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From: brad@looking.UUCP
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Private networks and 1st amendments
Message-ID: <1151@looking.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 23-Nov-87 02:56:12 EST
Article-I.D.: looking.1151
Posted: Mon Nov 23 02:56:12 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 25-Nov-87 20:25:32 EST
Organization: Looking Glass Software, Waterloo Ont.
Lines: 27

This has been said before, but it seems to need saying again.  This is
a privately controlled network.  Bills of rights, such as the 1st amendment
to the US Constitution do not apply here.

I own a machine.  I let my employees and some friends read news on it.
Don't even think for one second that I don't have every right to revoke
that ability at any time for any reason.   I can't terminate employment
for any reason, but I and any other system adminstrator can control access
to our computers as we wish.

Both our charter of rights and the your constitution forbid religious
persecution, for example.  But I still have the right to stop somebody from
using my machine to post pro-Christian articles.  And other machine owners
have the right to forbid articles about "pot-smoking jews."

So don't bring constitutional rights into this.  The freedom to control your
own truly private property is paramount in this case, and shall not be
abridged.

Now don't get me wrong.  I'll fully defend anybody's right to say anything
loathesome on public streets, on their own machine or with their own press.
I even opposed the Zundel laws, which would allow Mr. Mading to be
prosecuted for his general derogatory remark about Jews.  But none of that
matters of truly private property, and that's what a restricted access computer
is.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473