Re: filmscanners: Re: paperless office

[Gordon Tassi <gtassi@erols.com>]

I appreciate the comments about the law changing and I was aware of the US law
change.  That will not, however, make it happen quickly and everywhere.
Wherever lawyers can find a chink in a defendant's armor, they will and no law
will make a prudent lawyer tell a client to not play it safe and keep the
papers.  This will be especially true when there is a potential for economic
and/or moral interests to be involved.  I am not a lawyer but just the ability
to electronically manipulate documents and data can be used to raise doubt in a
case.  Nixon had a 10 minute gap on a tape and the opinions on what it meant
were as many and varied as there were people discussing it..

I would not expect to see a truly paper less ( or even negative less (?))
society in my life time or yours.

I fear that this is getting OT so......

Gordon

Sumtingwong wrote:

> A law was just passed here in the US that makes a digital signature (i.e.
> email) good in court.
>
> Spencer Stone
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
> [mailto:owner-filmscanners@halftone.co.uk]On Behalf Of Gordon Tassi
> Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 5:00 AM
> To: filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
> Subject: Re: filmscanners: Re: paperless office
>
> Although we are getting closer to a paperless society, I think that the
> biggest
> impediment is based on our legal system.  Though we could electronically
> transmit
> signed documents showing some type of commitment to do something, the demand
> of a
> document that has a "fresh" signature is still the legal standard.  The fax
> machine has been around for many years but a document with a real signature
> is
> most often demanded and follows the fax in the mail.
>
> Paperless will not arrive until a) everyone has a computer, b) they are
> willing to
> acept a legal commitment via computer, c) the electronic security systems
> can
> absolutely assure that people cannot be tamper with the records of falsify
> them,
> and d) the courts accept that an an electronic copy is absolute proof of the
> legal
> commitment.  We have a long way to go to get to that point.  In the
> meantime, we
> will have to settle for trying to be a society with less paper.
>
> Gordon
>
> Arthur Entlich wrote:
>
> > Laurie Solomon wrote:
> >
> > > I would suggest (a) that your office is a rarity, (b) your office
> > > technically is not a "paperless office" in that you still receive
> invoices,
> > > receipts, etc. from others that you need to scan in, and (c) most other
> > > places which are relying heavily on electronic operations still tend to
> keep
> > > paper backup files and archives of their files and records just in case
> as
> > > do their workers for their personal security and use.
> >
>
> Arthur Entlich wrote
>
> > We have enculturated certain specific habits and styles of functionality
> over
> > many hundreds of years which have involved the use of paper/hard copy
> documents,
> > books, etc.
>
> > Ironically, when we have computers that more mimic our relationship with
> paper,
> > we will get closer to the "paperless" society.
> >
> > Art