From: wcs@anchor.ho.att.com (bill.stewart@pleasantonca.ncr.com +1-510-484-6204)
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 94 15:14:35 PST
To: danisch@ira.uka.de
Subject: Re: Oh No! Nazis on the Nets
Message-ID: <9402102300.AA04909@anchor.ho.att.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> From: danisch@ira.uka.de (Hadmut Danisch)

From what Hadmut says, it appears that German law is as confused
as American law about whether freedom of the press means freedom 
of the press or not.

> you are not allowed to do it anonymous. Everything must contain
> an address of someone responsible. In bigger papers you have

There are sometimes laws about this in the US, but if I remember correctly
the courts say they are unconstitutional.  They do suppress freedom
of speech and press, because they impose restrictions on content,
and because they make it easy for the government to find and
harass writers who oppose it.

> an "impressum" in small papers and pamphlets you have
> a line like "responsible in the sense of press law: Joe Dalton"
> And of course you will get sued or accused if you write anything
> which violates law, but this depends on _what_ you are writing.

In the US, you can get sued for saying untrue things about
people, except public figures, but only the victim can sue.
There are not supposed to be other writings which violate law,
but even so they make and enforce laws against pornography,
and in the past even speaking out against government policy
has been made illegal (Schenck case in World War 1, writing
pamphlets against the draft before there was one.)

What kinds of things are illegal to write in Germany?

Grundsetz 
> Art. 5
> (1) Jeder hat das Recht, seine Meinung in Wort, Schrift und Bild frei
> zu du_ern und zu verbreiten und sich aus allgemein zugdnglichen
> Quellen ungehindert zu unterrichten. Die Pressefreiheit und die
> Freiheit der Berichterstattung durch Rundfunk und Film werden
> gewdhrleistet. Eine Zensur findet nicht statt.
> 
> (2) Diese Rechte finden ihre Schranken in den Vorschriften der
> allgemeinen Gesetze, den gesetzlichen Bestimmungen zum Schutze der
> Jugend und in dem Recht der persvnlichen Ehre.

I couldn't translate (2) - does this say they can make laws to protect
the young people from bad ideas and protect personal honor/reputation?

[From earlier mail ]

>  I don't know at the moment whether it is allowed to sell "Mein Kampf",
>  but what is the question: One says that in Germany nobody cares
>  about the right-wing, the other says that you can't buy such books.
>  What do you expect? Shall we care or not? We can't fight again
>  right-wing people and sell such books!

Of course you can fight against them without censorship - the weapon
to use is truth, said often and loudly.  If you use the violence
of censorship a against themyou are using their tools and you are
no better than them.  You also say, by censoring books, that the
common people are fools who can not tell the difference between
truth and lies.

>  I'm sure that american press freedom is not better than german ones.
>  Seen from Germany, american presidents elections look like a mixture
>  of a football game and a tv show. Is is possible that we have different
Seen from America, that's what they look like too :-)

>  oppinions about 'democracy' ? (I'm sure german elections don't look
>  better for americans...)
We usually don't see German elections in US news.  Sometimes stories
about the rise of the right wing or Greens, and sometimes the results
of the elections.

>  In Germany it is always surprising what american people don't
>  know about Germany. How many of you think that we wear 
>  trousers of leather, eat Sauerkraut and have women with
>  blond plaits and name "Gretchen" all the time, not without
>  a "Kuckucksuhr" at the wall?

When I was last there, I ate lots of Sauerkraut and beer,
and there were some blond women on the S-Bahn, but nobody in
Lederhosen.  People did bring dogs on the train...  :-)