From: Jim Choate <ravage@EINSTEIN.ssz.com>
Date: Sat, 9 Nov 1996 12:13:41 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: FW: Dr. Vulis (ad nauseum) (fwd)
Message-ID: <199611092017.OAA01197@einstein>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text



Forwarded message:

> Date: Thu, 07 Nov 1996 17:12:47 -0500
> From: camcc@abraxis.com (Alec)

> This is not a they; this is an individual with (and within) his own rights.

Who or how many own the (digital) press is irrelevant.

> Nonsense, no policy has been stated. The owner determined that the good Dr.
> had been disruptive and had become a detriment to the owner's list (and
> possibly sanity).

Exactly! With no policy and the wide advertising of this list as a open
forum for the discussion of crypto and speech related issues such action by
the list operator constitute censorship (ie editorial control) and make the
operator legaly responsible for the actions of those messages which LEAVE
his machine. No contract means no contract. It applies to all parties
involved.

> PLEASE, let's not drag poor Tim into this. Hasn't he suffered enough?!
> This does not follow even from the tortured logic above.

Nobody ever suffers enough.

> "Implies the right"??  Rights either exist or do not exist (endowed by their
> Creator); they are not be implied.

I suggest you read the 9th Amendment again then. You obvously didn't get the
point the other time(s).

> The content of speech is certainly not irrelevant. Disruptive speech and
> behavior have never been protected.

Vulis's speech was not distruptive. It did not interfere with anyone else
being able to submit or filter submissions. His speech was outside the norm
but posed no threat to the operation of the cpunks mailing list.

> It says CONGRESS! We're not discussing an action by the federal govt. here.
> I may choose to ask those visiting my house to refrain from discussing mumbo
> jumbo; if the individuals persist, I can ask, nay demand, that they leave.  
> :
> :And just to make shure it is clear, the right to put something on the paper
> :(ie speech) is distinctly different from being the one doing the actual
> :printing.

Agreed. It was intended to make the point that this is the ideal we should
all be striving for. We as members of a free democratic society should NEVER
censor anyone on the content of their speech.

> What paper? What does this mean? 

This list is a digital press.

> Advertised? It has been a matter of regret that I _stumbled_ into this
> unruly tangle of wits.

Then you have not been reading a lot of computer and crypto related
material. I see references to this list and how to subscribe several times a
year in various sources going back several years.

> Simply because one has argued that "the list is ... a defacto public list,"
> don't make it so any more than my arguing that a newspaper available to the
> public can have no control over its own editorial policy.

True, but the paper MUST publish that policy in its editions. Which papers
and magazines do religously.


                                                           Jim Choate