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From: Will@cup.portal.com (Will E Estes)
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.misc,comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: New rules for UUPSI
Message-ID: <40113@cup.portal.com>
Date: 13 Mar 91 22:55:18 GMT
References: <1991Mar04.221119.5075@utoday.com>
  <1991Mar05.113406.16833@usaos.uucp>
  <1991Mar5.210338.5356@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <7669@rsiatl.Dixie.Com>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 43

John De Armond writes:
<We have no right, morally or
<otherwise, to dictate what our customers do with the news and mail we
<forward.   We are a common carrier just like the phone company.  To see
<the absurdity of the PSI policy, contemplate the reaction if Ma Bell
<tried to tell us what we could do with the information (voice or
<otherwise) transmitted over their facilities. 

Actually, John, I think this is an incredibly profound remark.  There
are issues of constitutional importance here that are in their own
right as important as the establishment of the First Amendment was
after the signing of the Constitution.  I don't think I'm waxing poetic.  

Most people take for granted free speech rights as embodied in First
Amendment rights.  However, what most don't realize is that the
courts have yet to find that the First Amendment applies in full to 
electronic publishing, and the current lack of regulation of 
electronic publishing by the FCC, other regulatory agencies, has been
a matter of policy rather than a matter of constitutionally-imposed
necessity.

In general, the government has historically employed three distinct
models for publishing: 1) the free press model; 2) the common carrier
model; 3) the broadcasting model.  It is clear that to protect our
free speech rights we need for the courts to interpret the Internet
and other regional nets as common carriers, and information that
passes on those networks should be given FULL First Amendment 
protection as with the free press model.  Yet it's distressing to
find that the current regulatory environment puts the Internet and
regional nets under something much more akin to the broadcasting
model, a model under which information content is highly regulated.
For those who are interested in reading more on this subject, the
most important work on the subject is the book "Technologies Of
Freedom" by Ithiel de Sola Pool.

It is going to take a number of court cases, and maybe even a new
constitutional amendment, to straighten out this whole mess.  However 
I think it is an issue about which we should all be very concerned. 
It is not often that a generation of Americans gets to deal with an 
issue that literally defines a key civil liberty, and I hope we are
up to the challenge.    

Will Estes        (apple!cup.portal.com!Will)