Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!world!bzs From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Censorship on the USENET Message-ID: Date: 2 Nov 90 00:51:46 GMT References: <1990Oct21.141502.26557@hoss.unl.edu> <1990Oct31.141646.25350@ifi.uio.no> <1990Nov01.064916.19218@looking.on.ca> Sender: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) Distribution: comp Organization: The World Lines: 61 In-Reply-To: brad@looking.on.ca's message of 1 Nov 90 06:49:16 GMT From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) >I'm being facetious, I am sure there are no such laws. (I hope) You >simply don't understand the golden rule. Anybody is permitted to get >a feed. As long as this is true, there is no censorship, only their >refusal to spend their resources passing stuff to you. Actually, things get stranger with universities and their ilk. Suppose the funding agencies take the attitude that any redundant link would be a squandering of funds and responded to by cutting back networking budgets (since it was already paid for once) or firing anyone who "squandered" those funds by installing a redundant link? I don't think that's either wild or unlikely, particularly with expensive transatlantic bandwidth. I believe most of the Norwegian bandwidth comes from their Defense Dept sources. Now, I suppose we can sink into the whole private vs public funding hole and how the world *oughta* work, but that wouldn't change the situation (remember, someone has already taken money to provide this service, presumably with a promise to provide it to all downstream institutions, we can't immediately postulate infinite funds to fix the situation.) In such a case I think it's pretty reasonable for the universities dependant on those rules to declare that the policy on that route is a political issue and up for argument. So it might be a bit flip to just say "go set up your own link", these may very well be several institutions mandated by law to eat from the same pot. >In general, censorship is the use of violence to suppress information. I don't think that's quite workable. Violence is one of many possible statutory forces (and may be in the background.) How about if the govt took over all the universities and university funding and then imposed their censorship rules? And declared that anyone else claiming to be a degree granting institution could be arrested for fraud (or, just made certain that they'd be ineligible for any funding, tax breaks, and so forth?) Etc. >People who try to interfere with the flow of information in non-violent >ways are not good, but they are not censors. Let's put it this way, if they're not from the govt or otherwise have police powers they're probably not properly called "censors". I think in this case we may very well be talking about state powers. >That out of the way, I am still in favour of pushing people, particularly >universities, not to delete material from general media because it may >be offensive. Agreed. -- -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die | {xylogics,uunet}!world!bzs | bzs@world.std.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202 | Login: 617-739-WRLD