free speach and the government
Well, I feel that I agree with the people on the right of free speech for i.e. the neo-nazi stuff or other political, ideological and/or religious ideas. But there is still something that leaves me uneasy: imagine there would be a way to easily make a powerful poison, easily applicated to your town's water-reservoir, or a very easy way to build some strong explosive device. etc. Actually, I think that stuff like this does exist already. But the idea that one day I just put 'easy made deadly poison for millions' into my webcrawler and whoop there it is on my screen or on the screen of any other fool, doesn't sound to right to me. I would like things like this to be better put aside and locked up. Well, maybe my imagination isn't strong enough to make my point. But do you fighter for free speech, in principle, think that nothing, really nothing, shouldn't be prevented of being published? And by being published, I mean published in the net, not at loompanics (who knows loompanics?). I know, of course, that by accepting that there is something that shouldn't be available on the net, we would need something to decide what and how to ban. So I wonder what would be a more 'net'-like way of handling this type of thing and how to prevent that some 'strong-armed' governments take the net over. I do not see tokay's governments being prepared for the net (at least not the German one). But I see them trying to put the 'old' laws onto the net. Not because they are mean, but because they don't know any better. So, I think it would be nice to have something to offer to them. I do not think though that they will accept the totally right of free speech (yet). There is something that is closely related to the right of free speech but not the same and that is the right of privacy. And I think there is a big danger of the issue of free (public) speech been taken over to the right of privacy. Governments may, by arguing to control the public net, start to prohibit the use of strong cryptography. It seems important to me to separate this two issues. Maybe it will be necessary to agree to some kind of (hopefully self organized) control of the public net. But it is totally unacceptable to allow whatever organization to look into someone's private life. Comments and hints to information on these topics very much welcome Stephan
Stephan Mohr writes:
Well, I feel that I agree with the people on the right of free speech for i.e. the neo-nazi stuff or other political, ideological and/or religious ideas. But there is still something that leaves me uneasy: imagine there would be a way to easily make a powerful poison, easily applicated to your town's water-reservoir, or a very easy way to build some strong explosive device. etc. Actually, I think that stuff like this does exist already.
But the idea that one day I just put 'easy made deadly poison for millions' into my webcrawler and whoop there it is on my screen or on the screen of any other fool, doesn't sound to right to me. I would like things like this to be better put aside and locked up.
You can't put the genie back into the bottle. Once something is invented or described, the knowledge is out there. Someone who wants to use that knowledge for "wrong" purposes can find it. Maybe a lot of people around the world could agree that the knowledge to make something really dangerous (say Sarin nerve gas) should be suppressed. But where do we draw the line? If we, or rather our government acting obstensibly in our interest, decides to supress the information on how to make Sarin, not too many people will complain. But the tendency of governments is to regulate and restrict and tax more. What happens when governments suppress knowledge on how to make gunpowder? Or printing presses? Or encryption? Many people argue (rightly IHMO) that once started on the slippery slope of suppressing knowledge there's no stopping until we're all under the boot heel of the police state. [..]
I know, of course, that by accepting that there is something that shouldn't be available on the net, we would need something to decide what and how to ban. So I wonder what would be a more 'net'-like way of handling this type of thing and how to prevent that some 'strong-armed' governments take the net over.
So far the "net-like" way to deal with the problem is to not supress information at all, and instead assume that people are intelligent enough to make their own choices on what to do with "dangerous" information.
I do not see tokay's governments being prepared for the net (at least not the German one). But I see them trying to put the 'old' laws onto the net. Not because they are mean, but because they don't know any better. So, I think it would be nice to have something to offer to them. I do not think though that they will accept the totally right of free speech (yet).
No government will accept net-speech that's any freer than any other speech in that country. In the US the media is by and large controlled by huge media conglomerates with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo and delivering up their audience to their advertisers in tidy packages. The government is along for the ride, being part and parcel of the same system. They won't rest until net-speech is by and large controlled by huge media conglomerates all busy delivering up the net-public to advertisers in tidy packages... I'm not saying that there's a Black Heliocopters type conspiracy, or any other for that matter. There doesn't have to be, there are huge political forces moving things this way. So there might as well be a conspiracy, as the end effect on us is the same. I think that any compromise with government censorship is a bad idea. All we'd do is give them a little more while on the way towards the inevitable. If we don't give them all the censorship power they want they'd just take it anyhow. Better to hold out as well as we can while we can. -- Eric Murray ericm@lne.com ericm@motorcycle.com http://www.lne.com/ericm Fuck Exon and the Communications "Decency" Act! US off the Internet now! PGP keyid:E03F65E5 fingerprint:50 B0 A2 4C 7D 86 FC 03 92 E8 AC E6 7E 27 29 AF
Eric Murray <ericm@lne.com> writes:
Stephan Mohr writes:
Well, I feel that I agree with the people on the right of free speech for i.e. the neo-nazi stuff or other political, ideological and/or religious ideas. But there is still something that leaves me uneasy: imagine there would be a way to easily make a powerful poison, easily applicated to your town's water-reservoir, or a very easy way to build some strong explosive device. etc. Actually, I think that stuff like this does exist already.
But the idea that one day I just put 'easy made deadly poison for millions' into my webcrawler and whoop there it is on my screen or on the screen of a other fool, doesn't sound to right to me. I would like things like this to be better put aside and locked up.
You can't put the genie back into the bottle. Once something is invented or described, the knowledge is out there. Someone who wants to use that knowledge for "wrong" purposes can find it.
Either some information is being suppressed, or no information whatsoever is being suppressed. Whether it's the knowledge how to made strong crypto, or how to make the A-bomb, or now to make Sarin, or _Mein Kampf_, or uuencoded pictures of naked kids, really doesn't matter. E.g., many people perceive the dissemination of Nazi teachings to be as dangerous as the dissemination of a Sarin recipe. One can't be "a little big pregnant". I believe that any exception to unlimited free speech, be it libel, or copyright violation, or child pornography, or Nazi propaganda, or Chinese dissident materials, just isn't compatible with the cpunk agenda. No censorship is acceptable. That's an absolute. [...]
In the US the media is by and large controlled by huge media conglomerates with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo and delivering up their audience to their advertisers in tidy packages.
The government is along for the ride, being part and parcel of the same system. They won't rest until net-speech is by and large controlled by huge media conglomerates all busy delivering up the net-public to advertisers in tidy packages... I'm not saying that there's a Black Heliocopters type conspiracy, or any other for that matter. There doesn't have to be, there are huge political forces moving things this way. So there might as well be a conspiracy, as the end effect on us is the same.
There's a widespread misconception that most journalists support freedom of speech for non-journalists. I deal with journalists occasionally, and my impression is that the attitude of some of them can be summarized as follows: "I'm an important guy because I can say something that hundreds of thousands of people will see/read; and I can libel another person and s/he won't be able to respond". People with this attitude are very threatened by the Internet. I'm not saying that all journalists are this way; I'm just pointing out that it's foolish to assume that just because a person works in the media, s/he's in favor of free speech, especially unlimited free speech.
I think that any compromise with government censorship is a bad idea. All we'd do is give them a little more while on the way towards the inevitable. If we don't give them all the censorship power they want they'd just take it anyhow. Better to hold out as well as we can while we can.
From the technology point of view, there's no difference between helping Chinese dissidents circumvent their government's restrictions on the net, and helping neo-Nazis in Germany and helping child pornographers in the U.S. No one can determine which of the countless bits of information that travel over the Internet every second are false, or harmful, or subversive, or otherwise not worthy of transnmission.
--- Dr. Dimitri Vulis Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps
Stephan Mohr writes:
Well, maybe my imagination isn't strong enough to make my point. But do you fighter for free speech, in principle, think that nothing, really nothing, shouldn't be prevented of being published? And by being published, I mean published in the net, not at loompanics (who knows loompanics?).
Well, if it's OK to publish via Loompanics I don't see what your point is. Anybody psychotic enough to poison a municipal water supply won't be deterred by being denied on-line access to information. Remember that far, far more people walk in and out of bookstores and libraries every day than log into a computer connected to the Internet. ______c_____________________________________________________________________ Mike M Nally * Tiv^H^H^H IBM * Austin TX * I want more, I want more, m5@tivoli.com * m101@io.com * I want more, I want more ... <URL:http://www.io.com/~m101> *_______________________________
participants (4)
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dlv＠bwalk.dm.com -
Eric Murray -
m5＠dev.tivoli.com -
Stephan Mohr