[10069] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: If Orson Welles were only alive...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Peter Deutsch)
Sat Feb 5 18:20:26 1994
From: Peter Deutsch <peterd@bunyip.com>
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 1994 18:05:33 -0500
In-Reply-To: William Manning's message as of Feb 5, 9:36
To: bmanning@is.rice.edu (William Manning), karl@mcs.com (Karl Denninger)
Cc: bzs@world.std.com, com-priv@psi.com
[ You wrote: ]
. . .
> Sounds like you want to control this list. You might try and convince the
> folks who run bugtraq@crimelab.com to let you on their list. Of course,
> if such a list denies someone access, & the list covers a problem that affects
> the denied site/person, I think that such a situation is open for litigation.
Now even given that Americans seem pathilogically obsessed
with suing each other, this seems a little hard for me to
accept. Is there some principle in U.S. law that says I
_have_ to help you if you're the victim of crime? I
thought you couldn't be forced to offer medical help to an
accident victim, nor forced to intercede on the behalf of
someone being assaulted. Extending this idea, if a group
forms a self-help organization and isn't using government
funds (which _might_ matter in the U.S.) then it seems you
have no more right to demand entry than to demand someone
desegregate their all-male, all-white moose lodge. You may
not like it, but I don't see there's much you can do about
it.
Of course, I'm not a lawyer and I don't play one on the
Internet so I may be way off-base. Any legal beagles care
to comment?
- peterd
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My proposal for funding the Internet is pretty simple. I vote we institute
an "Information Superhighway" tax, the proceeds of which will be used to
fund network infrastructure. The way this would work is simple - every time
someone uses the words "Information Superhighway" or any of its derivatives
we strike them with a sharp object and make them pay a $10 fee (of course,
the sharp object is not actually needed to make this scheme work, it's just
in there because it seems an appropriate thing to do...)
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