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Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site wdl1.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!cbosgd!cbdkc1!desoto!packard!edsel!bentley!hoxna!houxm!whuxlm!akgua!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!hplabs!hpda!fortune!wdl1!wunder
From: wunder@wdl1.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Re: Re: WARNING
Message-ID: <221@wdl1.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 25-Jan-85 00:05:40 EST
Article-I.D.: wdl1.221
Posted: Fri Jan 25 00:05:40 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 28-Jan-85 07:08:30 EST
Sender: notes@wdl1.UUCP
Organization: Ford Aerospace, Western Development Laboratories
Lines: 30
Nf-ID: #R:qantel:-33600:wdl1:7900001:000:1281
Nf-From: wdl1!wunder    Jan 24 18:57:00 1985

In several of the followups in this subject (quantel refusing to
accept news articles from hercules), the poster has said something
like "censoring Adrian just because you don't agree with him".
Well, I don't see it that way.

The letter from hercules!franka actually did *two* things:

a)  it expressed, strongly, a personal (perhaps unpopular) veiw.

b)  it advocated use of the net for harassment (flooding lauren with
    e-mail), and advocated personal harrassment (leaving dog turds
    in his desk).

If a site cuts off a message because of a), it is political censorship.
If a site cuts off a message because of b), it is to avoid being an
accessory in an illegal activity.

If I was to advocate flooding people with e-mail, and leaving dog turds
in their desks in order to make them support The Fight Against Birth
Defects, I would still be trying to (illegally) harrass people.

I think that the letter from hercules!franka is pretty close to lawsuit
material.  It could certainly be done with expensive enough (or enough
expensive) laywers.  I doubt that lauren would file a lawsuit, but
one, just one, lawsuit like that really would destroy the net.  No company
president would want be open for PR *that* bad.  The machines would
disappear overnight.

walter underwood