Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mit-eddie!ll-xn!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!ernie.Berkeley.EDU!jwl
From: jwl@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (James Wilbur Lewis)
Newsgroups: news.groups,news.admin,misc.legal
Subject: Re: childish and insulting behavior
Message-ID: <21110@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Sat, 3-Oct-87 05:01:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.21110
Posted: Sat Oct  3 05:01:46 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 6-Oct-87 07:06:15 EDT
References: <3072@mtgzz.UUCP> <558@cc6.bbn.com.BBN.COM> <2945@phri.UUCP> <2064@kitty.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: jwl@ernie.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (James Wilbur Lewis)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 31
Xref: mnetor news.groups:1637 news.admin:1084 misc.legal:2950

In article <2064@kitty.UUCP> larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) writes:
>
>System administrators
>and the site organizations themselves share legal responsibility for the
>actions of their users who send mail and post Usenet articles.  The time
>is long overdue for someone to "test" this issue.

This may or may not be currently be the case, but I would argue that 
system administrators and owners should have no such responsibility, 
which should rest totally in the hands of the people sending mail and
posting articles.  

I don't relish the prospect of having all my outgoing mail screened by
my U.C. Berkeley officials in an effort to avoid legal difficulties, any
more than I'd like having the U.S. Postal Service screening my paper
mail for the same purpose.   Why should UCB be held responsible for
anything I say in private electronic communication, or for providing me
with the resources to disseminate my opinions (distasteful as some people
are likely to find them) via Usenet?

We've got a WONDERFUL thing going with the current system, namely the fact that
it's not regulated by government bureaucrats.  Let's keep it that way!  If
you're sufficiently exasperated with the level of discourse here on the net,
you're free to leave, start one of your own, and regulate it however you see
fit.  My stubborn Libertarian streak compels me to say "Mind your own store,
bub, and leave the rest of us alone!"   Especially considering your own
rather mean-spirited behaviour in another newsgroup of late....or is that
your way of "testing" this issue?

-- Jim Lewis
   U.C. Berkeley