badri@valhalla.ee.rochester.edu (Badri Lokanathan) (12/06/88)
> In article <27015@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu > (David Phillip Oster) writes: > >I would rather stand with criminal fools than with the censors, for in the > >end, the censors are the worse criminals. In article <17753@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, era1987@violet.berkeley.edu writes: > What happened was that rather than responding to the issues in a > person's posting, somebody tried to censor that individual, intimidate > them, silence them, and prevent them from posting, by sending them > hatemail. The criminal act of the fool in this instance was an act > of intended censorship. > ... > --Mark Mark makes an interesting, perhaps incorrect argument here. My understanding of censorship is that it has "official" sanction. Hence silencing or attempting to silence an individual by intimidation in such cases is not censorship (although it is tantamount to censorship :-) The argument against censorship is old and widely accepted. The remedy to misuse of any facility is not censorship, but punishment through accountability. Unfortunately, in the case of Email, it is often difficult to establish culpability. One of the issues that should concern us here is the liability of carriers of "offensive" mail. Are laws that are applicable to the US postal system applicable to Email? Should they be applicable? If a legal suit is brought on a guilty party due to Email over a bang path, does every intermediate site become liable as an accessory? Should every site be liable? My opinion here is that as long as Email forgery is as easy as it is today, it will be impossible for the prosecution to establish guilt in any legal case. Maybe we ought to think about tighter Email software standards. -- "We will fight for the right to be free {) badri@ee.rochester.edu We will build our own society //\\ {ames,cmcl2,columbia,cornell, And we will sing, we will sing ///\\\ garp,harvard,ll-xn,rutgers}! We will sing our own song." -UB40 _||_ rochester!ur-valhalla!badri