From: anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson)
Subject: Liberties Civil or Otherwise (was Re: Civil War in Oregon)
Organization: Madison Academic Computing Center, UW-Madison
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 14:01:06 GMT


In article <1992Sep30.002712.4257@midway.uchicago.edu>
elle@kimbark.uchicago.edu (Ellen Keyne Seebacher), who, in
addition to having sponsored a number of fine
motss.con.mini.midwests, also ...

>Jess writes, in one of those rare articles I strongly
>disagree with:

... has the intelligence and grace to disagree with me but
rarely, and whom I would *never* cross on the subject of
spelling, for she is the ace of aces (I would have said the
queen of queens, but that could be too variously
interpreted), is in addition quite a fast talker, quite able
to get one by you before you even know what's happening.
But, swifty that I am, I believe I've found a flaw or two in
her argument.

I said:

>>I, for one, would object strenuously to any thrust along the
>>lines of Melmac's postings tarnishing Apple's image, ... or
>>mine on the University of Wisconsin, or Jack's on Netcom ...
>>the idea of an individual's views reflecting badly on their
>>employer or service provider boils down to a form of censorship.

>Employers != service providers.  And universities, with
>guidelines about academic freedom, are a completely
>different kettle o'fish from companies in the business of
>making money -- but even we have standards for what can be
>done with university-provided accounts.

I believe that's right, though I believe one could advance a
very cogent argument to the effect that colleges and
universities *are* service providers.

I cannot use my account to resell time or resources, and I
cannot let others use the account for any reason.  These
rules are fairly strenuously enforced (but they only *very*
rarely need to be).

The rules say that only work-related uses are allowed.
Here, an analogy to the office telephone is appropriate.  I
would never get in trouble for making a local call to make a
doctor's appointment or to see what time a friend wants to
go to the movies.  If a friend calls me at work (getting me
at home is well known to be impossible, since I'm online all
the time), I can talk as long as I please without anyone
getting on my case (subject to obvious prudence concerning
other things that may be happening in my office).

But I could never get away with making my personal toll
calls on the university's account; I must use my calling
card to charge them to the home number.  Makes sense to me.

A key point in all this is that colleges and universities
are institutions of soi-disant learning.  Among the ideals
are free access to information and open inquiry.  Laxity
about rules of various types often comes about because of
these ideals; there's a loose consensus that it's better to
put up with some confusion and even some clearly
questionable behavior, especially from individuals, than to
compromise those ideals for the larger body.

Nevertheless ...

>(As a news admin, I've had to step on people for harassment,
>chain letters, massive crosspostings, and a number of other
>things that most certainly did reflect badly on the
>University of Chicago.)

... things like that sometimes happen here too.

(I'll sidestep the whole issue of how universities are
 trying to cope with hate speech; it's interesting, but too
 far off the topic just now.)

But it's here, Ellen, that I thought you were a tad too
quick.  You say "most certainly did reflect badly on UC." I
think that bears more discussion.  

I readily agree that many people would say it does reflect
badly on the university if some schmuck gets really out of
hand.  But how is that different from the university having
in its library a manual on how to carry out acts of
political terrorism?  Does that reflect badly?  What about
the Bible or tracts on atheism?  In short, the popularity of
a point of view is a questionable measure of its suitability
in an academic environment.

The issue does *not*, I believe, boil down to mere
ownership of the means.  Where ownership is concerned,
the people of Wisconsin, all of them, own the resources
here (I realize UC is a private institution, with a
different environment).

But it is true that they don't all have the same kind of
access to resources I do.  We are about to provide new
dialin service (think of it as a 500-port terminal server)
to 80,000 users, which would include everyone in the campus
community and leave room for 15,000 more.  People are indeed
denied access to resources by the absence of funding and
infrastructure.

However ...

>>...I would think Melmac had been censored if
>>Apple disciplined him or terminated his contract because of
>>what he says on Usenet.  I would be quite happy for my ACLU
>>dollars to be used to defend his rights.

>What does the ACLU have to do with it?  Freedom of the press
>belongs to those who own one.

The analogy is weak because the people of Wisconsin *do* own
it, in our case.  It is weaker still, I believe, because
"belongs to those who own one" is not the principle the
Constitution supports.  Equality of opportunity, supported
indirectly by various amendments and precedents in
Constitutional law, is the issue, and that's how the ACLU
comes in, in my line of argument.

>(If annoying users want to make asses of themselves,
>they're perfectly free to do so from any public-access
>site.)

I realize this is a very common view.  But my counterclaim
is that if students can use the library to read about
sedition, they can use the network facilities to preach it.
The only alternative would be not to have networks, and of
course that's too high a price to pay, just to suppress a
few miscreants one might want to suppress.

To end up with reflecting on the institution, which is our
main topic, there are elements in your argument that seem to
me parallel to suggesting that children should not be taught
the alphabet because they'll learn how to spell naughty
words (this was actually proposed somewhere, and I cite it
because *that* reflects pretty badly on those who proposed
it, I'd say!).

Here at UW-Madison, we do not carry certain newsgroups.  I
call it censorship, pure and simple.  If there's anything
that reflects badly on my employer, that certainly
qualifies, far more than anything a student or other person
has ever posted from here.

-- 
Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin
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