Re: Porn Lists (Maybe Off Topic)

On Sat, 24 Jul 1999, Allen Smith wrote:

> On Jul 23, 11:51pm, Dancer (possibly) wrote:
> > It's always ultimately under the control of a human. Humans decide what
> > to block. The machine merely does what it is told to do. In my
> > experience, blocks, once set are never removed, because the human who
> > blocked them no longer cares, and cannot justify the time to check.
>
> The idea that it's ever proper to block information is exactly why,
> despite having some (to me, at least) good ideas on improving Squid's
> regexp et al code, I don't intend to implement them outside of our
> usage (and may not bother inside our usage, since maintaining them
> alone would be quite a bit of a headache). I would make an exception
> on this if Squid's maintainers made an exception in the license
> disallowing this usage, at least of any code I submitted.

I am very willing to pay someone to research and maintain a blacklist of
sites that match my criteria. People must want this, or so many copies of
NetNanny and CyberPatrol would not be sold.

> Quite simply, I refuse to contribute to censorship. The First
> Amendment to the US Constitution (which, BTW, prohibits public
> institutions in the US from using censorware, although not all of them
> have gotten the message yes) is not just something that should be
> applied inside the US - it's a good idea everywhere. (I have,
> incidentally, previously participated in making it more difficult for
> countries to block controversial information, in this case Neo-Nazi
> information which Germany wished to block.)

I believe you need to understand the meaning of the words "censorship" and
"first amendment". The first amendment states: "Congress will pass no law
abridging the right of free speech." The operative word is "Congress".

Much like if you wish to state your opinion, and pass out leaflets, you
could not do it on my front lawn. I would have you arrested, and thrown
in jail. If you wish to provide a pron site, you won't have an audience
on the other side of my proxy.

I plan to provide a service, which people voluntarily subscribe, to filter
sites which fit a certain criteria stated up front. This is not
censorship, it's property rights. The right to do with my equipment what
I will, the right to decide what will flow over my segment from the
internet.

> -Allen

--Tony

(I hoped to stay out of this one. There are few greater first amendment
advocates than me).

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