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From: rick@puff.wisc.edu (Rick Wayne)
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.sysadmin
Subject: Re: Defending Eric Mading
Message-ID: <1290@puff.wisc.edu>
Date: Sat, 21-Nov-87 12:15:16 EST
Article-I.D.: puff.1290
Posted: Sat Nov 21 12:15:16 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 27-Nov-87 21:46:35 EST
References: <1043@pbhyd.UUCP> <25092COK@PSUVMA> <6851@ut-ngp.UUCP> <7439@eddie.MIT.EDU>
Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept
Lines: 23
Summary: want the word from the dreaded censoring sysadmin himself?
Xref: mnetor news.admin:1431 news.sysadmin:495


like everyone here at uw, eric signed the account agreement to receive
access to puff.  his account is alive and well.

eric agreed not to use netnews any more.

if you will study the history of the First Amendment, you'll find cases 
establishing that a news channel may refuse to publish anything it wants to 
(the Fairness Doctrine is applicable only to the "scarce" publicly owned 
electromagnetic spectrum).  if eric or anyone else wishes to set up a
computer network to say whatever they please, nobody may stop him/them.  
an existing network can refuse to publish.  if anyone is interested in the
issue, i'll look up the cases.

as a parenthetical note, i never got any mail from outside the UW system
on issues like this till the mading storm broke; now i've got a bucketful.
tells you something about how far this one went on the spectrum of 
offensiveness.

the above posting is my personal view--i'll stand by the facts, but this is
not the University talking.

rick