At 08:37 AM 11/16/96 -0800, Sandy Sandfort <sandfort@crl.com> wrote: [snip]
I have a suggestion for "Aga" and others who believe this sort of nonsense. Please do us all a favor and try to sue John. I'm sure that among all jack-leg and wannabe lawyers on this list that they can come up with a viable cause of action. And John has deep pockets; you could (literally) make out like bandits AND rescue "freedom of speech" on privately maintained mailing lists.
Such a case would obviously fail. John has the right to ban anyone he wants from a list that he is hosting. I do question, though, whether or not it was the best way to handle the situation. As I have argued, the availability of end-user filtering made banning Dimitri from the list unnecessary, IMHO. And the list owner giving people the boot sure doesn't fit with the picture I have had of what cypherpunks was about. YMMV. I think that John is doing a lot of great things for crypto (his participation in the Bernstein case, S/WAN, etc.) and I agree with at least 90% of the things I see him doing. I think he made the wrong call with Dimitri, though.
You could be heroes (or look ten times as foolish as you already do).
Actually, if John was trying to cut down on the noise by banning the Kook, I think it's backfired. It seems like there is even more irrational chatter now... Rich -- Rich Burroughs richieb@teleport.com http://www.teleport.com/~richieb/