[comp.org.eff.talk] Constitutional rights

jmc@Gang-of-Four.usenet (John McCarthy) (09/12/90)

In my opinion, electronic bulletin boards will be classed as
publications entitled to First Amendment protection.  I think
the courts will do it even if Congress and states make laws
to the contrary.  However, it won't be really effective until
there is a major court case.  I hope CPSR will use their
grant to mount such a case as soon as a suitable case can
be found.

I base this opinion on the Stanford University case of rec.humor.funny.
Early in 1989, Robert Street, Vice-President for Information and
Professor of Civil Engineering, decided to delete r.h.f from
the computers under his jurisdiction.  He had his underlings
take responsibility.  The story is long and perhaps interesting,
but I'll condense.  There were petitions, and the President, Donald
Kennedy, referred the matter to the Academic Senate which
referred it to its Steering Committee to come up with a
recommendation.

Now here's the point relevant to my opinion in the first paragraph.
When I visited President Kennedy, he supposed the Senate Steering
Committee would refer the matter to the Committee on Research, and
said he didn't accept my "metaphor" of the newsgroup files as a
library.  I think most of the world's officials are in the same state
Kennedy was.  Electronic bulletin boards and newsgroups are vague
hitech things rather than publications.

This caused me to think, and I decided to make the point that
"library" wasn't a metaphor but a fact.  The Steering Committee
accepted that idea and referred the issue to the Committee on
Libraries. At that point the battle was essentially won.

The Committee on Libraries opined that the same principles
applied to electronic libraries as to paper libraries -
universality tempered only by budget.  The Steering Committee
accepted the recommendation and asked the Vice-President for
Information whether preferred to back down or have a Senate
discussion.  He backed down, and we haven't had trouble since.

Note that the whole matter was fought out in the absence of
specific complaints about jokes in r.h.f and ignoring the
fact that there are plenty of newsgroups with material far
more likely to offend than anything Brad Templeton lets by.

In short before you can get a good decision, you have to get
them to pay attention, and "them" is the courts, and a lawsuit
is required.