Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!rutgers!texbell!vector!telecom-gateway From: mips!mips.com!rogerk@decwrl.dec.com (Roger B.A. Klorese) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Caller ID Saves A Life! Message-ID: Date: 16 Oct 89 21:46:05 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Reply-To: "Roger B.A. Klorese" Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Sunnyvale, CA Lines: 45 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 454, message 1 of 9 In article telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (Patrick A. Townson) responds sarcastically to Steve Bellovin: >He implies in his first paragraph that one is >unlikely to get a fair hearing or a chance to reply to a message since >I did not botber to run the 'change name' program here and convert >myself to Patrick Townson for the occassion. Everyone who reads this >little Digest knows how bad I am about not allowing my critics the >time of day or space in the Digest to reply. I don't know, I read the following paragraph and didn't notice anything like what you claim you see, Patrick: >> I'm not sure if you can do this, given the login available to you, but >> you should distinguish between your role as moderator and poster. Most >> of the time this doesn't matter, but when it does -- i.e., when there's >> a controversial topic being discussed -- you should try to grant everyone >> equal access to the debate. Steve made the simple request that you should change your login name, if possible, when participating in a discussion, so that your opinions don't seem like the blessed consensus of the Digest. Nowhere was he anywhere near as condescending as you, and you trivialize his concerns. He was not claiming that you were denying access (although your little explanation, which I omitted, about why you forwarded Steve's message indicates that you are in fact doing so: his message should not have appeared so he shouldn't think you were stifling him, it should have appeared because it is important). As for the subject matter, your entire thesis seems to reduce that the concern of individuals for their constitutional rights is trivial in the face of a facility that saves lives. The case can be made that everything from in-home police surveillance to drunk-driver roadblocks to searches of random black men walking through white suburbs either has or could potentially save lives. The truth is that the cost factors are often the other way around: not that freedoms must be sacrificed to save individual lives, but that sometimes and unfortunately, lives are the necessary cost of maintaining our freedoms, even innocent lives. ROGER B.A. KLORESE MIPS Computer Systems, Inc. phone: +1 408 720-2939 928 E. Arques Ave. Sunnyvale, CA 94086 rogerk@mips.COM {ames,decwrl,pyramid}!mips!rogerk "I want to live where it's always Saturday." -- Guadalcanal Diary