brad@looking.UUCP (11/23/87)
This has been said before, but it seems to need saying again. This is a privately controlled network. Bills of rights, such as the 1st amendment to the US Constitution do not apply here. I own a machine. I let my employees and some friends read news on it. Don't even think for one second that I don't have every right to revoke that ability at any time for any reason. I can't terminate employment for any reason, but I and any other system adminstrator can control access to our computers as we wish. Both our charter of rights and the your constitution forbid religious persecution, for example. But I still have the right to stop somebody from using my machine to post pro-Christian articles. And other machine owners have the right to forbid articles about "pot-smoking jews." So don't bring constitutional rights into this. The freedom to control your own truly private property is paramount in this case, and shall not be abridged. Now don't get me wrong. I'll fully defend anybody's right to say anything loathesome on public streets, on their own machine or with their own press. I even opposed the Zundel laws, which would allow Mr. Mading to be prosecuted for his general derogatory remark about Jews. But none of that matters of truly private property, and that's what a restricted access computer is. -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
webber@brandx.rutgers.edu (Webber) (11/24/87)
In article <1151@looking.UUCP>, brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes: > This has been said before, but it seems to need saying again. This is > a privately controlled network. Bills of rights, such as the 1st amendment > to the US Constitution do not apply here. Clearly it is wrong to say this is a ``privately controlled'' network. Individual sites in the network may be ``privately controlled'' (although many are government (local, state, and fed -- educational and military)), but it is hard to think of the network as controlled at all, much less privately controlled. > Both our charter of rights and the your constitution forbid religious > persecution, for example. But I still have the right to stop somebody from > using my machine to post pro-Christian articles. And other machine owners > have the right to forbid articles about "pot-smoking jews." Hmmm. You mention that you are the employer of some of the users of your machine. I am not sure if it is true in your case, but let us consider a person running on a machine that is owned by the company for which they work -- so that it can reasonably be viewed as part of the work environment. Assume everyone in the office has Hanukkah decorations up except one person who wants to put up a small cross. Do you think that has an employer you could successfully prevent this should it be taken to court? Although I am not a lawyer, I suspect that the only way you could prevent the person from putting up the cross would be to issue a general edict forbidding religious decorations (i.e., forbidding the Hanukkah decorations as well). Certainly in the United States, there seems to be an under-riding notion of ``equal'' treatment of all employees. So, I suspect that you would have difficulty (at least in the United States) with the notion of forbidding generic pro-Christian postings. While abusive/offensive postings would probably be more easily controlled, there would probably still be some notion of sufficient ``due process'' that would probably make it easier (in a large company) to disconnect rather than isolate specific users. Clearly, by firing a person, a company puts itself in a position where it can deny access to its computers and hence the net via that site. And clearly many people would opt for losing net access rather than being fired. However, if the grounds are insufficient for firing, it is not clear that they would be sufficient for denying net access in a situation where net access is viewed as part of the normal work environment. --------- BOB (webber@athos.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!athos.rutgers.edu!webber)
sl@van-bc.UUCP (Stuart Lynne) (11/24/87)
In article <1151@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes: >This has been said before, but it seems to need saying again. This is >a privately controlled network. Bills of rights, such as the 1st amendment >to the US Constitution do not apply here. > >I own a machine. I let my employees and some friends read news on it. >Don't even think for one second that I don't have every right to revoke >that ability at any time for any reason. I can't terminate employment >for any reason, but I and any other system adminstrator can control access >to our computers as we wish. I'm not so sure that what the net is becoming is something a bit different from anything we've seen before. While the above comparison to property rights in general may have been valid in the past it may not continue to be so. Remember we live in a constantly evolving society. Good or bad, peoples perceptions and expectations continually change and many times laws (both legislative and judge made) change to conform. An excellent example is the relaxation of pornography laws in North America over the last 50 years. In the case of the net the is a new perception (by some people) that people are indeed participating in a forum that is unrestricted except by *their* own values. In other words they are actually implementing their *right* to free speech. While this may not be to comfortable a position for some system administrators who might like to choke off certain people (often I must admit with *excellent* reasons, I'd do the same) we must look at the possibility that we might not always have the *right* to restrict them in this fashion. There are many examples that show that our society has attempted to make it easier for less well off individuals to indulge in free speech at the expense of large organizations who could afford it. Letters to the editor, equal time spots on TV, etc. While I don't support this view I think there is some merit to it. Remember no one is forcing you to make your machine available on the net either to send or receive. But I think that if you are participating, you can't prevent or restrain others from doing so via your system. It's not too much different if you kick them off your system or try and filter out their articles as they pass through your site, it's still censorship. Of course as a system administrator I am also still very worried about my position if someone at my site post's something that could be viewed as slanderous, or perhaps as hate literature. Could I be held accountable? I would prefer to think that I'm not. What difference is there if the user post's it originally on my system, or via my system from a personal computer running a mini news system, or if my system simply passes it through as another anonymous forwarder. If I kicked the person of he could probably find somewhere else to get access. It really is a matter of defining better what positions the owners and administrators of the machines that constitute the net *are* responsible and getting that definition accepted by society and eventually the courts. The two extremes are that the owners and administrators are totally responsible but also have the right to censor or that they are not responsible but don't have that right. I don't think that we will get the option to be able to have complete control (other than withdrawal from the net) and be have the right to censor articles. At what point would we be required to *start* censoring articles. For example if someone created alt.hategroup on uunet and started posting articles the automated news software on my machine would quite happily start forwarding it to other sites in BC. Could I be held responsible? Well if I have the right to censor articles, I probably also have the *duty* to do so. And would then be responsible for the distribution of those articles. As a person of limited time and energy I would prefer to not have the *right* and *duty* to censor other peoples articles. In fact I think it would prove to be impossible. If the consensur of societies opinion ever reached that point I think it would be impossible to continue to forward news to anyone. You simply couldn't effectively filter it for problem articles. But if society expects that *individuals* have the right to free speech and that the owners and system adminstrators do not have the right or ability to censor articles that problem disappears. -- {ihnp4!alberta!ubc-vision,uunet}!van-bc!Stuart.Lynne Vancouver,BC,604-937-7532
robert@uop.EDU ( ) (11/28/87)
one must be moral, to be ethical. you can do what you want at your site, but you still are governed by the constitution. this does not become an issue, unless you do.
steve@edm.UUCP (Stephen Samuel) (11/30/87)
In article <1561@van-bc.UUCP>, sl@van-bc.UUCP (Stuart Lynne) writes: > In article <1151@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes: > >This has been said before, but it seems to need saying again. This is > >a privately controlled network. Bills of rights, such as the 1st amendment > > .... > >for any reason, but I and any other system adminstrator can control access > >to our computers as we wish. > .... > possibility that we might not always have the *right* to restrict them in > this fashion. > .... > prevent or restrain others from doing so via your system. It's not too much > different if you kick them off your system or try and filter out their > articles as they pass through your site, it's still censorship. .... > through as another anonymous forwarder. If I kicked the person of he could > probably find somewhere else to get access. I think that we have two slightly different points here: One is censorship and the other is access to machines. While I would refuse (simply on the grounds of the time requirement) to even TRY to filter the volume of stuff that goes thru my system, I would not have any quams about throwing somebody of a system I administrated for consistently posting garbage to the net. If, at this point, he gets a machine somewhere doen the line from me then I would basically consider the situation to be out of my hands unless it got bad enough to cut the entire feed. (along with anybody else on that feed). Needless to say, I would consider action like that to be something of a last resort. What it comes down to is that while I feel that I do not have the right to censor anybody's articles, I DO reserve the right to cut a feed if there is good enough cause (whether that feed is a machine or a person). This is a self-limiting posture, because if you get a feed far enough away from me, I will have the choice of letting your message thru or cutting off most, if not all of the net. If I decide to make my system a hermit, that's my own problem. No matter what the case I would always consider cutting a feed to be a matter of last resort. -- ------------- Stephen Samuel {ihnp4,ubc-vision,seismo!mnetor,vax135}!alberta!edm!steve