Re: Compuserve is Not "Censoring": Look to Governments for the Cause

>Thus, it is the government of Germany in this case which is "censoring."

This is today's page 1 article in the newspaper "die tageszeitung".

The article "Zensur im Cyberspace" (censorship in cyberspace)
and the comment "Die Moral der Biedermnner" are available
http://www.prz.tu-berlin.de/~taz until tomorrow.

 From the article (my translation):

"The Bavarian department of public prosecution 'has left it to their
discretion' to take the 'necessary steps' on their own, to avoid
'possible punishability of the management in Germany'. An advice that
CompuServe has followed although there is no kind of legal obligation
for it. Legally, it is still perfectly unclear if enterprises that
provide access to the Internet can be held responsible in any way for
the contents distributed there."

 From the comment by Niklaus Haubltzel:

"Reality cannot be outlawed, only improved, and many still hope that
complete freedom of information and opinion in computer networks can
contribute to that. But the company of CompuServe does not seem to
be interested in that. They only want their customers' money, but
not their freedom. [...] Like any censorhip, this one comes with
hipocrisy. Towards their paying customers, CompuServe claims to have
been forced by German prosecutors. Thus one lie creates another.
That they were forced it out of the question. It is only in
dictatorships that the prosecutors judge the defendants - that is why
dictatorships need censors."

This trend towords governments saying 'This might be illegal,
we won't tell you' is very disturbing.  Doug Barnes reported on it
being the tactic of choice in forcing banks to fall in line & spy on
their customers.

	Compuserve should be encouraged to get a ruling from the
Barvarian/German government on the legality of the groups.  (Does the
EU provide freedom of speech protections, or simply freedom of
inoffensive speech?)  Also, how does this interact with the
harmonization of publications laws with places such as the
Netherlands?  The EU can't be expected to thrive if each country has
totally different publishing laws.

	Alternately, if there are cypherpunks who spend time in
alt.config, we might create groups such as alt.intimate.stories,
alt.intimate.bondage.duct-tape, etc.


Ulf Moeller wrote:

| This is today's page 1 article in the newspaper "die tageszeitung".
| 
| The article "Zensur im Cyberspace" (censorship in cyberspace)
| and the comment "Die Moral der Biederm=E4nner" are available
| http://www.prz.tu-berlin.de/~taz until tomorrow.
| 
|  From the article (my translation):
| 
| "The Bavarian department of public prosecution 'has left it to their
| discretion' to take the 'necessary steps' on their own, to avoid
| 'possible punishability of the management in Germany'. An advice that
| CompuServe has followed although there is no kind of legal obligation
| for it. Legally, it is still perfectly unclear if enterprises that
| provide access to the Internet can be held responsible in any way for
| the contents distributed there."



-- 
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
					               -Hume