Robert Thomas: THE MARQUIS DE CYBERSPACE

Four months into his three-year sentence for transmitting obscene images by computer, the man the Carnegie Mellon report calls a modern-day Marquis de Sade hardly looks like a political cause celebre. Robert Thomas spends his day like any other inmate at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri: cleaning the prison kitchen and laundry room and waiting to hear whether his lawyers will get him out on appeal. Thomas' case could well end up in the Supreme Court, where it would set legal precedent for all of cyberspace.

Thomas, 39, operator of the Amateur Action BBS in Milpitas,...

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