-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In <v0310280bb092291ceb73@[207.167.93.63]>, on 11/14/97 at 09:18 AM, Tim May <tcmay@got.net> said:
At 11:39 AM -0700 11/13/97, Paul Bradley wrote:
Uk News:
Judge David Selwood today sentenced 3 writers for the magazine "Green Anarchist" to 3 years imprisonment each for their articles in the magazine which he concluded incited others to break the law. The magazine contained diaries for the previous months animal rights activism events and contained articles generally favourable to the cause of animal liberation.
Another judge who has richly earned the death penalty.
This stifling of free speech, by both state and corporate interests, is a trend spreadingl like wildfire in the Western world.
Libel, slander, defamation, damage, incitement, sedition, and obscenity cases are squelching free speech. Publishers are held liable for the words of others, and even distributors are held liable.
Even here on Cypherpunks we see toadies like Bob Hettinga fretting that our words are going too far, that we must learn to police ourselves or the police will be forced to do so.
(Hey, if the Paladin case withstands Supreme Court scrutiny and his upheld, look for the Cypherpunks list node distributors to face criminal charges.)
If anyone here needs a real world example of how fear and intimidation have a stifling effect on free speech all one has to do is look at the abandoned British subjects in Hong Kong (truly a dark day in this history of UK). While China has done nothing yet to clamp down on speech in Hong Kong self censorship is rampet their for fear of what they "might" do. - -- - --------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0 Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html - --------------------------------------------------------------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a Charset: cp850 Comment: Registered_User_E-Secure_v1.1b1_ES000000 iQCVAwUBNG8HU49Co1n+aLhhAQGj+QP7BpSRYJh313QcpR8lsPjPlFX6vyu6Kqo7 lcJkY7uCjt1XILNmGYNV5PLCRDqJHfOLU864Nu4BVGOdMv2zuTllExM6tMbZQwo7 IEnFgRExL2HUv36GecjmU3Rdr0x8fJ/IlfAMA9gkqVwRwzVMzj62AWHUodXnrAL7 5lj5j2QZc3s= =NT2F -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----