From: JROSSI@EAGLE.AAMRL.WPAFB.AF.MIL
Newsgroups: rec.music.synth
Subject: My last r.m.s. message, really (How to revoke privileges)
Date: 16 Oct 92 20:23:00 GMT


To Gints and anybody else who cares.  I have gotten the final word from the
Air Force system administrator at EAGLE.WPAFB.AF.MIL that I will loose
ALL e-mail privileges as soon as I logout today (or as soon as the EAGLE
autologs me out).  The person whom I apparently offended in a private
e-mail response (using the f-word among other things) to the person's
suggestion that I censor myself from making remarks about trans-sexuality,
Wendy Carlos, etc.. even after my apology, did indeed send a message to
"postmaster@eagle.aamrl.wpafb.af.mil" and appended my 'offensive' personal
E-mail to it.  That's all it took.  There was no room for debate and there
will be no recourse.  If you haven't noticed, I am sending through an Air
Force .MIL site.  The system administrators here, have jobs and livelyhoods
to worry about.  The Air Force is America's kinder and gentler force which,
up until the Tailhook incident, led the fight to insure pollitically
correct behavior (in order to keep the B2, among other things, free from
political scrutiny).  Now, put yourself in the position of a systems
administrator who has strict marching orders not to let anybody be offended
by anything connected with the Air Force.  There you have a situation
where I made an error of judgement (which, BTW, I admit), but in the
military one error in judgement (especially one which had political 
incorrectness written all over it) is all it takes.  

This thing goes well beyond my loosing net access.  With the abolition of
my EAGLE e-mail privileges, I have no access to e-mail of any kind.  This
hurts me professionally as well.  Being a scientist working in collaboration
with other people at 3 different universities, I have relied on internet mail
to do a substantial portion of my job.  I no longer have access to this 
communication route.  Additionally, being the systems manager here, I also
do a substantial amount of communicating throughout MILnet.  Explaining why
I can't receive official e-mail will not be particularly easy to my superiors.

Now, if you don't work in a military environment this may not really affect
you.  However, just because you are in a university do not think that you
are imune to this kind of treatment.  Universities receive the majority of
their funding from federal sources.  The same special interest groups
which put political pressure on the military have also been able to affect
universities.  Look at the censorship of ideas which occurs accross campuses
all over the country in the name of political correctness.  If you are
stupid enough to believe that university administrators give a flying f***
about gay/feminist/racial etc rights, think again.  University administrators
worry about funding.  Hell, the whole concept of freedom of speech has been
totally trashed in the last couple of years.  When Beno Schmidt (SP?) at
Yale, finally caves in the last acasemic bastion of freedom of expression.

Don't get me wrong.  I am not suggesting that I would like to see any
rights of the people who belong to special interest groups compromised.  I
do feel insulted that the forces of political correctness have made it
virtyally impossible to even stage rational debate.  At any rate, we are
loosing individual rights at an alarming rate.  It is a sad state of affairs
when your average ex-Soviet citizen has more rights than an American
citizen. 

So, I am forced to accept this situation as well as hope that it doesn't
blow up further resulting in more severe consequences than loosing e-mail
access.

I guess my final message for now is... If you really need your net access
then there are several things you must be willing to conceed.

1.  Don't be inflamatory and always nod your head in agreement with what
anybody else says.  You never know when the source of a simple disagreement
will force you into net.exile.  I doubt that a simple :-) will protect
you from the rath of the powers that be.

2.  Don't allow your net-reputation to label you as an extremist.  There is
always somebody listening who is equally extreme on the opposite pole. 

3.  If you can afford it, set up an account at a private computer service.
This will protect your livelyhood from enemies you might make on the internet.

4.  Don't mention Wendy Carlos and penises in the same sentence.

John