Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84 chuqui version 1.7 9/23/84; site nsc.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!cbosgd!mhuxj!ihnp4!nsc!chuqui
From: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Zonker T. Chuqui)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Re: "FREE"dom of the net is costing over $600,000 this year
Message-ID: <1842@nsc.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 8-Nov-84 04:27:48 EST
Article-I.D.: nsc.1842
Posted: Thu Nov  8 04:27:48 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 9-Nov-84 07:45:13 EST
References: <201@looking.UUCP> <7@cmu-cs-k.ARPA> <>
Reply-To: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Zonker T. Chuqui)
Organization: The Warlocks Cave, Western Annex
Lines: 33
Keywords: Silly
Summary: 

>In article <7@cmu-cs-k.ARPA> tim@cmu-cs-k.ARPA (Tim Maroney) writes:
>
>> To sum up:  If everyone at your site has the right to post, except you, and
>> this decision was made on the basis of unpopular opinions in your postings,
>> your civil rights have been violated.

Tim is making VERY broad assumptions here. Even assuming he is right and
the administration of a machine doesn't have the right to decide who is
allowed to use the resources of that machine, anyone who attempts to push
this issue would be much more likely to lose network priviledges for ALL
users than to get their own privliedges back. 

There are few to no precedents that can be safely applied to Usenet. This
is one reason why we scream about copyright violations (see the Joe Bob
discussions) as loudly as some of us do. We MIGHT be safe posting Joe Bob,
but we might not. I'd rather not have a body of precedent sitting on top of
usenet forcing us to do things, it is much nicer to work things out
privately, cooperate publicly, and keep the lawyers as far away as
possible. Tim might be right-- under some circumstances it might be
considered a violation to your right of free speech to have your posting
priviledges revoked, but I wouldn't count on it. You probably have as much
right to scream at a technical magazine turning down your article for
publishing or a newspaper turning down your letter to the editor. Both can
also be considered restrictions of the first amendment on a very
philosophical and intellectual level-- in reality nobody would take you
very seriously.

chuq
-- 
From the Department of Bistromatics:                   Chuq Von Rospach
{cbosgd,decwrl,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui  nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA

  I'd know those eyes from a million years away....