Re: [photo-3d] censorship?

[Bob Wier <wier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>
>That is ridiculous!  There is absolutely nothing offensive about the common
>names for cute household pets, and anyone who thinks so must have a very
>twisted mind.
>
>Any attempt to prevent individuals from speaking their comments constitutes
>an abridgment of their Constitutional right to freedom of speech, and such
>illegal censorship will be reported to the ACLU and other authorities
>responsible for guarding our precious freedoms.  The seemingly innocent act
>of removing other's words is the first step to totalitarianism, as has been
>proven over and over throughout history.
>
>I will not overlook such fascist behavior.  You may be certain that I will
>be among the first to take legal action against any such obvious
>intolerance.
>
>JR
>

As owner/moderator of the list, I can basically set any parameters
I deem appropriate, within the usage specifications set by yahoo. 
You are cartainly free to start your own list if you'd like - or 
possibly an Internet Usenet news group. I'm not
sure if groups at yahoo is considered a common carrier or not, but
freedom of speech guarantees are only provided for federal (and possibly)
state governments. Private organizations are not covered. 

This sort of subject line was very much in the nature of the unsolicited
e-mail which I deal with every day here at the college. Thus I'm quite
sensitive to headlines like this (and in fact the local office of the FBI
has been called in on occasion for hacker attacks and continued spam,
particularly pornography, when the list was directly operating on our/my
server).

However, I see now that the site in question isn't pornographic (I had
thought maybe the sending address had been faked (or "spoofed" as we say)),
since that would have been extremely uncharacteristic of this group. And
yes, I have that twisted a mind - I have too as I am liable to be called
to answer why such e-mail and websites are being used by our college students
(some of whom are underage in Montana).  For example, a female student was
researching a paper on the presence of child pornography on the Internet
(as also, I believe, stalkers). Apparently the FBI got interested and
contacted her to determine who she was and her interest in the subject.

However although the subject line might have been in questionable taste (or
more precisely mis-directed) I don't see any reason to go back and change
the archives.

Note however, that this does not mean that under sufficient circumstances
in the future I may do so (assuming it is possible technically). 

Again, anyone is free to unsubscribe - and UNsubscription requires no
moderator approval. I would invite anyone to do so whom is finding the
current list administration objectionable.

--BW

              Bob Wier
     mailto:wier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
   13:54 GMT Saturday, March 17, 2001



 

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