Teen's date plans unraveled by authorities.

Nineteen-year-old Matthew Kammersell just wanted to go on a date with his girlfriend. Instead, he got four months in jail for an e-mail stunt that taught him the painful truth about the application of traditional interstate commerce laws to new technology.

Kammersell, a Utah resident, sent an "instant" e-mail message--one that flashes directly onto a logged-on recipient's computer screen--to his girlfriend, who worked at an America Online (AOL) service center in another Utah city. The body of the message contained a bomb threat.

Authorities traced the message to Kammersell, who told them he had hoped AOL would allow its workers to leave early because of the threat. He was convicted of transmitting a threatening communication in interstate commerce under 18 U.S.C. [sections] 875(c) because the message traveled from his computer in Utah to AOL's home base in Virginia and back to Utah to his girlfriend's computer.

On appeal, Kammersell argued that federal jurisdiction did not exist in his case because both he and the recipient of the threat were located in the same state where the transmission occurred. He contended that the jurisdictional element of [sections] 875(c), which was enacted in 1934 when the telegraph was the primary method of interstate communication, is outmoded in light of the sweeping changes in technology over the past 60 years.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, finding the Internet jurisdiction issue one of first impression. (United States v. Kammersell, No. 98-4177, 1999 WL 1032969 (10th Cir. Nov. 15, 1999).)

"A threat that was unquestionably transmitted over interstate telephone lines falls within the literal scope of the statute and gives rise to federal jurisdiction," wrote Judge Paul Kelly Jr. He noted that Kammersell offers "a compelling argument that Congress should reexamine the statute, but [this argument] cannot remove [him] from the reach of the current statute."

James Dempsey, senior staff counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington, D.C., Internet civil liberties organization, said he was not surprised by the 10th Circuit's application of the old law to new technology.

"In some respects the law does have to be modified to take account of new technology, but, by and large, the starting point for any analysis of Internet issues is the existing law," Dempsey said. "In a lot of cases new laws are not needed to address Internet issues, whether they deal with jurisdiction or not."