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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!harvard!seismo!munnari!mulga!isaac
From: isaac@mulga.OZ (Isaac Balbin)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Re: Towards making hosts and their admin free from a criminal offence
Message-ID: <1246@mulga.OZ>
Date: Wed, 14-May-86 18:41:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: mulga.1246
Posted: Wed May 14 18:41:41 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 16-May-86 04:24:28 EDT
References: <611@bu-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: isaac@mulga.OZ (Isaac Balbin)
Organization: Computer Science, University of Melbourne
Lines: 38

In article <611@bu-cs.UUCP> bzs@bu-cs.UUCP (Barry Shein) writes:
! 
! 
! is this guy kidding? Who's gonna come and get us from these hypothetical
! foreign countries? Hey guy, you just crossed the line where "liberalism"
! and "tolerance" stop dead, I (and I hope most of my compatriots) don't
! "tolerate" the tyranny you describe, that's not a "cosmopolitan" view as
! you seem to imply, that's cowardice.
! 
! If residents of other countries think it's unfair that they may get
! cut off because USENET violates some disgusting internal law they
! have, tell them to go speak to their disgusting internal lawmakers, I
! ain't gonna wear no foreign gag. Yes, I feel sorry for them, but not
! sorry enough to compromise *my* freedoms, that's for their citizens to
! fix.
! 
! 	-Barry Shein, Boston University

No, Barry, no-one is going to drag you out of your bed and put you in
a package to chernobyl because you posted an article which was critical
of Gorbachev's tailor. Be serious! I am not talking about such rubbish.
I *am* talking about VERY SERIOUS issues such as the publication of racist
material. The idea I suggested implies that 
(a) If it is an offence in Boston to do so, that if you do indeed go ahead
    the onus is on *YOU*.
(b) If it is an offence in Greenland, it is unlikely that anyone would
    do anything to *YOU*, but imagine a scenario where a whole lot of
    racist stuff was being sent from country (a). It ends up in country
    (b) and some users in that country are offended and take the matter
    to someone higher. The point is that the administrators and institutions
    can now claim that they specifically authorised news which was illegal.
    Of course, after this they could write to the person involved and tell
    his sys admin to make his news local.
Remember this, you are still FREE to postnews.
You are still FREE to post racist or other such news.
But you are DEFINITELY NOT FREE to cause the blame to fall on other innocent
shoulders.
		Isaac Balbin.