From: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 01:51:03 +0800
To: Declan McCullagh <cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: CDT, RSACi, and "public service" groups (1/3)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.95.970725091822.21324C-100000@well.com>
Message-ID: <v03102801affe9378ce79@[207.167.93.63]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



[This message brought to you by Tim's Internet News Service, a service
devoted to news and opinions and thus exempt from the voluntary mandatory
self-ratings system imposed by the Protecting our Children Act of 1997.)


At 9:18 AM -0700 7/25/97, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>---------- Forwarded message ----------

>On Thu, 24 Jul 1997, Jonah Seiger wrote:
>
>> We do not believe ratings are appropriate for news sites or sites that are
>> geared toward public discussion of political/social issues (CDT has refused
>> to rate our sites with RSAC).
>
>Of course that hasn't stopped CDT from, as I understand it, proposing
>a "public service site" exemption to RSAC, similar to the "news site"
>exemption.
>
>Under such an RSAC-PS scheme, organizations defined as legitimate "public
>service" groups -- and only those groups! -- would be exempt from labeling
>each of their pages for violence, nudity, and so on. After all, if CDT
>wanted to label and the RSAC-PS scheme didn't exist, they'd have to cordon
>off the portion of their site with the Pacifica decision as inappropriate
>for children. The RSAC working group discussed "public service sites,"
>according to RSAC head Stephen Balkam, during a conference call on
>July 10.

This echoes a similar dichotomy between the alleged "rights" of newsmen to
"protect their sources" and the rights of non-newsment to protect their
sources or confidants. I have never believed that a reporter for the
"Washington Post" has any more rights to refuse to disclose his
conversations than I have. The so-called "shield laws" seem to create
protected classes of the rights of free speech and association (and
"privacy" in a sense).

Same as with "religious confessionals." If I claim that conversations I
have are part of a priest-penitent or "confessional" relation--after all, I
am a prelate in the First Church of Odin--and the courts claim I am not a
"valid" religion....

Giving special status to some news organizations or some religious
organizations is a clearcut violation of the First.

--Tim May


Voluntary Mandatory Self-Rating of this Article
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Warning: Failure to Correctly and Completely Label any Article or Utterance
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** PICS/RSACi Voluntary Self-Rating (Text Form) ** :

Suitable for Children: yes  Age Rating: 5 years and up.
Suitable for Christians: No Suitable for Moslems: No  Hindus: Yes
Pacifists: No  Government Officials: No  Nihilists: Yes  Anarchists: Yes
Vegetarians: Yes  Vegans: No  Homosexuals: No  Atheists: Yes
Caucasoids: Yes  Negroids: No  Mongoloids: Yes
Bipolar Disorder: No  MPD: Yes and No  Attention Deficit Disorder:Huh?

--Contains discussions of sexuality, rebellion, anarchy, chaos,torture,
regicide, presicide, suicide, aptical foddering.
--Contains references hurtful to persons of poundage and people of
color.Sensitive persons are advised to skip this article.

**SUMMARY**
Estimated number of readers qualified to read this: 1
Composite Age Rating: 45 years