funsec mailing list archives
Re: Censorship in America, Part II
From: Rich Kulawiec <rsk () gsp org>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:24:03 -0400
On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 12:50:53PM -0400, der Mouse wrote:
That doesn't make it not censorship. It just makes it not *constitutionally-forbidden* censorship. In the USA, private entities are allowed, in general, to censor whatever they want - and, indeed, in some cases, that's their job (eg, the editor of a newspaper, when deciding what stories to run, is censoring the ones turned down).
Alright, this (and other comments) have combined to convince me that perhaps it is censorship. (Damn y'all for being persuasive!) But here's my concern: to me, censorship carries a connotation that one has been deprived of one's right to speak (in a particular way, at a particular time, on a particular topic, etc.) *involuntarily*. Those agreeing to up-front constraints (like an NDA, or like NetSol's draconian TOS) have voluntarily given up some measure of that right. Perhaps they didn't realize it, or perhaps they didn't mean to, or perhaps they never thought the terms of the contract would be enforced -- but they did willingly enter into it. What I'm getting at (perhaps not very well) is that I worry that this somehow diminishes the evil that is government-backed censorship. Corporate (or other) censorship is just as offensive to my free speech sensibilities -- but it's not enforced at the point of a bayonet. At least not yet. So while this is Yet Another Reason to avoid NetSol like the plague, at least there are other registrars, other DNS providers, other web hosts. And even without those, this kind of censorship can be readily evaded via other means (NNTP, P2P, etc.). But it's often much more difficult to sidestep governments. ---Rsk _______________________________________________ Fun and Misc security discussion for OT posts. https://linuxbox.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/funsec Note: funsec is a public and open mailing list.
Current thread:
- Censorship in America, Part II Richard M. Smith (Mar 24)
- Re: Censorship in America, Part II John C. A. Bambenek, GCIH, CISSP (Mar 24)
- Re: Censorship in America, Part II Rich Kulawiec (Mar 24)
- Re: Censorship in America, Part II John C. A. Bambenek, GCIH, CISSP (Mar 24)
- Re: Censorship in America, Part II Rich Kulawiec (Mar 24)
- Re: Censorship in America, Part II John C. A. Bambenek, GCIH, CISSP (Mar 24)
- Re: Censorship in America, Part II David Harley (Mar 24)
- Re: Censorship in America, Part II Rich Kulawiec (Mar 24)
- Re: Censorship in America, Part II der Mouse (Mar 24)
- Re: Censorship in America, Part II Rich Kulawiec (Mar 24)
- Re: Censorship in America, Part II John C. A. Bambenek, GCIH, CISSP (Mar 24)
- Re: Radiation in a cat detected while going 70miles per hour? Eduardo Tongson (Mar 24)
- Re: Radiation in a cat detected while going 70miles per hour? Rich Kulawiec (Mar 25)
- Re: Radiation in a cat detected while going 70miles per hour? coderman (Mar 26)
- Re: Radiation in a cat detected while going 70miles per hour? Dennis Henderson (Mar 26)