Press Release
                                                           23.9.1996
 
 JOHAN HELSINGIUS GETS INJUNCTION IN SCIENTOLOGY CASE
 
 PRIVACY PROTECTION OF ANONYMOUS MESSAGES STILL UNCLEAR
 
 
  The Helsinki Court of Appeal issued on September 20, 1996
  a temporary injunction blocking enforcement of the decision
  of the District Court of Helsinki. In August the District
  Court ordered Johan Helsingius, the maintainer of the
  anon.penet.fi anonymous service, to reveal the identity of
  a user suspected of copyright infringement. 

  Based on a claim from the Church of Scientology, the Finnish
  Police is investigating the posting of documents related to
  Scientology to Internet discussion groups as a possible
  copyright offence. As the messages in question have been sent
  through the anonymous server "anon.penet.fi" run by the Finnish
  company Oy Penetic Ab and Johan "Julf" Helsingius, the District
  Court of Helsinki had ordered Mr. Helsingius to turn over the
  e-mail address of the sender to the police. 
 
  Mr Helsingius has opposed the demand on grounds that the
  secrecy of postal mail, telephone and other confidential
  messages is protected by the Finnish Constitution and can
  not be broken in a preliminary investigation regarding
  a minor offence such as the alleged copyright offence. 
 
  Because of the District Court ruling Mr. Helsingius has
  terminated the anonymous remailing service, and has filed an appeal
  to the Helsinki Court Of Appeal. As grounds for his appeal
  Mr Helsingius has stated that the requested information is
  protected by the Finnish Constitution and the European Convention
  on Human Rights.
  
  "There are very good reasons for the privacy protection
   built into our Constitution", says Mr. Helsingius. "The
   protection applied to both private communications and to
   the sources of information to newspapers and other media is
   one of the fundamental principles of western democracy.
   The same protection should also extend to communication
   on the Internet". 

 - - - 


TEMPORARY INJUNCTION IN THE ANONYMOUS REMAILER CASE
 
  The Court of Appeal issued on September 20, 1996 a temporary
  injunction on the enforcement of the judgement of the
  District Court of Helsinki regarding the e-mail address
  of an user of the "anon.penet.fi" anonymous service. 
 
 
 1.    Background
 
  Church of Spiritual Technology, Religious Technology Center
  and New Era Publications International Spa have made a report
  of an offence to the Finnish police on grounds that an unidentified
  person has sent e-mail messages infringing copyrights to Internet
  newsgroups. Finnish police investigates the matter as a copyright offence. 
 
  The messages in question have been sent to the Internet newsgroups
  through the anonymous server "anon.penet.fi" run by the Finnish
  company Oy Penetic Ab. An anonymous server replaces the sender's
  e-mail address with a series of numbers and letters so that the
  sender may not be identified. To be able to receive e-mailed
  replies, the sender must provide the anonymous server with his
  address that gets stored in a database maintained by the anonymous
  server. 
 
  Finnish police has heard the managing director and owner of Oy
  Penetic Ab,  Mr. Johan Helsingius, as a witness in the case and
  has demanded that Mr. Helsingius hands over to the police the
  sender's e-mail address recorded in the anonymous server's
  database. Mr. Helsingius has refused to reveal the requested
  e-mail address on basis that the confidentiality of an e-mail
  message is protected by law. 
 
  Finnish police has thereafter made a demand to the District Court
  of Helsinki that Mr. Helsingius be obliged to reveal the referred
  e-mail address. Mr. Helsingius has opposed the demand on grounds that
  the secrecy of postal mail, telephone and other confidential
  messages is protected by the Finnish Constitution and can not
  be broken in a preliminary investigation regarding a minor offence
  such as the alleged copyright offence. 
 
 2.    The Judgement of the District Court of Helsinki
 
  The District Court of Helsinki decided on August 22, 1996 to
  obligate Mr Helsingius to reveal the requested e-mail address
  to the Finnish police. 
 
  As reasons for its judgement the District Court of Helsinki stated
  for example that a witness can not refrain from revealing his information
  in a trial and that the messages in question were sent to a public
  news group and as public messages are not protected by law. 
 
 3.    Appeal of the Judgement
 
  Mr. Helsingius has appealed of the judgement of the District Court
  of Helsinki. In his appeal Mr. Helsingius has asked the Court of
  Appeal to issue a temporary injunction on the enforcement of the
  District Court judgement.
 
  As grounds for his appeal Mr. Helsingius has stated that the
  requested information is protected by the Finnish Constitution
  and the European Convention on Human Rights. Mr. Helsingius stated
  further that the protection of the confidentiality of an e-mail
  message can not be affected by the fact that the contents of
  the message later became publicly available. 
 
  Mr Helsingius has also suggested that the protection of the
  information source applied to newspapers is also applicable to
  the public news groups on the Internet. Internet and anonymous
  servers are part of the modern media enabling critical and
  pluralistic mass communication - a service much valued by, for
  example, victims of human rights violations.
  According to Mr. Helsingius, the right to use the potential
  of electronic communications without revealing the information
  source should be protected by the freedom of speech
  in the same manner as the information sources of the press. 
  This is underlined by another ongoing case, where authorities
  of a country in Asia has demanded the identifying information
  of an user who has used the anon.penet.fi server to post
  messages containing negative statements about a former govenment
  minister. 
 
  Mr. Helsingius claims that the District Court of Helsinki has
  no right to break the secrecy of confidential e-mail messages
  in a preliminary investigation regarding the alleged copyright
  offences. 
       
 4.    Temporary Injunction
 
  The Court of Appeal issued on September 20, 1996 a temporary
  injunction on the enforcement of the District Court of Helsinki
  judgement.