CDR: Re: And you thought Nazi agitprop was controversial?

Kevin Elliott k-elliott at wiu.edu
Tue Sep 19 10:50:32 PDT 2000


At 11:59 -0400 9/19/00, Matt Elliott wrote:
>>would not affect my position one bit.  These people have the right
>>for their information to be put into the public forum.
>
>One small correction Kevin, they have the right to put their information
>into their own public forum.  I don't have to allow them to put their
>information in my newspaper or allow their bits to travel across sections
>of the Internet that I own.  I don't have to make it easy for them to
>spread their nonsense.

Oh yeah, now things get interesting.  The issue of allowing such 
things in your newspaper is a problem you have with your newspaper, 
not them.  If you don't like what your newspaper publishes complain 
to it, not to NAMBLA.  The ISP issue is similar.  I don't have a 
problem with an organization controlling the material it carries, BUT 
I have a serious problem with organizations-
A. Not making the fact they do such things VERY clear in their user 
agreement, etc.
OR
B. Changing said agreement depending on which way the wind blows.

Their is also a legal issue here that is worth mentioning.  An ISP 
deciding to censor/filter traffic based on content potentially opens 
that ISP to serious legal risk.  As long as an ISP acts as a simple 
bit shuffler their liability for user activity is tiny.  They enjoy 
the same status as the telephone company (that of a common carrier) 
and thus have no responsibility for the traffic they carry.  The 
moment the step over that line and begin to monitor said traffic they 
can no longer claim to be a common carrier.  I believe their was an 
interesting case several years ago where an ISP in the Eastern US was 
held liable for pornographic material stored on one of there news 
servers, specifically because they had taken action in the past to 
remove such material.

Regardless however, all such activities to restrict traffic ought to 
be done by contacting the individuals and/or organizations 
responsible (either carriers or originators), not by running to big 
momma government and whining about how such talk disturbs you.  Using 
the government and specifically the judiciary as a big cudgel to beat 
people who's opinion you disagree with into submission is morally 
reprehensible.  People who abuse government in such a way ought to be 
shunned with the same venom typically reserved for pedophiles and 
persons of similar ilk.
-- 

Kevin "The Cubbie" Elliott 
<mailto:kelliott at mac.com>                             ICQ#23758827
_______________________________________________________________________________
"As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both 
instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly 
unchanged.  And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware 
of change in the air--however slight--lest we become unwitting 
victims of the darkness."
-- Justice William O. Douglas






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