Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!gatech!hubcap!ncrcae!ncr-sd!hp-sdd!hplabs!hplabsz!taylor
From: khayo@cs.ucla.edu (Erazm J. Behr)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: Amnesty International and Telecommunications
Message-ID: <899@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM>
Date: Sun, 18-Oct-87 05:17:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: hplabsz.899
Posted: Sun Oct 18 05:17:28 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 19-Oct-87 00:06:21 EDT
References: <Amnesty>
Sender: taylor@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM
Organization: University of California, Los Angeles, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 56
Approved: taylor@hplabs

John Bako writes:

> Is it really [not] in the network's best interest to carry into a host country
> news that may be considered seditious.

Are you joking? If calling for a release of people who are kept in jail
or psychiatric hospitals for years because they spoke their minds is
considered "seditious" then you may as well expect that the only purpose
of that country's participation in the networks is to spread their own
propaganda outside their borders. In that case if the sooner they shut
themselves off, the better.

> What is to stop a government, that violates its citizens civil rights, 
> from simply turning off the news feed.

Nothing really, except maybe some public opinion pressure... Am I
dreaming?

> My point is that Amnesty International should be be able to find a better way
> to distribute urgent news.  I understand the network with its international
> scope would seem the ideal solution.  But it is just that scope that may
> cause articles to show up in a country run by an unfriendly government with
> negative results for the net.

My point is that this very kind of thinking and self-censorship is one
of the things that sustain those regimes; if they feel threatened by our
postings and if one of them decides to pull a plug, we will all know
about it and that many more people will have a first-hand experience of
this nature (which provides a little more incentive to DO something
than just reading a digested capsule in Time Magazine). I believe that
in the long run we'll be doing the people of that country a much bigger
disservice by tailoring our postings so as not to offend Messrs Ortega,
Stoessner or Ceaucescu in any way. The worst enemy of real democracy and
the strongest ally of authoritarianism is a seemingly viable pretense of
freedom (hey, look, we even let our people read postings from the USA!!! 
<<only because there's nothing dangerous for us in them>>.)

> Wouldn't a mailing list be the best way to go with this????

Now you're being naive: do you think that UNIX is *that* secure? A
gov't which worries about "seditious" postings would definitely monitor
the flow of mail - the difference being that the recipients could read
public postings at least for some time, while the subscribers to a
mailing list would already be out of their jobs and possibly sitting
in a cooler.

I would strongly object to the (ab)use of the NET by a *political*
organization pursuing its own ends for someone else's money; however,
AI is not *political* per se (i.e. it represents the Helsinki Charter
signed by most of the countries) and not a particular political ideology
(i.e. it's just as likely to act in defense of a Communist jailed in
Peru as in that of a Cuban dissident - given similar circumstances and
reason for their imprisonment.) By the way, I'm not in any way
associated with AI - I just respect their impartiality very much.

                                   Eric