On Tue, 7 Mar 2000, Kimes, Dean W. wrote:

>
> attorney gaming friend laid it out. Interestingly as such, Verant also
> cannot ban someone for anything they say while online. Despite the fact
> that it is in the TOS that you cannot say certain things without being
> banned, US civil liberties laws specifically prohibit anyone from
> voluntarily abrogating their own constitutional rights except in cases of
> national security.

Well, Verant is also a private company, and thus has the right
to deny access to the game to anyone they want. I don't
recall the Supreme Court decision governing this (way too long
since I took the course), but basically there was a dispute as
to whether a private company could be forced via civil liberty
obligations into a legal contract they didn't want. The
ruling was that it could not, although the government could
penalize it by witholding federal funding for that reason.

--
John H. Kim
kim@...