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From: wag5@quads.uchicago.edu (john peter wagner)
Newsgroups: comp.admin.policy
Subject: Re: harassing mail
Message-ID: <1991May31.203929.17716@midway.uchicago.edu>
Date: 31 May 91 20:39:29 GMT
References: <1991May23.030459.8377@osh3.OSHA.GOV> <1991May29.025740.499@midway.uchicago.edu> <1991May30.042902.10573@osh3.OSHA.GOV>
Sender: news@midway.uchicago.edu (NewsMistress)
Organization: University of Chicago
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   The fellow from occupational health & human services seems to have been at err.  He claimed that it is dificult to stop a person from communicating
via air.  And yet, as he followed to point out, it has happened quite often.  The mere act of passing a razor across the lower end of the tongue is a policy which has been used by many regimes of unbearable dictatorship and in many barbari
c lands noted for hand-chopping, torture, etc.  His advocacy of this method may
indeed prove pleasurable to a bureaucrat, as it simplifies things greatly,
but as an impartial, free-minded citizen of the United States I beg to differ.
	The interesting thing is that he sugested that if a user abuses the network, then the network is to blame.  Prior to this he claimed that networking is a privelege, and not a right.  Well, if I'm not mistaken, at least here at the U.C., the network exists to fulfill a certain purpose.  I.E., it had a cause
for being.  It was not some rich uncle's toy.  That purpose was to be utilized by members of the community as a communications tool far superior to normal methods.  Perhaps this isn`t the case at the OH&HS, but around here the thing is being used.  When certain persons are given control over this network, they often 
feel, as people do, that it could be a tool with GREAT potential at furthering their personal beliefs, moral outlooks, etc.  And so, in the same way that
giving a quarter to a beggar follows from some personal orientation, taking advantage of the network might be for them a responsibility.  And yet, this clashes
with the original intent; to provide an eficient, reliable medium of communication.

				John Wagner
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