From: snow <snow@smoke.suba.com>
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 1996 22:03:32 -0800 (PST)
To: dave@kachina.jetcafe.org (Dave Hayes)
Subject: Re: [REBUTTAL] Censorship on cypherpunks?, from The Netly News
In-Reply-To: <199611131951.LAA16239@kachina.jetcafe.org>
Message-ID: <199611150619.AAA01605@smoke.suba.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> [This is a rebuttal to a misguided news article.]
> > Cypher-Censored
> > By Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com)
> Thank you for leaving your email address. It makes this easier.
> You people (read: the unaware and hypnotized masses, which includes
> reporters who's desire for attention and political safety holds them
> in line with the consensual illusion) keep missing the real issue, and
> substituting issues which only hold themselves in place.

     So you are explaining your problems in advance. Good, it tells 
thoughtful readers to take you with a grain of salt.  

> [Those of you who know, please excuse the mediaistic terms used in
> this rebuttal. One must use the symbols one is given to communicate
> at the level of understanding of those who use them.]

    Ok, I will try to keep from using too long words so you can understand
me. 

> In person-to-person interaction, one's only real defense against what
> one decides to call "unwanted" is to remove oneself from the arena of
> interaction. It may not be possible to ignore or run away from certain
> sources of input. 

     You forget "shutting down" the source of input. Turning off the 
radio, TV etc, or turning off the person speaking. 

> Logically, we must conclude that those who frequently and repeatedly
> cry for the censorship or removal of any source of input from
> cyberspace are either:
> 
> 	-quite clueless about the tools at their disposal
> 	-ideologically or personally opposed to the source of input
> or	-in need of large amounts of attention from others

    No problems with that. 

> >    The list is on Gilmore's machine and he can do what he wants with
> >    it; he can moderate the postings, he can censor material, he can
> >    shut the whole thing down. By kicking off an offending user, a
> >    list owner merely exercises his property right. There's no
> >    government involvement, so the First Amendment doesn't apply. And
> >    the deleted, disgruntled user is free to start his own mailing
> >    list with different rules.
> 
> Notice how, once the opposition is admitted to, the rationalization
> begins. Suddenly this is not a matter of censorship, but of ownership.
> Just as suddenly, the classic anti-free-speech arguments of "if you
> don't like it, start yer own" begin to surface. (Anyone ever notice
> how this resembles the "love it or leave it" mentality of certain
> American patriotic organizations?)

     It still isn't censorship. Censorship, at least in my dictionary, 
refers to censor, which uses the word "Official" several times. Mr. 
Gilmore is not an "Official" in a government sense, he maybe in the EFF
sense, but this is not an "Official" EFF organ, so that doesn't count. 

     He is the OWNER of this list, and the machine it runs on. If he chooses
(which he didn't) to keep someone from using the list, it is his right.

> What would ideological opposition be without the attempt at analogy? 
> Here we witness another example:
> 
> >        But then the question is whether Gilmore should have exercised
> >    that right, especially in such an open forum. Again, I think Gilmore's
> >    actions were justified. Consider inviting someone into your home or
> >    private club. If your guest is a boor, you might ask him to leave. If
> >    your guest is an slobbish drunk of a boor, you have a responsibility
> >    to require him to leave before he ruins the evening of others.
> 
> Notice that the net is compared to a home or private club. Actually

     WRONG. the "net' wasn't compared to either a home or a private club,
THIS LIST WAS. No one has the right to kick anyone off public streets, the
police _do_, but I seriously doubt that they could arrest you for refusing.
Gilmore didn't "Ban" Vulis from "The Net" (in fact he didn't even ban him 
from the list, he just removed him from the distribution list), he didn't
even try.

     He also didn't prevent Vulis from posting, tho' he could have. 

> the net is neither, however that would not serve the purposes of this
> analogy, so this fact is convienently forgotton. 
> The net is a wonderful place. Any ideology, no matter who disagrees or
> agrees with it, can be expressed and discussed here...assuming those
> who oppose this ideology do not have their way with the source of
> expression. There is a more refined and deeper truth to be found
> in the very existence of the set of all human ideologies, which is
> just beginning to show itself to some netizens. Unfortunately, this
> truth can be ruined when people equate some notion of value to 
> sources which ignore all but a tiny subset of the set of all ideologies:

     Again I repeat myself:

    Vulis was not "removed" in any way, shape, or form from "the net", all
Gilmore did was "Turn his back" on Vulis, saying in effect "Your bullshit
isn't wanted here". 

    He didn't tell Vulis to keep his opnion to himself, no one on this list 
did. He, and others here were asking Vulis to stop his repeated personel 
attacks on other list members, some were asking him to stop his vitrolic 
rants on racial and ethnic groups as well, which were _way_ off topic.  

> >        Eugene Volokh, a law professor at UCLA, runs a number of mailing
> >    lists and has kicked people off to maintain better editorial control.
> >    Volokh says that the most valuable publications are those that
> >    exercise the highest degree of editorial control.

> Value to whom and for what? If the editorial control produces one
> small element of the set of all ideologies, then this is only of value
> to the people who support this ideology. Given that the set of 

     You know, from your position I'd say you have a very clear view of 
your colon. 

     "Editorial Control" means that someone decides who get's published and
who doesn't. From your opposition to it, I guess you think that a magazine
dedicated to poetry should print all poems submitted, or as many, selected
in some sort of non-judgemental order, as they can fit. Or that a magazine
should print any writings submitted to it. 

     I run 4 mailing lists, one is personal, one is in the process of coming
online, and 2 are up and running. One of these has a rule: No Politics allowed.
I guess I am a pathetic little censorous worm huh? Nope. That rule was put 
there for a very good reason, and I am that reason. I love to talk politics,
but that is the WRONG FORUM for it. 

    Just like this is the wrong forum for Vulis to spew his shit. 

> people who support an issue is smaller than the set of people
> who support and oppose an issue, would the value not increase
> by allowing both sides of an issue equal speaking time? 

    Yes, and the cypherpunks list DOES THAT. Vulis wasn't kicked off for 
opposing Crypto, or the spread of Crypto, he was kicked off for littering,
and for refusing to stop littering. Actually he was kicked off for daring 
Gilmore to make him stop littering.  

> >        For his part, Gilmore calls removing the Russian mathematician "an
> >    act of leadership." He says: "It said we've all been putting up with
> >    this guy and it's time to stop. You're not welcome here... It seemed
> >    to me that a lot of the posts on cypherpunks were missing the mark.
> >    They seemed to have an idea that their ability to speak through my
> >    machine was guaranteed by the Constitution."
> 
> It is sad to note that this is the leader of one of America's
> forerunning organizations of freedom who says these words. For all
> *his* ideology of free speech, this statement reveals the hypocrasy he
> lives with for all to see. The true litmus test of free speech is to
> encounter speech that you *want* to censor.

     Not really, he was simply refusing to let Vulis share his (Gilmore's)
podium. 

> Mr. Gilmore, and other like minded parties, might want to consider
> what would happen if one parent company owned *all* communications
> media. Would they they be so supportive of the ideology of ownership
> and communciation they espouse?

     How would this happen? Setting up a press is fairly easy, at least 
a small hand operated press. Start your own magazine, start your own
mailing list. 

     That is what freedom is, the ability to _do it yourself_ not the 
requirement that others do it for you, or allow you to use what they 
have already built. 

Petro, Christopher C.
petro@suba.com <prefered for any non-list stuff>
snow@smoke.suba.com