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From: learn@piroska.uchicago.edu (William  Vajk (igloo))
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: he Difference between Electronic and Print Media
Message-ID: <1991Jun12.142242.22050@midway.uchicago.edu>
Date: 12 Jun 91 14:22:42 GMT
References: <3Xke41w164w@cellar.UUCP>
Sender: news@midway.uchicago.edu (NewsMistress)
Reply-To: learn@piroska.uchicago.edu (William  Vajk (igloo))
Organization: Dares No Organization Like Dis Organization
Lines: 81

In article <3Xke41w164w@cellar.UUCP> Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano writes:

>Creation and trasmission of one's own signals-- publishing one's own 
>newspaper, for example, is not only open to those with a decent printer 
>and word processor, but it can be disseminated electronically with far 
>greater ease. And given the advent of digital coding of television signals, 
>it's conceivable that nearly everyone could have, without limiting anyone 
>else, their own television channel to broadcast on.

>So, where does all of this pseudo-New Agey stuff leave us? It lease me with 
>the recognition that any kind of generalized limitation on electronic 
>communications is going to be a Bad Thing. 

I believe we must not become so enamored of specifics as to lose sight if the
linking among the various freedoms too often taken for granted.

Under the Ceasceau regime in Romania, all typewriters had to be registered
with the state, along with a sample of the type it produced. It was a capital
offense to be in posession of an unregistered machine. It was a capital
offense to make modifications or repairs to the machine without submitting
a new type sample to the police.

How many legible carbon copies can be made on an ordinary manual typewriter
by having someone sit there and beat in the impressions ? Perhaps as many as
8 at a time, original included. Assuming the text iis of general interest,
news not available any other way (and trustowrthy as well) how many readers
is each copy likely to have ? Perhaps as many as thirty. And of course a few
of those retyped and started their new networks of readers. The registration
requirement was in response to "underground" newsletters circulating among
the populace outside government control and censorship. It was also illegal
to produce a newsletter without official government approval.

The government reacted to the specifics by registering typewriters (please 
note this all of you arguing about gun registration) although not regulating 
them. We talk about the chilling effects of the prosecutions we've seen
regarding "computer crimes" in the past couple of years. There's a real
correlation between the Romainan experience and what this country seems
hell bent to do.

As I was growing up, I remember various groups of nuts who developed their
own political agendas, gathered into some loose group or another, and did
their protests. I used to wonder why they would behave like such fools. I
wondered why they weren't simply locked away someplace, permitting the
mainstream to go about their important business as usual. It took a long time
for me to understand that "the fringe" is a safety valve, releasing tensions
which exist in society as a whole (just moreso in "the fringe".) The things
some of them protested eventually were resolved within the mainstream. The
Viet Nam tragedy was ended. It could just as easily, given earlier mindsets,
still be going on. The Volunteer Army became a reality. Homosexual
activities aren't generally arrestable actions. Severe clampdowns have taken
effect in place of the free wheeling pollution which was previously so very
prevalent. Lake Michigan and many of our waterways are clean today.

In fact, so far as I can recall, every one of those fringe lunatic movements
has had a highly positive outcome on societal behaviors and thought, although
the missionaries were "in the pot" (double entente intended.)

It is the combination of freedoms which permitted all the positive things
in our society to happen. The government, to a great extent, kept hands off,
notwithstanding the sorts of data which was gathered and maintained on
purely legal political activities by the FBI prior to the Media Pennsylvania
breakin. And even that illegal activity had a highly positive outcome in
adding to the burden of proof which lead to the Freedom of Information Act.

Ultimately, while I understand the author's points in the referenced article,
I don't wish to narrow the perspectives of the readers in this newsgroup to
discussions which detail computer equipment and equate it to printing presses. 
I made a few people angry last time I got involved in this discussion. A 
computer isn't a printing press, never can be, never will be.

But if the attention you're paying to is limited by some blinders arbitrarily
installed in some technonerdish fashion, the importance of the discoveries
of this new age will be lost just as it has been till now, by locking rights
to the technology we have. Instead of discussing "freedom of the press" and
making the new machines fit the old technologically bound precept why
aren't we discussing "the rights of the people to communicate shall not be
in any way limited by the government."

Maybe this time we'll peek over the horizon a bit.

Bill Vajk