🚀 go-pugleaf

On Thu, 18 Jul 1996 01:02:00 GMT, Jim Manson (jmanso19@skypoint.com) wrote:
> The basis for being able to prosecute them would be *intent* to be a
> party to distributing illegal material. Carrying a news group called
> alt.binary.erotic.picture.children  shows intent to allow the
> distribution of pictures of child pornography. The name 
> kinda gives it away. The same picture being passed through
> alt.binary.misc (or some such) may be just as illegal of a photo
> but the ISP cannot be shown to have known about it. 

Bullshit. The name means nothing. What if the group is all about why such
pictures should *not* exist? What about the various alt.sex groups which by
their name should be banned, but actually carry useful medical and/or recovery
information?

If I write a book called 'How to Screw Your Dog', does that mean it contains
beastiality and must be banned? How can you know unless you read it first?

Is iSTAR responsible for reading the contents of all the groups? I hardly
think so. And if they were, they'd have no choice but to shut down their news
feed completely.

"What's in a name...?"

How about

alt.barney.die.die.die

which clearly carries articles promoting hatred, and possibly carries articles
containing conversations relating to the committing of a murder.


iSTAR acted out of the foolishness all-to present in our society. Foolishness
caused by lawyers, politicians and special interest groups. Foolishness caused
by the apathy of the people to protect their rights to take care of
themselves, and tell "Big Brother" to piss off.

History has shown time and time again that prohibition, censorship and
repressionism don't work. It's time for people to take a stand against
them. Unfortunately, it seems iSTAR doesn't have the backbone to be a
leader. That's their right, but it is disappointing.

I just hope that the academic community which started USENET never gets into
the business of censorship. Maybe it's time we all donated some money to our
local University's computer resource centres so that they can get powerful
machines with lots of disk space, and turn the academics into the main
distributors of news again.



-- 
Scott Barker
Linux Consultant
scott@galileo.cuug.ab.ca
http://www.cuug.ab.ca:8001/~barkers/   (under construction)

[ I try to reply to all e-mail within 5 days. If you don't  ]
[ get a response by then, I probably didn't get your e-mail ]
[ (we have a sometimes sporadic connection to the internet) ]

"It may be meaningless, but at least it's a gesture."
   - Dave Barry