June 12, 1999

Abortion Foe Sues Internet Provider

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

TLANTA -- An anti-abortion protester has sued an Internet service provider for $251 million because it shut down his Web site depicting mangled fetuses and Wild West-style wanted posters of abortion doctors.

Related Article Creators of Anti-Abortion Web Site Told to Pay Millions (February 3, 1999)

MindSpring Enterprises shut down Neal Horsley's site, "The Nuremburg Files," in February, days after a federal jury in Oregon ordered several anti-abortion groups that contribute to the site to pay $107 million in damages because the tactics amounted to illegal threats.

Horsley, 55, was not a defendant, but MindSpring said his site violated the company's "appropriate use policies."

In a lawsuit filed in Gwinnett County court Tuesday, Horsley claims he was the victim of censorship. He says MindSpring destroyed hundreds of e-mails when it booted his site.

"If telephone companies shut people's telephones down because of what they believe or because of what they were saying and they weren't breaking the law, then I'm sure the American people would understand why that has to be stopped," Horsley said Wednesday.

The suit, filed Tuesday in Gwinnett County Superior Court, seeks $1 million for breach of contract and $250 million in punitive damages. Horsley's lawyer, John Matteson, said the punitive damage figure is a percentage of what the company is worth.

"It takes that kind of money to get their attention and make some kind of impact on the wild things they're doing. They sit there like God erasing e-mail and deciding who can communicate with who," Matteson said.

A MindSpring spokesman, Ed Hansen, said, "Mr. Horsley's service was terminated for one or more violations." He added: "If this does go to court, it will become obvious how flagrant his violations were."

The Web site, which Horsley now operates from his own server, lists the names and addresses of abortion doctors. The names of those who have been killed are crossed out and those injured listed in gray.

Three times, doctors on the list were killed, most recently last October when Dr. Barnett Slepian was gunned down in his home outside Buffalo, N.Y. His name on the site was crossed out that same day.

The site also invites readers to send in abortion doctors' addresses, license plate numbers and the names of their children.

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Related Sites
These sites are not part of The New York Times on the Web, and The Times has no control over their content or availability.

• MindSpring Enterprises

• The Nuremberg Files Warning: This site contains images that may offend some adults and that some readers would consider inappropriate for children.