NY residents.

Not "shut off" as in send notice and take your time, but "shut off" as in literally flip switches one night - with no warning. Tell complaining customers to take the issue up with Cuomo's office. I figure the papers will have a field day once Comcast spins it as a bribery squeeze. And who knows... maybe even a state legislature as corrupt as NY's may actually do something about that.

[Renegade Knight]

Isn't rackateering a mafia thing?

[Lerianis]

I swear..... when are people going to realize that the hysteria against pedosexuals and 'child molesters' (most of whom ask the children who they 'molest' for permission to touch them in a sexual manner, which it is that child's right to give) is the new 'homosexual panic' of the age.

It is simply time to legalize pedosexuality and the actions connected with it, bring it out into the open, give children back their sexual freedom, and have parents do their job if they want to prevent their children from being truly forcibly raped (which most 'victims' of sexual abuse were not raped in any fashion whatsoever, coming from my being 'abused' and loving it as a child by NUMEROUS people): watching their children.

We would do better to normalize pedosexuality, homosexuality, basically ALL sexualities and simply realize that a child being sexually touched by an adult or another child, EVEN IF IT IS 'against their will'...... doesn't harm them at all for a long period. In fact, the ONLY legitimate study done on this subject, the Rind study (look it up on the internet) said that any harm from a forced sexual encounter is MINOR AND TEMPORARY, not even lasting one day in most cases.
I can attest to that, having enjoyed sexual encounters with adults and teenagers starting when I was 7, and being forcibly raped 4 times (at 4, 8 and twice at 12). The rapes..... I don't even think of them most times, and they have NO effect on my life today at all.
Now, some people will try to say "They made you a pedosexual!" ********. Pedosexuality runs in my family: my maternal grandfather and GREAT-grandfather were pedosexuals, my paternal great-grandfather was a pedosexual, etc. etc. etc.

It is simply time to tell the people who are whining about being 'sexually abused' to go shove it up their ass. I have no problem with taking them away from the people who they say 'forced' them into sex if they are children, and putting them into a foster home..... but most times, like my one friend in middle school, they TRULY learn what rape is..... and it doesn't compare to what Daddy, Bro or Uncle was doing to them.

[Vegaman_Dan]

From what I understand, there is a package delivery system that will, for a small fee, carry your product anywhere in the world and deliver it all while not looking inside the package. Some of those packages may indeed carry illegal materials or even pornographic items. Cuomo has made it clear his intent to shut these systems down.

Does this include the US POSTAL SYSTEM?

Think about it. There is no difference between Usenet and the Postal System in this regard. Both provide bandwidth and transport materials without looking at the content. If you can shut down a company's Usenet offerings, then that same argument can be used to shut down the nation's postal system entirely. It can also be used to shut down all the private carriers including FedEx, UPS, DHL, etc. All are equally guilty for providing package delivery services without inspecting the contents of each and every item.

I really hope this gets tossed out. For that matter, I hope that Cuomo gets tossed out as well.

[w_tvr]

Declan,
I think it's great that you are covering this NY AG "shakedown" (great quote). Your readers are getting analysis unlike what the big media cos has been putting out. Those rags are reprinting Cuomo's office press releases, right in the New York Times and AP. Pathetic. I applaud you.

Next, I don't understand what Cuomo is trying to do, other than the obvious - he's a narcissist and an egomaniac and wants to have his name in the press. (Probably not his face, though, but I thank you for that reminder that my husband is a good looking man in comparison to some others out there.) But the companies he's targeting are well-known, (as much as well dislike the phone company) upstanding companies, constantly reviewed by government for any number of regulatory issues, they have millions of customers who would have been screaming bloody murder if these companies were complicit about something so henious as child pornography. Most of these companies don't even have technologies like message boards and photo posting sites and other social networking capabilities, they just have deep pockets.

Cuomo should be shamed. Bullying executives from corporate America, linking their names with child pornography in the Wall Street Journal? All for what? No child is going to be helped by all this fluff. Why isn't he using his power with the press to announce a crackdown on child sex trafficking in NYC or something? Something where criminals are jailed.

Keep up the good reporting.

[grinningevild]

funny (and upsetting) how events in New York costs me money here in California

[Dalkorian]

Funny, Cuomo *LOOKS* like someone who would spend his nights pouring over Usenet groups looking for child porn. Maybe we should just ban him instead. Signed - a DISGUSTED Democrat.