🚀 go-pugleaf

Snowhare (snowhare@netcom.com) wrote:
: Jim Mercer (jim@reptiles.org) wrote:
: : In article <snowhareCnA3B0.6Gy@netcom.com>,
: : Snowhare <snowhare@netcom.com> wrote:
: : >Of course - being a US citizen posting from a US system via a US 
: : >network the phrase 'She pleaded guilty' is no more banned than the 
: : >phrase 'John likes beagles'.
: : >
: : >Get a clue. The vast majority of people reading these groups are NOT 
: : >Canandian nor are they subject to the Canandian court order.

: : of course, self-righteous pinheads like you just love to play with other
: : people's access.

: : postings like this resulted in many newsnews closures in Canada.


: : the fact that the ban does not effect you where you are sitting, doesn't mean
: : that your keystrikes won't cause grief for people in Canada.

: Perhaps. You are seriously tempting me to follow through and actually do 
: that cross-post. It would likely cost me this account, but it would 
: almost be worth it to force the sysadmins in Canada to face up to the 
: impossibility of banning information distributed electronically. What is 
: next? Searches of snail mail to be sure no illicit information comes from 
: the US mail? Satellite jammers to be sure no one picks up a stray news 
: program that is not inside Canada's absurd restrictions? Uh oh - better 
: not tell those guys proving FULL feeds via satellite...

: How many levels of indirection do I have to lay on before I am not 
: breaking the ban? Can I tell people when they can go to get information 
: on how to bypass the ban? Can I casually mention that for $17.50 a month 
: they can telnet to a US computer system that takes ALL the news groups?

: Can I say telnet to Umich and read it for yourself?

The Ban, as near as this non-lawyer understands it, applies to MEDIA,
i.e. public information wholesalers, so to speak.   Mailing information
privately doesn't count.  I suspect that for one individual to make
one copy via FTP, etc. would not be affected.  The moment that copies
start being made and provided to any and all, you just became MEDIA.
(One guy WAS briefly arrested for passing out hundreds of copies of
a UK newspaper story, and videotapes from "A Current Affair".  A former
cop who violently disagrees with the Ban.  They took his stuff and
dropped all charges and let him go.  If they're Nazis, they're kinder,
gentler Nazis.)

Now NEWSNET sysops can be argued to be "media"; but unlike every other
medium I can think of, they have NO practical control over what goes
out to their users!  It is technically unfeasible to have some sort
of AI watch every post...and simply not the accepted business practice
to only allow posts that the sysop has read (like a newspaper copy-editor).
The closest equivalent in law is a defamatory letter to the editor.
If printed, both the writer and publisher can be sued.  Some have
argued that the only person who can be held responsible for a USENET
post is the poster...for a first offence.  The sysop might be held
accountable for a second, since there is then a known problem.

The longer that USENET keeps up  a reputation for being mostly responsible,
the longer we all have before The Law "notices" us and decides that
this medium must be brought to heel by requiring anybody providing
a BBS-like message posting service to personally read and approve
everything posted.  Don't believe its impossible.