Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Projecting winners in elections
Message-ID: <1156@looking.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 24-Nov-87 11:17:13 EST
Article-I.D.: looking.1156
Posted: Tue Nov 24 11:17:13 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 27-Nov-87 04:44:39 EST
References: <899@cod.NOSC.MIL> <716@ers.UUCP> <1891@chinet.UUCP>
Reply-To: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 38
Keywords: First Amendment, Censorship

In article <1891@chinet.UUCP> ignatz@chinet.UUCP (Dave Ihnat) writes:
>
>In article <716@ers.UUCP>, nmm@ers.UUCP (Neil McCulloch) writes:
>>	In Canada there is an outright ban on any polls being published. 
>
>Well, maybe...but there's a real problem any time you decide to allow
>such suspension.  For now, it's elections; but it also includes,
>since the precedent has been set, the possibility of other issues also
>permitting suspension of a free press.  For that matter, it seems to
>me that the only country in the world that doesn't have an official
>censorship mechanism is the US, isn't it?  I would suspect that the
>inviolability of the First Amendment is what's prevented that.
>			Dave Ihnat
>			ihnp4!homebru!ignatz || ihnp4!chinet!ignatz
>			(w) (312) 882-4673

I don't think this is so much censorship of the press as a declaration that
certain information is confidential.  The returning office has every right
to pass a regulation saying that all poll results are confidential to those
whose polls have already closed.

And if ticket scalping laws are any precedent, you can also pass laws that
forbid certain activities within X distance of some special public event.
We already have laws that prohibit any political advertising within sight
of a polling station on election day.  Do you not have similar rules?

Of course, our laws go further than that, and that's probably bad.  But I
think you could design laws to prevent this activity without putting a gag
on the press.

Not that gag laws aren't uncommon now, both in the US and Canada.  Judges
make them regularly, and trial details of all kinds (such as the names of
juvenile offenders) are not available for publication.  Anything to do with
national security can't be published either.

If you're worried about the thin edge of the wedge, it's in the door already.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473