From: Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1996 08:37:13 +0800
To: pjb@ny.ubs.com
Subject: Re: We removed radikal 154 from xs4all :(
In-Reply-To: <199609251240.IAA14357@sherry.ny.ubs.com>
Message-ID: <199609251555.QAA00118@server.test.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



pjb@ny.ubs.com writes:
> Adam, you know the german government did not win this one, and i know that
> they did not win, 

Agreed.

> my point was, will they, and other governments take this as a win
> and be encourgaged to press their luck with someone else.

They are claiming a victory, and the net is claiming a victory.  The
net is correct, they are deluding themselves.

They might take what they think is a victory as an encouragement to
try the same thing on some other site based on another topic, I agree
with your synopsis.

I think more would be gained if they could be made to face up to their
loss.  If they tried to block all of the mirrors for instance, I think
this would be marvelous, for the obvious reason that it would backfire
on them heavily.

My point was therefore to suggest methods of trying to ensure that the
relevant people in german politics and the press could be made aware
of their loss.

I am wondering how someone in Germany could engineer the necessary
contacts.  By demonstrating to a journalist how it has not been
stopped.  Perhaps by writing to the politicians responsible for the
scare listing the number and jurisdictions of sites?  These are some
things that I think it might be fruitful for someone in Germany to
write to their polticians and journalists.

If one of the Germans who have posted to keep us up to date on this
topic could undertake to do this, I think they would be doing
something very useful for the cause of free speech.  For xs4all
management to write the same people a letter saying the same might
also be useful.

It needs some Germans to shout loudly on this.  Perhaps there are some
pressure groups who are pro-censorship who could be `fed' this
information, and encouraged to pressure the German politicians, to
also inadvertently help out the cause of free speech.

I'm trying to work up some _action_ here, any takers, German cpunks?

Adam