Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-ncis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!nosc!ucsd!orion.cf.uci.edu!oberon!neuro.usc.edu!annala
From: annala@neuro.usc.edu (A J Annala)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Freedom ????
Message-ID: <14467@oberon.USC.EDU>
Date: 6 Jan 89 02:33:24 GMT
References: <2796.23E8472C@mailcom.FIDONET.ORG> <2288@eos.UUCP>
Sender: news@oberon.USC.EDU
Reply-To: annala@neuro.usc.edu (A J Annala)
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Lines: 68

In article <2288@eos.UUCP> chan@ames.arc.nasa.gov writes:
>Mr. Almoni,
>I'm currently re-checking the local policy on usenet postings from here.
>I appreciate your warning and I also appreciate the trouble you took to
>post it.  I fully comprehend what you're saying.  I'm against waste and 
>if my message constituted waste, I take full responsibility personally 
>and also apologise to all taxpayers (including myself) for the waste.  I
>do not, however, apologise for message content.  In addition, if you are 
>trying to threaten me, perhaps we should meet and discuss the matter.
>
>In partial answer to John De Armond, I'm not a government employee, but
>I don't want to do or say anything that would lead to problems.  Mr.
>Almoni's perspective is correct in that he is trying to save taxpayer's
>money.  Considering the trouble he took to post, perhaps he is bitter
>that his access was cut.  I would have no respect if he simply disagreed
>though.
>
>Until I get an official answer, I'm cutting my tounge out.
>
>Cheers.
I am not certain what the policy is on reading and/or posting to usenet
from government sites.  But I am certain that many people at government
sites participate actively in usenet.  Indeed, if it were not for a very
deliberate decision to make network news available at your local site, I
doubt very much that you would be able to use this network facility.  

For may part, I work for a nonprofit university doing significant work
for DoD/NSF/NIH and the like.  I have significantly benefited from my
postings to usenet and the resulting interaction with the user community.
For example:

    o  In response to my request for information on where to obtain
       an ultrasonic detector (VLF receiver) I was pur in contact 
       with QMC instruments in England ... and saved my department
       over $1500 in purchase of newer model equipment to meet the
       needs of one of our princpal investigators.

    o  In response to my request for public domain general purpose 
       image processing software I received three large boxes of
       documentation and over 72 megabytes of source code for two
       major government support image processing projects.

    o  As a consequence of informational postings to the network
       from many other people we have been able to retrieve many
       labor saving software tools from other ftp nodes ... these
       packages have saved us untold hours of program development
       time and greatly improved the quality of the products we
       have developed for internal use ... as well as for the use
       of our government contract sponsors.

    o  I have also contributed algorithms and techniques to people
       who requested information within my areas of expertise.

So, the long and the short of this note is that access to usenet is
not a waste of taxpayer money ... instead, access to usenet is a way
to provide dramatic cross fertilization between government projects
... a way of sharing both purchasing and technical information  as
well as a way to save the government money by reducing duplication
of effort and making contract supported labor more efficient.

I am a firm believer in the value of usenet - and I believe it would
be most unfortunate if some penny wise but pound foolish person in a
government office were to prohibit their people from posting to the
network.  Indeed, the very availability of usenet via the government
sponsored INTERNET is an indication of the high level support usenet
must have within the government.

AJ Annala, USC Neuroscience Program