From: Gary Howland <gary@kampai.euronet.nl>
Date: Sun, 31 Dec 1995 03:18:16 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Massey, CEO of Compuserve, on Internet
Message-ID: <199512301850.NAA17165@bb.hks.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Peter D. Junger wrote:
> 
> One should also notice that Bavaria is only one state in the German
> Federal Republic; this case is more like Texas investigating
> Compuserve than the United States federal government investigating
> Compuserve.  Bavaria is the stronghold of what can properly be called
> the (Catholic) Religious Right in Germany.  It should also be noticed
> that in general German publications and television seem to be less
> constrained in publishing materials that in the United States would be
> called ``indecent'' by some than are United States publications and
> broadcasters.
> 

In some areas they may be a tad more liberal, but in general they
are not.  They do indeed have laws preventing freedom of speech
(especially with regard to right wing politics, the holocaust etc.)
Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that all German ISPs
do not carry various political/controversial newsgroups such as alt.revisionism due to legal reasons.

A more serious problem for those of us in EU countries is that the German government have influence on other EU states - only a week or
two ago they tried to push through European wide legislation
restricting freedom of speech.


Gary
- --
"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and
fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education,
the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."
	-- US Supreme Court Justive Louis Brandeis
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