Xref: utzoo news.admin:6728 news.misc:3550
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!cwjcc!hal!ncoast!allbery
From: allbery@NCoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery)
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.misc
Subject: Re: USENET site admin responsibilities (was: Re: Censorship is for Wusses)
Message-ID: <1989Sep4.024432.6152@NCoast.ORG>
Date: 4 Sep 89 02:44:32 GMT
References: <3659@uwovax.uwo.ca> <13316@nsc.nsc.com> <3988@buengc.BU.EDU> <1989Sep3.043558.9447@xenitec.uucp> <4030@buengc.BU.EDU>
Reply-To: allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery)
Followup-To: news.misc
Organization: North Coast Public Access UN*X, Cleveland, OH
Lines: 29

Blair, I do appreciate your concern for free speech -- and, in fact, share it
-- but you have missed a point.

By and large, the Usenet exists on sufferance.  We're allowed to send news
through other systems, and in many cases access news on those systems.  But
this is possible only as long as the people who run those systems are willing
to pass news -- and they *don't* share our concerns.

The only way we can ensure our freedom of speech is to limit the Usenet to
public-access sites connected to each other and UUNET.  And we might not be
able to use NSFnet -- they are explicitly willing to carry news now, but that
might change if they don't like the content.

Pleasenote that I am not saying that free speech must be limited, I am saying
that we can not push our beliefs onto those who do not accept them.  This is
as big a moral dilemma as free speech is -- and it will be resolved in this
case by those who don't want to accept our ways refusing us access.  We have
no control over this.

Now:  if you want to set up an "alternate backbone" to get around this, fine.
But don't expect everyone else in the world to bow to your (or my, etc.)
wishes; they won't.  They'll terminate us instead.

++Brandon
-- 
Brandon S. Allbery, moderator of comp.sources.misc	     allbery@NCoast.ORG
uunet!hal.cwru.edu!ncoast!allbery		    ncoast!allbery@hal.cwru.edu
"Why do trans-atlantic transfers take so long?"
"Electrons don't swim very fast."  -john@minster.york.ac.uk and whh@PacBell.COM