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1997-06-07 - Re: Responses to “Spam costs and questions” (long)

Header Data

From: Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Message Hash: c8a1dcefc42a63f11eaa4fe19a7f5760b8fb9759ff21959ef33b059b31c0c4a5
Message ID: <19970607124001.37225@bywater.songbird.com>
Reply To: <Pine.GSO.3.95.970607133514.655C-100000@cp.pathfinder.com>
UTC Datetime: 1997-06-07 19:55:25 UTC
Raw Date: Sun, 8 Jun 1997 03:55:25 +0800

Raw message

From: Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 1997 03:55:25 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Responses to "Spam costs and questions" (long)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.95.970607133514.655C-100000@cp.pathfinder.com>
Message-ID: <19970607124001.37225@bywater.songbird.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



On Sat, Jun 07, 1997 at 01:53:05PM -0500, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote:
> Declan McCullagh <declan@pathfinder.com> writes:
[...]
> 
> Yes, the only honorable response to speech you don't like
> is to ignore it or to respond with more speech. 

Quite so.  The issue, then, is "what is speech".  I put a 190 db 
megaphone next to your head and scream into it, and your eardrums 
rupture and the blood flows, that's arguably not speech.

I would argue that in order for something to fall under the absolute 
protections free speech it has to meet certain characteristics -- it 
can't lead to direct bodily harm, or property damage, or any other 
kind of "damage" that is legally defined.

So the question of free speech is really, when you think about it, a 
question about what legally constitutes "damage".

In the internet context, then, activities that cause any reasonable 
definition of "damage" could be controlled, under the "non-aggression 
principle" if nothing else.

I think a reasonable definition of damage in an internet context is 
"excess interference with other transmission" (for some values of 
excess). 

-- 
Kent Crispin				"No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com			the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint:   B1 8B 72 ED 55 21 5E 44  61 F4 58 0F 72 10 65 55
http://songbird.com/kent/pgp_key.html

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