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From: bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: news.admin,misc.headlines,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Usenet access: this "fascism" nonsense
Message-ID: <20475@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: 9 Mar 88 00:30:27 GMT
References: <1288@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu>
Distribution: na
Organization: Boston U. Comp. Sci.
Lines: 27
In-reply-to: max@trinity.uucp's message of 7 Mar 88 06:23:05 GMT


>What is going on here?  Are these authors competent adults?  The Usenet
>site in question is a private operation under the control of local
>administration. How could it possibly be anyone's business but the local 
>administrators' what is the site's policy for granting the privilege of
>a computer account or the further privilege of posting to Usenet? 
>Have computer hackers so lost touch with reality that, not content to
>stipulate Usenet access as a job precondition (!), they now regard it
>as a "right," and its denial as "censorship" or as impairment of "free 
>speech"?  
>M. Hauser, incredulous

It seems well within the scope of reason that even a private
organization should use some consistent and fair rules for allowing or
denying access to their facilities. If a person who normally has
access to such facilities is singled out from their peers and denied
that merely because of a disagreement in political focus I think
that's grounds for complaint. What level of complaint is another
issue, I don't think anyone was talking legal complaint (although it's
plausible), more likely just some appeal to a sense of fair play
somewhere up the line.

The issue really is fair treatment when compared with peers more than
fundamental rights (although, as I said, one can enter that realm
fairly easily if the rule used is based on mere political scope.)

	-Barry Shein, Boston University