From: jf_avon@citenet.net (Jean-Francois Avon (JFA Technologies, QC, Canada))
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 13:46:35 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: free speach and the government
Message-ID: <9602040531.AA20987@cti02.citenet.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


dlv@bwalk.dm.com (Dr. Dimitri Vulis) writes:

>Eric Murray <ericm@lne.com> writes:
>> Stephan Mohr writes:

>I believe that any exception to unlimited free speech, be it libel, or
>copyright violation, or child pornography, or Nazi propaganda, or Chinese
>dissident materials, just isn't compatible with the cpunk agenda. No censorship
>is acceptable. That's an absolute.

     I agree with that.  Principles are important.  I agree that Sarin reciepes might
be dangerous.  I also agree that such information should not be broadcasted.  
But I think that this control should be effected by the individual poster, out of 
benevolence for Man, not enforced at the point of a gun by a govt that pretends 
that we are to dumb to act by ourselves.  The nature of the Internet is 
unique in the history of mankind.  We must adapt, *as individuals* not as "a society".

The collectivity is a statistical concept that have no existence, apart in the 
pretensions of the collectivists do-gooders.



>There's a widespread misconception that most journalists support freedom of
>speech for non-journalists. I deal with journalists occasionally, and my
>impression is that the attitude of some of them can be summarized as follows:
>"I'm an important guy because I can say something that hundreds of thousands of
>people will see/read; and I can libel another person and s/he won't be able to
>respond". People with this attitude are very threatened by the Internet. I'm
>not saying that all journalists are this way; I'm just pointing out that it's
>foolish to assume that just because a person works in the media, s/he's in
>favor of free speech, especially unlimited free speech.

I think it is safe to say, especially regarding coverage of the Internet by
popular medias, that even if there are some journalists that still have integrity,
most of their bosses don't.


>From the technology point of view, there's no difference between helping
>Chinese dissidents circumvent their government's restrictions on the net,
>and helping neo-Nazis in Germany and helping child pornographers in the
>U.S. No one can determine which of the countless bits of information that
>travel over the Internet every second are false, or harmful, or subversive,
>or otherwise not worthy of transnmission.

Well,  here I don't completely agree.  *you* can determine what is worth and 
what is not.
But again, I suppose that if you have rationnal arguments, you will be able
to convince other rationnal individuals.  I am not in favor of broadcasting 
neo-nazi scum all over because I think that their essence is the same as the one
underlying the censorship movement.  They share the same vision of man, only the
flavor change slightly.  OTOH, somebody presenting facts pertaining to nazism and
what happened to the jews (confirming or infirming) are acceptable, as long as 
they are *facts*.  But there are plenty of causes that seems worthwhile
to defends, so why pick up the mosts dubious?


Ciao

JFA