🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4fbi7r$l3m@cloner2.ix.netcom.com>,
Jack Burroughs <got@popd.ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>boursy@world.std.com (Stephen Boursy) will be held accountable by the US
>Government for expressing free thought by saying: 
>
>[snip]
>->	Read the article on them in the Feb. issue of Wired Mag.--it
>->covers the story very well.
>
>->	I've never cared much for the EFF even way back when they 
>->were in my hometown of Cambridge, Ma.  They always represented the
>->interests of the business owners (ISPs, etc.) first over the 
>->consumers of such.  That's not consumer advocacy at all.
>
>
>At what level would you have been happy at?  If they protect only the
>individual, but laws governing the business has not changed what good would
>it have done?
>
>There was nothing wrong w/ supporting/sponsoring ISP's.  They would after
>all, represent a larger portion then just individuals.
>


	I perhaps overstated my case on the EFF when the were still in
Cambridge.  Of course it's relevant and important for them to advocate
for general online issues protecting ISP's from censorship, etc.  My
point was, and remains, that they have done virtually nothing for
individual consumers who have problems with ISP's regarding censorship--
i.e. plug pulling, content censorship, forged cencels, etc.  That to me
is where at least a healthy portion of the emphasis should be.

	They may survive and change for the better.  They recently split
and the DC corporate types started their own organization and took most
of the corporate money with them.  Without the corporate money you've
got less pressure and conflict of interest--hell--maybe they'll even 
come back to Cambridge and start helping out individual users.

	As I said before--times are quite different now than when they
started.  This is no longer the day of the small time bbs's.  A vast
majority of users come in from large profit oriented corporations who
can well afford their own attorneys.  The emphasis, as with any decent
consumer organiztion, must be on protecting the rights of the consumer
which are often at odds with policies of profit making ISP's.

				Steve