Steganography, My Ass: The Dangers of Private and Self-Censorship in Wartime

[Jim Choate]

On Wed, 12 Dec 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote:

> * Is it appropriate to use the powerful word "censorship" to describe
> what happened when the National Review dropped Ann Coulter?

No, she was using THEIR property and services.

> Review has an implicit contract with their writers that says something
> like
> our-publication-has-a-distinct-point-of-view-and-we-don't-want-to-run-
> stuff-far-outside-of-it. In the absence of evidence to the contrary,
> it's reasonable to assume that she understood this implicit agreement
> when she signed up.

I hope you mean explicit, otherwise you ain't got a leg to stand on -
zero 'meeting of minds'.

> this dispute weakens the term for when it's really needed -- to
> describe government action that puts people in prison cells.

Censorship is not strictly limited to government...

Censor -

Official who examines anything to be read, heard, or viewed, in order to
suppress some objectionable feature on moral, political, or military
grounds.

Note it does NOT require government membership to be an official.

> * Of course it's disturbing when government officials tell Americans
> to self-censor. 

Everybody self-sensors, all day, every day. Nothing wrong with it since
the individual is the ONLY agent with the authority to decide
applicability or acceptability.


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