Government money, Net picketing, and public fora (fwd)

Hi,

Forwarded message:

> Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1997 00:27:04 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Declan McCullagh <declan@pathfinder.com>
> Subject: Government money, Net picketing, and public fora

> Unfortunately, Jim has no idea what he's talking about. Accepting public
> money does not magically turn something into a public forum. 
> 
> I'm not sure how I can get this idea through.


Unfortunately, Declan has no idea what he's talking about. Accepting public
money does increase the criminal and civil obligations of the recipient as
well as providing a lever for 3rd parties to become involved on civil
grounds.

I'm not sure how I can get this idea through.


   _______________________________________________________________________
  |                                                                       |
  |            Speak the truth, but leave immediately after.              |
  |                                                                       |
  |                                     Slovenian Proverb                 |
  |                                                                       |
  |     Jim Choate                                 ravage@ssz.com         |
  |     The Armadillo Group                        www.ssz.com            |
  |     Austin, Texas, USA                         512-451-7087           |
  |_______________________________________________________________________|

At 08:15 AM 6/5/97 -0500, Jim Choate wrote:
> Accepting public money does increase the criminal and civil obligations
> of the recipient as well as providing a lever for 3rd parties to become 
> involved on civil grounds.
>
>I'm not sure how I can get this idea through.

You're not doing very well.  I can see a number of possible meanings:

1) You want to be able to "picket" other people's net traffic,
and think that the amount of government funding out there gives you some 
standing to force some parts of the net to carry your "picket signs".
And therefore you keep posting similar vigorous assertions, in response
to other people's contentions that this would be bad.

2) You do/don't/don't-care think it's a good idea, but you're
trying to make the point that it _is_ theoretically something the
government could require, and are trying to get people to accept
this concept while they're arguing either that it would be bad,
or that it's not something they could require.

2b) As above, but you're further contending that, to be consistent,
the government _must_ apply their standards for picketing, union 
elections, etc., to the Internet (again, regardless of whether you
think this is good, bad, or ugly.)

3) You think that it would be OK for a service provider to do this
(whether or not you think it's a good idea) and are contending that
it's ok, while you think other people are arguing that it's not ok.

4) You want to accomplish something _like_ picketing, and think that
intercepting the picketee's traffic is required, as opposed to other
picketing-like methods available, and are trying to get agreement?

Is one of these your point?  Or is it something else, and I just don't
get what you're point is?  To me, it looks like you're just asserting
the same stuff repeatedly, and it's not clear why....



#			Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com
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