First sighting: "Spampoena"

[Gabor Fencsik]

This is from the Tasty Bits from the Technology Front newsletter,
<http://tbtf.com/blog/2000-03-19.html>:

   Friday, March 24, 2000

   A spampoena is an overbroad subpoena of dubious validity "served"
   by email to unnamed recipients throughout cyberspace. The first
   spampoena was deployed last January in the DeCSS / MPAA case [1];
   the second was just sent out in the matter of CPHack / Cyber Patrol.
   We may dearly desire that, when quashed forthrightly, it will be the
   last ever served. A judge in Boston -- in a hearing at which no
   defense attorney was present -- granted a subpoena requiring that a
   Canadian and a Swede remove certain content from their Web sites.
   (As Dr. H. Kissinger used to say, "Under vot theory?!") The lawyer
   for Cyber Patrol's parent company requested and reportedly [2]
   received permission to "serve" copies of the subpoena by email to
   hundreds of unknown others in all parts of the world. Several
   hundred of the spampoenas have been mailed (and fewer received).
   Here is an example [3]. The ACLU's motion to quash the subpoena [4]
   concludes:

   > The subpoenas must be quashed because they were not properly
   > served, because they violate the geographic limitations of
   > Rule 45, and because they impose an undue burden... that
   > raises significant constitutional questions. More fundamen-
   > tally, they must be dismissed because they are in aid of an
   > underlying case that itself must be dismissed for lack of
   > subject matter jurisdiction, lack of personal jurisdiction,
   > and mootness. It is improper to impose on a third party the
   > burden of any subpoena -- particularly one that raises a host
   > of thorny privacy issues -- in aid of a case that does not
   > belong in this Court in the first place.

[1] http://www.opendvd.org/summons.html
[2] http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-1583272.html
[3] http://www.politechbot.com/cyberpatrol/cp-subpoena.txt
[4] http://tbtf.com/blog/2000-03-19.html

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