Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!ra!Ra.msstate.edu!lush From: lush@EE.MsState.Edu (Edward Luke) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Censorship on the USENET Message-ID: Date: 5 Nov 90 16:30:33 GMT References: <1990Nov01.064916.19218@looking.on.ca> <1990Nov02.044428.2834@looking.on.ca> <1990Nov2.141012.25200@ncs <1990Nov05.033218.21980@ddsw1.MCS.COM> Sender: usenet@ra.MsState.Edu Distribution: na Organization: MSU NSF ERC for CFS Lines: 38 Nntp-Posting-Host: athena.erc.msstate.edu In-reply-to: fwp1@CC.MsState.Edu's message of 5 Nov 90 14:44:49 GMT [... A long thread attempting to define censorship deleted ...] Ok, ok, who cares what you call it. As an individual I can not afford to pay for a nationwide (worldwide) net by myself, but I CAN pay a part of it's operational expenses. The problem is, if part of the 'net' I use to get a message from me to you is owned by the government, and as an individual I can not afford to get the message to you via any other route, then government control of the CONTENT of the messages going through it's 'net' has the SAME EFFECT as CENSORSHIP simply because I have no other options but to use the government net. (I can not afford to create another net myself.) For this reason I find the position 'He who has the gold, makes the rules' a very dangerous one. To make an analogy to the post office... Would any of us really accept a US postal system that did not deliver mail for any individual that was mailing letters that was politically controversial? NO! And we can not allow any new regulations have this effect on the net. I think that at the very least, the government should not have the power to deny access to the net to any individual because of political controversy. This would be very bad. I think that the net can and should be regulated based on the legality of data exchanges (Although this would be regulated by the courts, not the politicians), and on the actual bandwidth requirements of sites, but it is very dangerous to give the government the ability to make choices based on the CONTENT of the data exchanges, given they are not determined to be illegal by the courts. Of course the whole mess is made even more complicated by the fact that we are actually a worldwide net, not just a nationwide net. (Who's laws apply?) Ed Luke Mississippi State University lush@ee.msstate.edu