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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!hao!cires!nbires!opus!rcd
From: rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: net.news,net.legal
Subject: Re: Freedom of speech and the net
Message-ID: <950@opus.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 13-Nov-84 03:00:48 EST
Article-I.D.: opus.950
Posted: Tue Nov 13 03:00:48 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 15-Nov-84 02:01:23 EST
References: <201@looking.UUCP> <7@cmu-cs-k.ARPA> <> <1842@nsc.UUCP> <475@amdahl.UUCP>
Organization: NBI,Inc, Boulder CO
Lines: 21

> 
> Now that the US Constitution has been distributed over the entire Usenet
> you have no excuse for not reading it.
> 
> The First Amendment says: "*CONGRESS* shall make no law ... abridging
> the freedom of speech."  (emphasis mine).
> 
> If someone else abridges your freedom of speech (and this happens all
> the time) your civil rights are not being violated -- UNLESS this
> abrigement is executed by some government entity, federal or otherwise.

Hogwash.  It means that the Constitutional rights guaranteed to you are not
being violated.  As it turns out, the Constitution also grants Congress and
other legislative bodies the right to create legislation of various sorts,
obviously including additional legislation to secure other civil rights.

Since you're hot on the Constitutional aspects of the question, see
Amendments IX and X (also part of the Bill of Rights).
-- 
Dick Dunn	{hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd		(303)444-5710 x3086
   ...Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.