From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npois!cbosgd!mark Newsgroups: net.news.group Title: Re: Proposal for Two New Newsgroups Article-I.D.: cbosgd.2426 Posted: Thu Jul 1 10:22:30 1982 Received: Fri Jul 2 01:59:40 1982 References: pyuxcc.284 A political discussion newsgroup called net.safety? Huh? Why don't we just name it net.peanut-butter-sandwich? There is already an arpanet mailing list called poli-sci which is on fa.poli-sci. I don't subscribe, so I don't know how healthy it's been lately, or whether it overlaps what Bruce has in mind, but hopefully the people who are interested will know. As I understand it, there is some federal law that says that facilities paid for by the federal government cannot be used for distribution of political opinions. (Lauren told me this - I don't know the details.) Please - no flames about whether this law is stupid. I think it is silly too, but think for a minute about what would happen if someone called up the press and said "Hot tip! Top secret military computers are being used to promote communist propaganda!" Since the ARPANET is DOD funded, this meant that fa.poli-sci was supposed to die. While it seems reasonable for USENET to take on this newsgroup, we do have to address two issues: (1) what does this mean for arpanet sites on USENET? (2) what does it mean for other federally funded USENET sites? In particular, I bet most of the university sites on USENET are machines that were paid for by either DOD or NSF funds. And some of the commercial sites may be DOD contractors too. Can someone who is familiar with this law give us some more informed commentary? Mark