Date: Wed, 29 Apr 92 17:23:37 EST
Errors-To: Comp-privacy Error Handler <comp-privacy-request@PICA.ARMY.MIL>
From: Computer Privacy Digest Moderator <comp-privacy@PICA.ARMY.MIL>
To: Comp-privacy@PICA.ARMY.MIL
Subject: Computer Privacy Digest V1#005
Computer Privacy Digest Wed, 29 Apr 92 Volume 1 : Issue: 005
Today's Topics: Moderator: Dennis G. Rears
Re: Should political speech be censored online
Call for new moderator?
Re: ... Speech censorship, an ammended prespective.
Re: Should political speech be censored online?
Re: Should political speech be censored online?
Re: Should political speech be censored online?
Hatch Act & Petitions
Re: [Glenn S. Tenney: Should political speech be censored online?]
The Computer Privacy Digest is a forum for discussion on the
effect of technology on privacy. The digest is moderated and
gatewayed into the USENET newsgroup comp.society.privacy
(Moderated). Submissions should be sent to
comp-privacy@pica.army.mil and administrative requests to
comp-privacy-request@pica.army.mil.
Back issues are available via anonymous ftp on ftp.pica.army.mil
[129.139.160.200].
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 92 17:03:22 EDT
From: "Dennis G. Rears " <drears@pica.army.mil>
Subject: Re: Should political speech be censored online
Evidently the issue of me deciding not to run Mr. Tenney's posting has
caused a lot of debate. This issue of the digest will be dedicated to
this subject. I would say a couple of things:
o If I feel an article belongs in the digest, I will not let
*ANYONE* stop me from forwarding it to USENET or the digest. If I feel
my employment can be affected from doing this, I will post/email from a
nongovernment account.
o In about 3 to 5 months I hope to get an account on a University
system or on a commercial service where I will then run this forum on. I
welcome any help on this.
o I do not know all the details about the Hatch act. I do know
that it is one of the few things a government employee can be burned on.
If I felt the article was within the charter of the newsgroup I might
have been willing to push the issue. The truth of the matter is I felt
the post was inappropriate. If there was no Hatch act I would not have
published it. I might have put a short blurb to the readers that Mr.
Tenney is running for office on a privacy platform and you can read the
following newsgroups for the
o I felt that Mr. Tenney post was inappropriate to the forum
(telecom-priv) and even this one. I felt his post was more of an
advertisement for himself than discussions on privacy. The charter of
this group reflects on the effect of technology on privacy not privacy
itself. Granted there should be a lot of leeway given. Issues like
"should newspapers publish names of rape victims?" don't belong here.
o I do not want partisian politics to invade this forum. Mr.
Tenney was able to post this to many other newsgroups which he did.
o Incidently that is the only post in about 140 issues of the digest
that I ever rejected. As moderator I compile articles, weed out
excessive signatures, drop/add requests, and compile the digest. I do
censor things I don't like but I reserve the right to not publish things
that are not appropriate.
o I would like to get off this subject and start dealing with
items relating to the effect of technology on privacy. If there is still
interest in this topic I will publish another digest on the topic.
Dennis
======================================================================
Dennis G. Rears
INTERNET: drears@pilot.njin.net USPS: Box 210, Wharton, NJ 07885
Phone(home): 201.927.8757
======================================================================
------------------------------
From: Stuart M Castergine <scasterg@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: Call for new moderator?
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 92 21:21:24 EDT
If the moderator for this group has employment conflicts that conflict
with his duties as moderator, perhaps we need another moderator.
On this group in particular, I feel uncomfortable thinking that our
posts are going through some sort of government censor before being
approved.
I hate to criticise while not being willing to walk in his shoes, but
I don't have the ability to be a moderator for this group. This is
only a student account and, in any case, I have no idea how moderating
a newsgroup works.
My own system, waltham.columbus.oh.us, has only a uucp feed, and
*very* limited news capabilities.
--
scasterg@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu -- Stuart M. Castergine
"Deep down in our hearts we know that we have bankrupted America and
that we have given our children a legacy of bankruptcy.... We have
defrauded the country to get ourselves elected." --Sen. John Danforth
------------------------------
From: William Pfeiffer <wdp@airwaves.chi.il.us>
Subject: Re: ... Speech censorship, an ammended prespective.
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 92 22:18:14 CDT
Dear readers (and moderator)
In my last article I stated that I leaned toward the position of the
gentleman running for office, in his claim that his messages were
being censored. While I still abhore censorship, I am forced into
reflection by the words of some other posters on this issue.
While I still, deep down, believe that the gentleman's message
should have been allowed on the net, I can understand Dennis's
position too. I think the real issue here is not Dennis's choice
to omit the article, but the basic system under which he HAD TO
omit the article.
I am no expert on this 'Hatch Act' (or hatchet act, more aptly :->),
but it seems like such an act is, perhaps, intended to keep government
officials from using their inside position to make political statements
on belhalf of some individual. It would seem to me that such a law
is, however, contrary to basic freedom of speech/press if it can be used
to force (induce?) a group moderator to omit an article by someone
who is NOT covered by this Act.
Perhaps Dennis could just place a disclaimer saying that the following
article was received unsolicited, and does not necessarily represent
the views of the US Army, US gov't or anyone connected with the
publication of this newsgroup. Maybe not, I don't know.
But if such a disclaimer is insufficient to clear Dennis from any
problems with his commander, then I believe that the issue is not
Dennis, but a system which is strangling Dennis's constitutional
rights to freedom of speech and press. Perhaps such a disclaimer
could be put in the opening remarks of every digest. Just a
thought.
As one poster in the last digest put it (paraphrased), While thousands
are being disenfranchised by the Hatch[et] Act, ... The President,
and all incumbants use free postage, air travel and other (tax-payer
supported) perq's to further their political future, while Dennis
worries about his job for printing a submission from a reader that
might be construed as 'political' by some army big wig. I appologize,
Dennis, I mistakenly attributed the censorship to you. Now I see
that you had little choice. Geez!
A little wiser,
William Pfeiffer
wdp@airwaves.chi.il.us
--
------------------------------
From: "Glenn S. Tenney" <tenney@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Should political speech be censored online?
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 92 06:33:13 GMT
Apparently-To: comp-society-privacy@ames.arc.nasa.gov
In article <comp-privacy1.3.6@pica.army.mil> abc@brl.mil (Brinton Cooper) writes:
>X-Computer Privacy Digest: Volume 1, Issue 003, Message 6 of 10
>
>Glenn Tenney argues that his political candidacy should be announced in
>this newsgroup/mailing list and that he checked with the "Office of
>Special Counsel" who, HE alleges, "is in charge of administering the
>Hatch Act for the Federal Government..." He argued, "...the staff
>assured me that there would be no violation of the Hatch Act, yet the
>moderator still refused to allow my postings to go out."
To clarify (trying to be brief): It was not just a political candidacy
announcement, but as an online candidate I was raising many technology and
privacy issues which I thought/think are related to the charter of the list.
It was the people at the Office of Special Counsel who said that THEY are
in charge of administering the Hatch Act, not I. I did give the moderator
the name and phone number of the person with whom I spoke.
>
>Glenn Tenney fails to take into account a few things:
>
> 1. The computer from which this forum originates is on a U.S.
>Army installation and is under operational control of the U.S. Army.
>
> 2. The moderator of this forum is a federal civil servant. He
>is not directly responsible to the "Office of Special Counsel" but to
>his supervisor and the Commander of his installation.
Again, the OSC said that ALL Federal Employees come under the Hatch Act, while
military personnel do not. It does get confusing when the person is not
military, but the computer is.
> ...
>Glenn Tenney proposes to become a member of the U.S. Congress. Perhaps
>he should find out how the typical, hardworking U.S. taxpayer feels
>about using machinery and communications funded by the U.S. taxpayer to
>advertise his candidacy for the Congress.
This is a bogus comment since that is just not the way the nets work.
The cost is borne by each node, and my campaign pays the going rate
for net access. If it were a strictly political note, I could understand
your concern. I still feel that the issues raised were directly related
to the charter of the mailing list. I also don't think your comments
about "hard working" were at all appropriate since I make my living
working very hard developing software and hardware systems.
>...
>Glenn Tenney asks,
>
> When should a moderator censor postings to this newsgroup?
> Should the moderator even BE a Federal employee if there
> is possibility of restrictions on article submissions
> imposed by the government (or his superiors)? Isn't this
> medium of a moderated newsgroup/mailing-list more analogous
> to the moderator being a letter carrier? etc. etc.
>
>One answer is "When no one else will do it." This is how so much gets
>done in our society: by those who, in an imperfect way, working through
>imperfect institutions, try to make things better. Shutting down the
>newsgroup solely to make a point in behalf of Glenn Tenney's candidacy
>seems hardly worth the cost.
Perhaps you misunderstood. The moderator is (and has been) doing
a great job. I had/have no problem with his many volunteer hours,
quite the contrary. I was trying to raise the question via this
experience the impact of having a moderator who is precluded from
accepting postings which is somehow perceived as violating the Hatch Act
(rightly or wrongly, and for sake of discussion otherwise appropriate
for the newsgroup). Where you saying that just because no one else
will volunteer the umpteen hours we should accept the fact that some
postings will never appear because some supervisor interpretted the
Hatch Act differently than the people who say they are in charge of
administering it? What other newsgroups and mailing lists have been
affected that we don't know about? Would you mind if your postal letter
carrier refused to deliver certain mail to you?
>
>Perhaps, somewhere in one of these fora, we should discuss the fairness
>and equitability of the disenfranchisement of millions of people via the
>Hatch Act while President, Vice-President, and thousands of "political
>appointees" in the executive branch merrily go about spending taxpayers'
>money on efforts designed solely for partisan political ends.
Now you've got it! Why SHOULD millions of Federal employees be kept
from campaigning... oops, you're right, that is a topic for some
other newsgroup...
Glenn Tenney
Democratic Candidate, U.S. Congress
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Should political speech be censored online?
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 92 0:12:41 PDT
From: Brad Templeton <brad@looking.clarinet.com>
While I can't comment on whether the Hatch act applies here (which
might mean that the moderator should use an independent site for
moderation) I will (for the Nth time) dispell the myth that commercial
(or political advocacy) messages are not "permitted" on USENET, or
mailing lists.
USENET is not the Internet. Even the NSFNet is not the internet.
The NSFNet and a dwindling number of regional networks have acceptable
use policies that restrict some, but not all, commercial uses.
USENET however, is a multi-national privately owned cooperative network
which happens to flow, in some of its links, over some of those
restricted networks.
Some suggest it is bound by those networks rules because of this. Would
they also suggest that if, say the South African networks over which USENET
flows banned postings by non-whites, that USENET would be so bound? Hardly.
Groups like comp.newprod, misc.jobs.offered (#2 group on all of USENET) and
others demonstrate the clear presence of, and demand for, the right kind of
"advertising."
Which is to say advertising that is novel, on-topic, non-hypish and not
repeated to death -- this is not just permitted, it is encouraged in the
right places. And moderated groups can ensure that only this sort of
desired commercial information is sent through.
[Moderator's Note: I stand corrected. ]
------------------------------
From: Colin Plumb <colin@eecg.toronto.edu>
Subject: Re: Should political speech be censored online?
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1992 04:02:56 -0400
[This is more to the moderator than the list, but the moderator may
post it if he likes.]
In article <comp-privacy1.1.5@pica.army.mil> you write:
> [Moderator's Note: I was the moderator of telecom-privacy. A couple
> of points: His submission was an announcement and a copy of his
> platform. To me there was little difference between his submission and
> advertising which is generally prohibited from the net. If a third
> party would have sent me something along the lines of "There is a
> candidate running on privacy issues and he believes in this and that"
> I probably would have publish it just like if a third party likes to
> reccommend something in misc.consumers. Dennis ]
H'm. this is tricky. On the one hand, this is obviously interesting
to readers of comp.society.privacy, and I'd like to hear what Mr.
Tenney has to say. The Hatch act legalese, well, I don't care. The
advertising prohibition, that's tricky. The real objection people have
is to *uninformative* advertising. Content-free prose like press
releases. (I find I can typically extract about three lines of
information out of a one-page press release.) Subtler things like
companies posting descriptions of their new products, participating in
debates over the virtues of their products, or even providing informal
support over the net (e.g. comp.sys.amiga.* is frequented by Commodore
employees), is generally tolerated as useful.
I think the objection is to having to spend time considering, and
providing transport mechanisms for, messages of advantage only
or mostly to the manufacturer. (Messages of interest only to the
poster are called "noise" and have a long history on usenet.)
I'd like to say that, as long as Mr. Tenney tries to keep his postings
informative and avoid an advertising tone, I'd support seeing his
postings. Possibly add a moderator's disclaimer, but as long as
it's of interest to a large number of people, I think anything you'd
accept from a third party, up to and including polite requests for
dontations, is acceptable. CS conferences regularly post announcements
to the net, which I actually think *is* advertising, but everyone
approves because it's sufficiently targeted that it's not wasting
their time. Comp.org.eff.*, gnu.* and so on.
On the net, it takes carefully reasoned prose to come across as anything
but a boor. You can't SHOUT, you can't play tricks with fonts, pictures
and background music, or many of the misleading tricks typically
pulled in advertising. You can outright lie, and engage in delicate
circumlocutions, but I'd really like to participate in an experiment
of real life politics on the net.
So please, as an experiment, give it a try. I really don't think you'll
get flamed too badly if you're careful about it. The official position
paper, prefaced by a "for the record, here is the official position paper,"
seems perfectly fine.
You may want to add a disclaimer of the form
[This originated at foo.netcom.com, a site paid for by the Elect Tenney
committee, and is being posted here on a trial basis, in the belief
that it is of interest to comp.society.privacy readers.],
and with that, I can't see any problems.
--
-Colin
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 92 8:24:23 EDT
From: Tim Driscoll <fdrisco@apg-9.apg.army.mil>
Subject: Hatch Act & Petitions
Speaking of the Hatch Act...does it allow a Federal Employee
to sign a petition advocating the placement of a name on the
ballot for president. Can't seem to get a straight answer on
this question.
[Moderator's Note: As long as it is not done on government property or
government time it is ok. Dennis ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Timothy Driscoll
fdrisco@apg-9.apg.army.mil
------------------------------
From: "Ehud Gavron 602-570-2000 x. 2546" <sunquest!spades.aces.com!gavron@uunet.uu.net>
Subject: Re: [Glenn S. Tenney: Should political speech be censored online?]
Date: 29 Apr 92 17:41:00 GMT
Reply-To: sunquest!Diamonds.ACES.COM!gavron@uunet.uu.net
In article <comp-privacy1.3.6@pica.army.mil>, abc@brl.mil (Brinton Cooper)
writes...
#
#Glenn Tenney argues that his political candidacy should be announced in
#this newsgroup/mailing list...
#
#Glenn Tenney fails to take into account a few things:
.
#
# 1. The computer from which this forum originates is on a U.S.
#Army installation and is under operational control of the U.S. Army.
#
# 2. The moderator of this forum is a federal civil servant. He
#is not directly responsible to the "Office of Special Counsel" but to
#his supervisor and the Commander of his installation.
.
If all these things prevent a law-abiding network-user
from posting a legitimate news article then perhaps
the list ought to be moved to where censorship and
policy do not impede freedom of expression.
#Such a finding would also likely result in the loss of the use of the
#moderator's installation computer to operate the forum.
Sounds like that would be A Good Thing because then the forum
could move to an _open_ forum.
[Moderator's Note: I believe this is an open forum. The purpose of my
moderation is to improve signal to noise ratio, cut out drop/add requests
from appearing in the forum, and establishing a USENET/mailing list dual
gateway. If I was a censor I certainly would not have allow Mr. Tenney
to start this thread in the first place. Dennis ]
#_Brint
Ehud
--
Ehud Gavron (EG76)
gavron@aces.com
------------------------------
End of Computer Privacy Digest V1 #005
******************************