-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Declan McCullagh wrote:

The mere fact that a privately-owned discussion group becomes popular does not mean that it becomes a public forum.

This is true. On the other hand, privately-owned public forums do exist. Chartered FreeNets, for example, and the facilities of private Universities like Carnegie Mellon. There may be a fine line somewhere, but I don't believe we need to draw it, because what is at issue here is the character of the moderator, not the legality of his action. We're just spinning wheels here talking in the abstract. I actually agree with Vulis's reasoning -- you need to look at the facts of the case in order to determine whether an act of censorship, or heckler control, or editing, or whatever, was proper. But apply that reasoning to Vulis's case, and you conclude that he's completely in the wrong, by any standard.

Say I start a poetry mailing list to discuss Blake's writings. I have three people on it. One becomes obnoxious and emailbombs the list since he disagrees with my interpretation of "A Memorable Fancy." Do I have the right to kick him off?

Clearly. And if your statement of the facts is correct, then you would be right in exercising your right. If there is more to the story, though, or if your story is wrong... well, then you still have the right to be a jerk, but you are, nonetheless, a jerk. In the cypherpunks case, though, the only jerk here is Vulis. It is worthless and IMO dangerous to prove that by arguing from first principles. The "Freedom Knight" kooks are correct in pointing out that every "philosophical" argument you've made can be and has been misused. Try a little empirical evidence; there is plenty to go around. "Truth is far more fragile than fiction... reason alone cannot protect it." Proof is syntactic; truth is semantic.

How is this different from a private poetry reading in my home?

It differs in one small but important way: it all happens in the digital domain, so it can all be archived in its entirety. It is more difficult to lie about what happens online (but not impossible, as Vulis and company demonstrate). In an online forum, you have access to *all* the empirical evidence. There's no reason to rely on pure reason. So enough already with the hypothetical cases. You've got a specific case of your own that, oddly, you still haven't mentioned. - -rich -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQBVAwUBMovDK5NcNyVVy0jxAQGjIAH8DTYuUzkwt7+9i4RNCPkspNBEj7MBoH0Z CluHlmULFdamQ1HPDAXRct/DoqPzsXR+IzlMOr0y4bPFtMq1y+kEZw== =TA0F -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----