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From: rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.misc,net.motss
Subject: Re: Corrupting youth con't
Message-ID: <1063@bbncca.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 25-Oct-84 15:12:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: bbncca.1063
Posted: Thu Oct 25 15:12:51 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 26-Oct-84 06:44:52 EDT
References: <4953@duke.UUCP>
Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma.
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[followup of Charlie Martin again]

Well, I 've found the time...

"Uncle!"

Seriously, I grant all of Charlie's points about newspapers etc.
having the right to publication itself of anything (except "atomic
secrets", etc.?  But it isn't clear that "national security" has
any standing in the face of the Constitution).  His first message
seemed to me to say "don't tamper with the press", including taking
a very dim view of challenging what's been printed (via fraud or
libel laws).  So I emphasized the (yet-to-be-legally-proved) crimi-
nality/illegality of Dartmouth Review methods.

My original article had a number of aims:

1) Raise ethical issues;
2) Raise legal issues;
3) Expose a campus "danger on the right" & emphasize HOW noxious
   their methods were.
4) Shake New Right complacency by raising the specter of class action
   suits (maybe that wasn't cricket on my part).  But unless the
   BOSTON PHOENIX article is wildly inaccurate, targets of papers
   like the Review DO have legitimate legal recourse.

If I didn't make clear when I intended to raise a point of law,
or of information, or simply criticize Review conduct, the fault
is mine.  But Charlie was a little impetuous in considering nearly
all I said as raising points of law.

For example, I stressed the uniqueness of the Review's use of "dirty
tricks" toward the relatively powerless not in order to imply that
those lacking in "power or status" should have "more rights" than the
prominent & powerful (ie, not to make a legal point), but simply to
illustrate just HOW nasty these creeps (tabloid staffers) are.

Ditto for my remarks about "liberals" & unliberal Dartmouth: Charlie's
first message sounded in part like "you're just mouthing liberal sour
grapes!"

As to the wiretapped gay students organization, I don't know for
a fact that it was a "public" meeting.  Neither Charlie nor I
seem to know whether legal "invasion of privacy" hinges on this
for sure.  If it does, then the criticism is demoted (?) from
a legal to a moral one:  it's one thing to say the pseudo-lesbian
had a right to write what she did, and another that it was ethically
OK.

I advocated cutting off tabloid funding because of their pattern
of (unproven-in-a-court-of-law) legal offenses, not out of censorship.
True, losing funds would handicap them somewhat; & I'm opposed to their
political views.  Charlie's discussion of this rests on his sense that
I'm trying to supress rightwingers' freedom of speech; maybe he should
forego this, in the interests of dealing only with explicit matters.

So, I accept Charlie's general points about the law; but I think he
overreacted.  I also think he's somewhat callous ethically (as I am
dense legally?), & tends toward thinking that if something isn't a 
matter of law, it has little moral relevance.

I'm still interested in hearing about the antics of & lawsuits against
campus tabloids.  Maybe we should continue this only in net.politics
(what happened to net.law?), and/or by personal mail.

					"Give me...?....a break!"

					Ron Rizzo