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From: mnemonic@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Mike Godwin)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Musing on Constitutionality
Message-ID: <36937@ut-emx>
Date: 5 Sep 90 23:53:07 GMT
References: <11503@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> <82778@aerospace.AERO.ORG> <11521@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> <1990Sep3.182712.2260@world.std.com> <11548@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>
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Reply-To: mnemonic@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Mike Godwin)
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
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In article <11548@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford) writes:
>
>The original point I was trying to make is that there is a significant
>difference between a regularly-scheduled publication with identifiable
>staff and open subscriptions, and someone xeroxing off a letter in
>their basement that they mail off to a circle of friends.

Not as far as the First Amendment is concerned. There is no hierarchy
of protected publications with the NEW YORK TIMES at the top.

Gene, are you just trying to make up Constitutional law as you go along?

>  Whether or
>not such a difference is found in case law or not, I dunno.  Would one
>of our lawyer/readers care to comment?

Why not provide some citation of the source of your conviction that the
First Amendment wasn't intended to protect little publications as much
as it protects big ones? Perhaps it has not occurred to you that at the
time of the drafting of the Bill of Rights, almost ALL publications were
produced on small presses, with limited readership.

>Comparing Phrack to the NY Times is not a convincing or appropriate
>analogy, nor is comparing this newsgroup to NPR's All Things
>Considered. :-)

Indeed. On a professional news program, you wouldn't be able to get
away as much with making outrageous statements about the Constitution.



--Mike




Mike Godwin, UT Law School  |    "We need a new cosmology.
mnemonic@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu |     New Gods. New Sacraments. 
(512) 346-4190              |     Another drink."
                            |          --Patti Smith