Sex, Laws, and Cyberspace

A Michigan college student posts sadistic fantasy about a classmate to an Internet newsgroup and is charged with the threat to injure. A postal inspector in Memphis, Tennessee downloads a pornographic image off the Internet and the California couple who posted it is arrested for violating Tennessee's obscenity laws. A programmer's encryption software is duplicated by someone else and sent overseas via the Internet; the programmer is charged with illegal export of munitions. The three defendants in these cases felt that the First Amendment protected them, but it was not the case.
Sex, La…