FC: Column: As election nears, attorneys general take aim at Net vice

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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http://news.com.com/2010-1071-958881.html
   
   Exploiting online raunch at the polls
   By Declan McCullagh 
   September 23, 2002, 4:00 AM PT

   What is it with state attorneys general trying to stamp out Internet
   vice around election time?
   
   On Oct. 27, 1998, precisely one week before Election Day, the New York
   State Attorney General's Office raided an Internet provider in Buffalo
   and confiscated its news server. The charge, according to former
   Attorney General Dennis Vacco, was that BuffNet carried Usenet
   newsgroups where child pornography could be found. It could be found,
   that is, if someone looked hard enough--and Vacco's investigators were
   nothing if not determined.
   
   The ploy didn't work. In one of the closest statewide contests ever,
   Vacco lost to Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, by a vote of 2,084,948 to
   2,059,762--a whisker-thin margin of just 25,186 votes.
   
   This year, attorneys general for Pennsylvania and Michigan,
   gubernatorial hopefuls both, are testing the same underhanded tactic.
   In moves that are simultaneously constitutionally dubious and coldly
   calculating, they're betting they can win votes by spreading fear,
   uncertainty and doubt.

   [...]



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