On Sat, 3 Feb 1996, James A. Donald wrote:

At 07:34 PM 2/2/96 -0500, Declan B. McCullagh wrote:

...

America Online spokesman Ingo Reese in Hamburg said his company also was happy to work with the prosecutors. The company is ``totally opposed'' to illegal propaganda, he said,

They target the gutless, in order to create precedents without having to go to court.

You will recall that AOL also shopped its customers to the feds over child pornography.

Didn't they have a court order? Sure they could have resisted, but they didn't bend quite so far over backwards that they were really bending over forwards. This is an exapmple of the kind of defeatist attitude that I think is counterproductive. Instead, say: "With all the press attention being paid to censorship issues right now, with the ridiculously Unconstitutional so-called Communications Decency Act and so on, even America 'Online' is not likely to be so stupid and spineless as to buckle under now. Ferchrissakes, the guy who runs webcom.com is the grandson of a Holocaust victim; he deserves everyone's undying respect for his commitment to the freedoms of someone he so despises, and is simply not going to lose business because of this stand. We won't let it happen." -rich