From: kadie@eff.org (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Computers and Academic Freedom News 02.40 (Digest)
Originator: kadie@eff.org
Organization: The Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 14:14:57 GMT

Computers and Academic Freedom News
Vol. 02, No. 40


----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: emr@eff.org (Elizabeth M. Reid)
Subject: Article 0 -- Abstract of CAF-News 02.40

[Week ending August 16th, 1992

========================== KEY ================================
The words after the numbers are a short PARAPHRASES of the
articles, or QUOTES from them, NOT AN OBJECTIVE SUMMARY and
not necessarily my opinion.
===============================================================

   [Many issues are in production - Carl]

Notes 1 to 5 concern the censorship of materials on the basis of
alleged obscenity (as defined by a recent Canadian Surpeme Court
decision).  This debate arose in the wake of some Canadian
institutions' removal of the Usenet alt.sex hierarchy.

1. "Deciding something should be censored because it could have
indirect negative effects is not a stand against pornography, it's a
stand against the whole notion of free speech... The strength of free
speech [is that] you get to hear as much as you wish to hear from
whomever you care to listen to, and then make up your own mind about
what the truth is."
    <n+3m#f+.barry@netcom.com>

2. "Considered as a whole, alt.sex has scientific, political,
literary, and artistic value and therefore should not be banned as
obscene...  The actions of the administrators show the chilling
effects of the law. Because the law is so vague and because it
provides no easy way to ask for definitive clarifications, such
effects are inevitable."
    <1992Aug11.112000.4307@m.cs.uiuc.edu>

3. "I am not [in favour of] censoring reasoned argument that, for
instance, "women like rape" or "children like sex with adults" (much
as I abhor that position).  I am for censoring certain material that
makes no arguments, presents no opinions, and can have the effect of
reinforcing and encouraging rapists and child molesters."
    <1992Aug11.183602.4348@cs.sfu.ca>

4. This article gives a list of cases in which material has been
threatened with censorship on the basis of obscenity in the USA since
the 1930s.
    <TSDAVIES.92Aug13021657@rodan.syr.EDU>

5. "Pornography, and by this I'm referring to the explicit display of
women for consumption by men, is part of the reproduction of cultural
meaning in our society.  It DOES discuss ideas. It addresses the
question of what is the cultural standard for a sexually desirable
woman, and what her power relation is to the man who can have access
to a commodified version of her sexuality through the purchase of a
representation of this idealized sexuality."
    <1992Aug15.213252.22415@sfu.ca>


Notes 6 to 10 concern whether Usenet sites should refuse to receive
newsgroups which contain copyrighted materials.

6. While I am strongly opposed to censorship based on notions of 
offensiveness, I am tempted to follow a policy that newsgroups 
which are used to distribute demonstrably illegal materials should 
not be carried.
    <BsxH08.GE8@mtholyoke.edu>

7. The exclusion of illegal newsgroups would be in line with library
policies, which state that "1) laws should be obeyed 2) legal advice
should obtained from compete sources 3) restrictive laws should be
challenged (with legal means) 4) and that challenged material should
be given due process."
    <1992Aug13.180458.9340@m.cs.uiuc.edu>

8. If it could be argued that Usenet was a common carrier then only
the posters of illegal material would be legally help accountable.
However, the common carrier argument has never been tested and ignores
the heavily state funded nature of the Internet and therefore Usenet.
    <1992Aug13.195436.19296@telematics.com>

9. "While USENET is certainly a service and a priviledge, at an
ACADEMIC institution most people consider it quite inappropriate for
any person or committee to judge what material is acceptable and what
is not."
    <BszFJn.5HF@mtholyoke.edu>

10. "After reading other people's views on the issue, I have decided
that for the time being I will continue my current policy of carrying
everything, and if I am challenged on it by my superiors, will
strongly recommend AGAINST restricting the flow of News through our
system in any way."
    <BszA6L.2E9@mtholyoke.edu>


Note 11 contains an article by Jim Boyce which appeared on July 14th
in the Wilfrid Laurier University's student newspaper, the Cord.  It
is posted with his permission.

11. After a student brought the matter to the attention of the
newspaper, questions have been raised at WLU about a program used by
Computing Services to find "profane" file names.
    <1992Aug13.182157.5688@m.cs.uiuc.edu>

- Elizabeth]


In this issue:

Kenn Barry       76  >"Computers graphic when it comes to porn"
Carl M. Kadie    49  >
Jamie Andrews   236  >
Real life Ha!   145  >
Theresa Kiefer  117  >
Jurgen Botz      48  Groups used to distribute illegal material
Carl M. Kadie    41  >
Ted Goldblatt    46  >
Jurgen Botz      61  >
Jurgen Botz      61  Follow-up: illegal material in newsgroups
Carl M. Kadie   100  WLU sys admins search out "nasty" filenames and passwords


Computers and Academic Freedom News

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------------            

------------------------------

From caf-talk Caf Aug 11 03:20:49 1992
From: barry@netcom.com (Kenn Barry)
Newsgroups: news.admin,alt.censorship,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,sfu.general
Subject: Article 1--Re: "Computers graphic when it comes to porn"
Date: 11 Aug 92 02:43:17 GMT

In article <1992Aug10.072814.6300@sfu.ca> laidley@fraser.sfu.ca (Jennefer Anne Laidley) writes:
>Isn't
>it the case that, in the vein of your argument, those same legal
>rights which it seems you uphold should be questioned?  And shouldn't
>they be questioned with regards to the biases which those who created
>them necessarily brought to them?  And what about the power of those 
>founding fathers who added the 1st Amendment?  What biases were they 
>bringing to their work?  Or is to do this to take the questioning a
>touch too far?  Should we only be questioning those ideals, like
>censorship, with which we do not agree, and not those, like freedom of
>speech, with which we do?

	Of course you get to question all these things, including the
wisdom of free speech, itself. As I told Jamie, speaking in favor of
censorship is a right that the idea of free speech protects. But what
questions do you _have_? Make your case, and let's discuss it.

>In article <xczmsjg.barry@netcom.com> barry@netcom.com (Kenn Barry) writes:
>>I know that the way to counter lies is with
>>truth, not suppression. Censorship only increases the harm, and dilutes
>>freedom with the very tyranny we claim to oppose.
>
>And what kind of truth do you propose we counter lies with?  Who's
>truth? And who is to determine which truth is truly true?

	Exactly! That is the strength of free speech. No one is
competent to give final answers to these questions, that's one of the
reasons it's important to let everyone have their say. You never know
where a bit of truth may turn up.

	The determiner is you. You get to hear as much as you wish to
hear from whomever you care to listen to, and then make up your own mind
about what the truth is. The democratic leap of faith is that this
procedure will allow the people to make reasonable decisions most of the
time. Or, at the very least, that it's better than the alternative of a
controlled debate. That causes tyranny.

>Could it be,
>despite your disbelief of the studies which seem to point to a
>correlation between the proliferation of porn and violence against
>women, that they may indeed be the truth which you believe might be
>the solution?

	Anything is possible :-). I don't want to suppress their
studies, you know. As I said before, looks irrelevant to me...

>My point does not revolve around any
>studies, but simply around what you seem to be most vociferous in
>(and capable of) arguing against - the determination by the select
>few of what is or should be true for the majority.

	Sorry, you've lost me. What "determination of the select few" do
you refer to? I'm arguing for a free market of ideas.

>>imagine that the ability of porn to
>>encourage sexism and sexual violence is established. Now what? The
>>Declaration of Independence provoked a lot more violence and death, in
>>a far more immediate fashion....
>
>What point are you trying to make?  That there is a continuum of
>events in which people are hurt, and that somehow those that score
>higher on the continuum are more worthy of note? 

	My point is simple: deciding something should be censored
because it could have indirect negative effects is not a stand against
pornography, it's a stand against the whole notion of free speech.
Political and religious speech is far more "dangerous" for the
same reasons it's far more important than porn. The "harm" standard
for censorship _necessitates_ the suppression of ideas.

-  nothing fails like success  -          Kenn Barry
----------------------------------------------------------------
ELECTRIC AVENUE:                          barry@netcom.com


------------------------------

From caf-talk Caf Aug 11 09:06:39 1992
From: kadie@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Article 2--Re: "Computers graphic when it comes to porn"
Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1992 11:20:00 GMT

kadie@uiuc.edu (Carl Kadie writes:

>|A problem is that very, very, very little of the material in alt.sex
>|is obscene by the new Canadian definition, and yet the whole newsgroup
>|has been removed from several universities.

clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis) writes:

[...]
>When you find that the corn has individual kernels laced with strychnine,
>that it's not practical to screen it, and the consequences can
>be rather nasty of letting some of the contaminated stuff through, you
>have to dump the load.
[...]

No studies have claimed that sexual material is anywhere near as
dangerous as poison.

I offer a closer analogy. In the U.S. (and likely in Canada, but I
don't know for sure) the old laws against sexual material said that if
any part of the material was obscene, then it was all obscene. The
effect of this was to outlaw material that many thought had merit,
including, Miller's _Tropic of Cancer, Hemingway's _For Whom the Bell
Tools_, Joyce's _Ulysses_, and Guttmacher's _Complete Book of Birth
Control_. Because of this undesirable effect, the Courts changed the
standard so that (in the U.S. at least) material can be obscene if
(among other things) considered as a whole it is without value.

By analogy, considered as a whole, alt.sex has scientific, political,
literary, and artistic value and therefore should not be banned as
obscene.

[...]
>The actions of individual university administrators can hardly be
>considered to be definitive on what the courts (or even the police)
>view as obscene.
[...]

The actions of the administrators show the chilling effects of the
law. Because the law is so vague and because it provides no easy way
to ask for definitive clarifications, such effects are inevitable.

- Carl

-- 
Carl Kadie -- kadie@cs.uiuc.edu -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign


------------------------------

From caf-talk Caf Aug 12 01:43:46 1992
Newsgroups: news.admin,alt.censorship,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,sfu.general
From: jamie@cs.sfu.ca (Jamie Andrews)
Subject: Article 3--Re: "Computers graphic when it comes to porn"
Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1992 18:36:02 GMT

     One more round at least.

In article <xczmsjg.barry@netcom.com> barry@netcom.com (Kenn Barry) writes:
>...suppression of
>"porn" is a Victorian phenomenon and was little-practised before the
>19th century.

     That is, little-practised when the media had very little
distribution and most people were illiterate.

>	The genuinely long-standing tradition behind the suppression of
>porn is the tradition that Authority has the right to control speech.
>That is the tradition the founding fathers of the American system took a
>stand against when they added the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution.

     I find it interesting that for each clause in the US
constitution there are 100 different and conflicting
interpretations of what the "founding fathers" really intended
with it.  Please find something in the Constitution which
refers specifically to rape or child pornography.  I would doubt
that the "founding fathers" were even aware that it could exist.

     In any case, once more, we are talking about CANADA here.

>... But I know that the way to counter lies is with
>truth, not suppression. Censorship only increases the harm, and dilutes
>freedom with the very tyranny we claim to oppose.

     Again you are generalizing the argument and then taking
examples from the specific area that falls outside what I was
talking about.  I am not against censoring reasoned argument
that, for instance, "women like rape" or "children like sex with
adults" (much as I abhor that position).  I am for censoring
certain material that makes no arguments, presents no opinions,
and can have the effect of reinforcing and encouraging rapists
and child molesters.

>	If, as you mentioned earlier, you want to be philosophical, you
>should defend the philosophical basis of that exception. "Harm"
>arguments are beside the point, in that if some vague, spread-out
>social harm becomes the grounds for censorship, nothing is safe.

     No, I think that "harm" is exactly the basis of what I am
saying.  You diminish certain freedoms (like Absolute Freedom of
Speech) so that other freedoms are reinforced more strongly.
Your "nothing is safe" is just a rephrasing of this irrational
fear that censorship will lead to Stalinism.

>>But again, our position on censorship is a combination of
>>empirical evidence and philosophy, and we can surely use the
>>empirical evidence to whatever extent we find reasonable.
>
>	There is no empirical evidence, period.

     Do you equate the phrase "empirical evidence" with
"absolute proof"?  I would never advocate accepting seriously
flawed experimental evidence, but I'm not doing that.  I think
you've been reading the empirical evidence with your Absolute
Freedom of Speech blinkers on, Kenn.

>The theory behind the
>exception goes like this: porn expresses no ideas; rather, it is akin to
>a sideshow entertainment, whose only justification is titillation.  The
>intent of the 1st Amendment is read as protecting the free expression of
>_ideas_, and since porn expresses no ideas, it is not under the
>protection of the 1st Amendment.

     That's about what I feel too, though I would say "opinions"
rather than "ideas".  The difference between me and the
lawmakers you speak of is that I don't believe that titillation
is inherently wrong.  Titillation that reinforces seriously
damaging behaviour is.

> ...[Some antiporn people] accuse porn of supporting and defending pernicious ideas:
>sexism, the dehumanization of women, etc. Ironically enough, were that
>actually true, it would vacate the logic of the traditional "obscenity"
>exception, and give porn the same protection that any other work of
>politics or philosophy enjoys.

     I'm not one to support the Dworkinist position that
_Playboy_ dehumanizes women to an extent demanding legal
sanction, but let me just say that you've got this wrong.  It is
not an idea, but an irrational prejudice that is being reinforced.

> By making "obscenity" the deciding factor, it keeps the
>logic of the censorship restricted to porn, and is useless for censoring
>something like _Mein Kampf_ which, however offensive and harmful, is not
>sexual and cannot be found obscene in that sense.

     "Offensiveness" is (IMHO) irrelevant.  Harm is more
relevant.  There are other laws in Canada which prevent things
like "Mein Kampf" from being published as-is, which incidentally
would probably not prevent an annotated edition from being
published.  But arguing about this would take us way away from
the argument about a.s.b.

>Once we accept the notion that something should be censored because its
>effects are more negative than positive, there is no theoretical limit
>on what may be censored.

     I still fail to see the difference between this and traffic
laws.  Just because there is no theoretical limit does not mean
we're going to turn into a Stalinist state.

>If skin flicks should be censored because they're
>demeaning to women, doesn't it follow that a well-written and persuasive
>philosophical essay that argued the natural superiority of males must be
>censored on the same grounds?

     No.  See above, on "opinions".  (And before someone says
for the 10,000th time "who are you to impose your views on me",
let me say for the 9,999th time that I am just adding my
opinions to the pot, and that the decisions are made by
lawmakers, judges and juries, same as anything else.)

>	Think it through, Jamie.

     Oh please Kenn.  What is this, "proof by patronization"?
I have been thinking it through for about 15 years, reading the
literature and philosophical arguments very intently.  It was
only recently that I finally decided what I think about rape
and kiddie porn; you will notice that I do not include other
sub-classifications in my arguments, and that I can be found on
soc.women from time to time arguing against the Dworkinist
position that non-violent porn encourages violence.  (And for
you ad hominem fans, no, my personal tastes do not dictate my
views.)

> The terrorist
>(and his bosses) are responsible for blowing up the building, not Karl
>Marx or Mao ZeDong or the authors of PLO manifestos; the rapist is
>guilty of the rape, whether porn had a negative effect on his character
>or not.

     Well, I can think up other analogies (such as incitement to
riot).  I think this is where we have to agree to disagree.

> You need to make up your mind.

     Dear Papa Kenn, my mind is made up already.  But I'm open
to argument.

> Maybe the censorship of what
>was worthwhile in [a.s.b] strikes you as a necessary and reasonable
>price to pay to suppress the obscene stuff; if so, say so, don't claim
>such a price won't have to be paid.

     Sure, I'll say so.  If _Playboy_ published "Cindy's
Torment", I would be for censoring it too, regardless of what
other worthwhile stuff it had in it.  If _Playboy_ doesn't want
to be censored, it won't publish stuff like that.  Likewise
a.s.b.  The institutions in question took a reasonable action to
avoid legal consequences.

> No one presently has the
>power to control what gets posted to the group. If you give someone that
>power you've got censorship, and all that entails. You certainly _don't_
>have Usenet any more.

     This is disingenuous, Kenn.  You and I both know that
Usenet chugged along very well for many years with admins
cancelling other people's articles all the time.  That _was_
Usenet.  It's only on the liberated altnet that people are now
claiming the "right" to post anything, anywhere.

>... You've
>argued right along that porn is censorable because it demeans women...

     No I haven't.

> and
>encourages sexual violence against them.

     Certain kinds do.  I'm not a Dworkinist.

> Well, I've decided to change my
>name to John Norman and write a philosophical work arguing that the
>natural role of women in society is as slaves to the men, and that a
>firm hand (beat 'em up occasionally) is best.

     Fine.  I'll argue against your *opinions*.  If you progress
into all-out fictional glorification of rape (as Norman never
has done), I'll want it censored.  Note, *I'm* not going to
censor it -- I'm just adding my $.02.

>>     So if, say, someone were to produce a magazine called
>>_RAPE_, with erotic stories involving women getting raped and
>>loving it, pictorials of rapes (produced by consenting adults,
>>of course), and features like "How to Convince People You're Not
>>a Rapist Anymore", and if they were to distribute this magazine
>>in prisons for convicted rapists, you would think that's OK?
>
>	One technical quibble: convicted felons don't have full legal
>rights; temporarily depriving them of these rights is part of the
>justice process.

     Oh I see, so you *don't* believe in Absolute Freedom of
Speech.  Where else are you for abrogation of this important
Right, Kenn?  Copyright law, by any chance?  Incitement to riot?
Conspiracy to commit murder?  Gee, I guess Freedom of Speech is
just another right, to be balanced against others.

>>Sorry, but that's not the kind of society I want to live in.
>
>	You already do.

     Obviously what I meant was that I don't want to live in
a society where that's legal.

> Censorship has _never_ succeeded in suppressing
>anything people want.

     Neither have murder laws.  Should we throw them out too?

     Sigh.

     The people who pass around the pen-and-ink drawings of
children having sex with adults, and the stories glorifying
rape, do not need official blessing for what they're doing. 
They don't need reinforcement for the feeling that acting out
their desires is a good way of dealing with their pain.  What
they need, for their sake and ours, is to understand that doing
these things is wrong; understand at a deep, emotional level,
which goes beyond rational argument and into the realm of
therapy and emotional healing.

     Many of them understand it already.  Others don't.  The
rights of the people who understand it are not more important
than the rights of the victims of the others.

--Jamie.
  jamie@cs.sfu.ca
"Every \item command in item_list must have an optional argument." LaTeX pg.168


------------------------------

From caf-talk Caf Aug 13 16:42:31 1992
Newsgroups: news.admin,alt.censorship,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
From: tsdavies@rodan.syr.EDU (Real life?  Ha!)
Subject: Article 4--Re: "Computers graphic when it comes to porn"
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 92 02:26:07 EDT


Carl> == Carl Kadie <kadie@m.cs.uiuc.edu>

Carl> *  Has textual material been found to be obscene in Canada or the U.S.
Carl>    since _Ulysses_?
Carl> *  Has a university ever been found guilty of obscenity?
Carl> *  Has a university even ever been charged with obscenity?
Carl> *  Did the university administrators bother to get legal advice?
Carl> *  Did the university administrators bother to discuss the issues
Carl>    with representatives of the faculty and students?

Carl> (To the best of my knowledge, in every case, the answer to all these
Carl> questions is "no").

I can't speak to the rest of the questions, but the answer to the
first is definitely "yes".  (I suspect you may be right on the others,
though.)

To name a few (the _Ulysses_ decision is made in 1933):

	1943-5	Various crime magazine distributors are prosecuted
		for distributing various crime magazines under New
		York obscenity law.  (Law struck down by the U.S.
		Supreme Court in _Winters_ v. _New York_.)

	1946	Edmund Wilson's _Memoirs of Hecate County_ is seized
		by John Sumner (the head of the New York Society for
		the Suppression of Vice) under State obscenity laws.
		(Upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in (I believe)
		_Doubleday_ v. _New York_.)  The book was not republished
		in the United States until the 1960's, by a subsidiary
		of Farrar, Straus, and Young.

	1955	Samuel Roth imprisoned on charges of sending obscenity
		through the mails (including advertisements and the
		third issue of _American Aphrodite_, a hardbound
		magazine which contained Aubrey Beardsley's "Venus and
		Tannhauser" -- upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in
		_Roth_ v. _United States_). 

	1958	The University of Chicago suppresses the Winter 1958,
		issue of the _Chicago Review_, which contains material
		by Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs.  This
		material was published in the first issue of _Big
		Table_ in March, 1959, (by the editors who resigned
		from the _Chicago Review_), and is seized by the
		United States Post Office, and ruled obscene by the
		Post Office's hearing examiner.  It is set free by
		Judge Julius Hoffmann under _Roth_ v. _United States_.

	1961	Henry Miller's _Tropic of Cancer_ is published by
		Grove Press and is declared obscene in various parts
		of the country.  The book is finally freed by the U.S.
		Supreme Court in _Grove Press_ v. _Gerstein_ (decided in
		conjunction with _Jacobellis_ v. _Ohio_, which involved a
		film by Louis Malle called _The Lovers_.)

	196?	_Fanny Hill_ is found obscene by the Supreme Judicial
		Court of Massachusetts.  Overturned by the U.S.
		Supreme Court in 1966, in _Memoirs of a Lady of
		Pleasure_ v. _Massachusetts_ [?].

	1963	Proceedings against William S. Burroughs' _Naked
		Lunch_ are begun in Massachusetts on the grounds that
		it may be obscene.  (Won in appeal in the Massachusetts
		Supreme Judicial Court in 1966.)

	1966	Ralph Ginzburg's conviction on charges of distributing
		obscenity through the mails is upheld by the U.S.
		Supreme Court in _Ginzburg_ v. _United States_. 

	1973	In _Miller_ v. _California_, the Supreme Court upholds
		the conviction of a distributor of illustrated books and
		films which were held to violate California obscenity
		law, and partially redefines the conditions under
		which an item can be found to be obscene.

Other prosecutions and decisions since then mostly deal with films,
photographic images, and artistic performances; including the various
attempts to pass anti-pornography legislation; the arrest of Dennis
Barrie, the director of the Cincinnati, Ohio, Contemporary Arts Center
in 1990 for the presentation of Robert Mapplethorpe's "homoerotic"
photographs; and the actions of the U.S. Congress to establish limits
on NEA grantees.

Carl> Thus, I don't think the legal fear is rational.

In _Redrup_ v. _New York_, the U.S. Supreme Court laid out a decision
which implied "that consenting adults in the United States ought to be
constitutionally entitled to read and acquire any publication that
they wished -- including concededly obscene or pornographic ones --
without governmental interference."  (de Grazia 1992: 516)  In
_Stanley_ v. _Georgia_, the Court "held that adults had a constitutional
right to possess, read, or watch concededly obscene books and films in
the privacy of their homes."  (de Grazia 1992: 516)

The Burger Court chose to limit the interpretation of this decision to
the facts, however, and deny that the decision "implied that people had
a constitutional right to exhibit or sell such materials outside the
home, or that anyone had a constitutional right to bring them to his
home, for example, from abroad." (de Grazia 1992: 516)  In July, 1990,
"the Rehnquist Court further narrowed the principle by holding that
the right of Americans to read and watch anything they wished in the
privacy of their homes did not include 'child pornography.'" [In
_Osborne_ v. _Ohio_.]  (de Grazia 1992: 337)

So there's an opening there, but chances are that the current Supreme
Court would not look favorably upon a case asking for sanctioning of a
constitutional right to read "obscene" Usenet News (in one's home,
business, dorm room, school terminal room, etc.).

Carl> I think it is more likely that administrators want to avoid the
Carl> real risk of publicity, even at the expense of academic freedom.

Their attempts to control bad (or potentially bad) publicity over
incidents like this one often result in even more bad publicity from
the response to the attempted suppression/cover-up.  This is often
good publicity for the artists/persons/groups under attack, who can
get a great deal of free publicity.  (E.g.: 2 Live Crew.)

Carl> Finally, although bans may solve publicity problems in the short
Carl> term, in the long term it not only hurts academic freedom, it
Carl> also opens a university up to bad publicity as folks make demand
Carl> after demand for bans of material that they don't want other
Carl> folks see. 

(Which you said.  ;-) )

Source:

de Grazia, Edward

	1992	_Girls Lean Back Everywhere: The Law Of Obscenity And
		The Assault On Genius_.  New York: Random House.

		(ISBN: 0-394-57611-X, $30.00)

--
"If a man slept by day, he had little time to work.  That was a satisfying 
notion to Escargot." 		-- _The Stone Giant_, James P. Blaylock
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
T.S. Davies		tsdavies@mailbox.syr.edu		SHC, DS


------------------------------

From caf-talk Caf Aug 15 18:29:02 1992
From: kiefer@connext.ucs.sfu.ca (Theresa Kiefer)
Subject: Article 5--Re: "Computers graphic when it comes to porn"
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1992 21:32:52 GMT

 
In sfu.general article <1992Aug14.184417.32@NCoast.ORG> you wrote:
> As quoted from <z=5my6g.barry@netcom.com> by barry@netcom.com (Kenn Barry):
>
As someone who has been following this debate for quite some time, I think
It would be wise to recall the original purpose of the discussion - ie. the  
question of the graphic material on the altnet system at SFU...  This is a very  
concrete circumnstance, and the abstract debate concerning freedom of speeck  
notwithstanding, one that continues to require a serious response.  IMHO, the  
issue here comes down to the question of whether it is legitimate for an  
institution of higher education, that claims to be so strapped for cash that  
they've cut back on scholarships this fall, to dedicate some of these precious  
resources to the provision of  material that couldn't even be displayed in the  
Dean of Arts office, and which, moreover, makes some students incredibly  
uncomfortable.  The needs of this particular community need to be taken into  
account when determining what material is appropriate to the public computer  
monitors in labs around campus.  I wouldn't feel too damn comfortable if  
someone I had to work beside was busy admiring the commodified sexual display  
of some man or woman - especially if this activity was being conducted by  
several fellow students.  We don't sell soft-core porn magazines on this campus  
for much this same reason; that doesn't mean I think that it shouldn't be  
available anywhere, just that as a woman at SFU I don't want to be confronted  
with it as part of the social environment I have to accomodate myself to in
order to get an education.
 
> > 	I suspect I know how porn affects people: it makes some bad
> > people worse, some good people better, and most people it don't have
> > much effect on at all :-). That's how most things seem to work, after
> > all. The Bible probably helped turned a man that was good to begin with
> > into St. Francis of Assisi, but it also likely helped turn Torquemada
> > (whom I suspect was a _rotten_ kid :-) into the Grand Inquisitor.

It affects everyone, but the causal link between violence and pornography in  
this discussion has been a little bit too simplistic.  The argument linking  
porn to violence is really a little more subtle than either side of this debate  
have acknowledged.  Pornography, and by this I'm referring to the explicit  
display of women for consumption by men, is part of the reproduction of  
cultural meaning in our society.  It DOES discuss ideas. It addresses the  
question of what is the cultural standard for a sexually desireable woman, and  
what her power relation is to the man who can have access to a commodified  
version of her sexuality through the purchase of a representation of this  
idealized sexuality.  IMHO, the exploitation of women through porn can't be  
separated from advertising and other media in our culture that address women  
only in their role as consumers, and which presents their sexuality in the form  
of a commodity that they exchange in their relations with men for security and  
other values that they are presumed to be incapable of acquiring on their own.   
Pornography is particularly pernicous, though, because it exposes women's most  
intimate selves, through a representation that is designed purely for its  
ability to provide voyeristic pleasure to others they individually may not ever  
choose to relate to in this manner, and through its mass distribution, porn
exposes a homogenized idea of women's sexuality to the culture at large.  This  
idea is designed for male consumption in a patriarchial context.  This is not a  
version of our sexuality that women have chosen for themselves - it has been  
imposed with as much authority as any censor could muster, in fact more so  
because these values are internalized by women themselves.  The number of women  
today suffering from eating disorders is proof enough of the extreme  
difficulties many women experience trying to remake their bodies according to  
these images so that they can reclaim the sexuality that is denied them because  
some men defend the right to freedom of expression.

> 
> An EXCELLENT point.  If we can have a Pornography Victims Compensation Act, 
> there's no constitutional reason why we can't have a Religious Doctrine  
Victims
> Compensation Act.  Anybody who claims that a LOT more people HAVEN'T died 
> under hideous circumstances, because of religion, is being diplomatically 
> speaking, "differently honest"....

Yes, many people have suffered due to religious persecution.  This is a far  
more serious type of discrimination than being asked by your sysadmin not to  
store 2nudes.gif on SFU's system.  The patriarchy of traditional religion and  
sexism share more than a few values in common, however.

Pornography also reproduces power relationships between men and women.  It 
confirms in the minds of men and women that its OK for women to be objectified.
Studies of rape and violence together with pornography consistently show that  
it is the link between these concepts that is explosive in terms of inciting  
violent attitudes in viewers.  There is no question that exposure causes  
desensitization to the material shown.  This does not establish the link  
between an individual's attitude and their tendency to act in a violent manner,  
but it does affect what in considered by the culture to be acceptable.  Where  
the net effect is a society that is increasingly violent, and indifferent  
toward the violence perpetuated toward women, the question of what factors  
contribute to that violence must be answered.  I suspect that violent
pornography might play a role.  I also suspect that non-violent porn, which  
purports to compensate men who feel increasingly helpless in their daily lives  
by offering them a representational power over women's sexuality, also  
consitutes an element.  Both of these factors contribute to a climate where  
human contact is reduced to the level of commodity exchange, and in which tacit  
social approval is granted to the idea that women's sexuality exists only to  
satisfy men's desires and on men's terms.

The question of censorship is a tricky one, however, because censors after all,
exist to censor, and they don't usually act in the interests of women when they  
doit - they act as representatives of the state, and this is problematic to say  
the least.

However, at SFU, I think it is safe to say that the removal of the alt.sex  
groups will not prevent anyone from having access to pornographic ideas if  
these are of interest to them.  All they have to do is turn on the television,  
if they want access to the ideas.  Sexually explicit pictoral material is  
available in many places.  I'm not so sure the discussion groups should have  
been cancelled, since these were often a legitimate forum for discourse, and do  
not intrude on people wandering through a given lab in the way that an  
unencoded .gif file has a way of doing...  Freedom of speech is not absolute.
In a community, such as SFU, it is both relevant and important to consider the 
needs of the various constituants in order to provide a tolerant and inclusive
environment for learning.  This includes the unlearning of sexism.

Theresa Kiefer  
kiefer@sfu.ca
> 
> 
> 


------------------------------

From caf-talk Caf Aug 13 12:52:45 1992
From: jbotz@mtholyoke.edu (Jurgen Botz)
Subject: Article 6--Groups used to distribute illegal material
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 15:14:31 GMT

As a news administrator for a site relatively new to the Net, I have
recently been giving _much_ thought to the issues surrounding certain
controversial newsgroups.

I am extremely opposed to censorship, and we are currently receiving
everything we can get our hands (well, our lines) on.  But since our
news user population is growing rapidly, I expect that it won't be
long before someone here tries to make a stink about the fact that
there is pornography available on our computer systems.  In preparation
for that day I have formulated many good arguments against restricting
the available material, which I'm sure I don't need to repeat here
as this has been discussed countless times.

However, while I think that it is easy to demonstrate that merely
controversial material such as the postings to alt.sex.bondage and
similar groups should not be restricted, much of the material posted
to alt.binaries.pictures.erotica is _illegal_ and therefor quite hard
to defend.  (The illegality of this material stems from the fact that
much of it is distributed in violation of copyright -- this means
that it is illegal not only in the U.S., but in most of the world.
There are other legal issues around the occasional depictions of
bestiality and child pornography, but these appear to be rare enough
that they are not as much of an issue.)

Furthermore, I am somewhat personally offended that such a relatively
large percentage of the total bandwith used by my news feeds and
store are used for such morally questionable purposes by a presumably
tiny fringe group of network users who appear to feel that it is their
natural right to waste everyone's resources with their trash.

In summary, while I will fight tooth and nail against censorship in
general when the issue comes up with the local powers-that-be, I am
tempted to concede that newsgroups which are used to distribute 
demonstrably illegal materials not be carried.  I am fully aware of
the complications and problems with such a policy, but I would like
to see some further discussion of this topic.  I fear that if such
discussion does not take place, the future of the entire Altnet is
in peril as the Newsnet becomes more mainstream and gets exposed
to greater scrutiny.

--
Jurgen Botz                  |   Internet: JBotz@mtholyoke.edu
Academic Systems Consultant  |     Bitnet: JBotz@mhc.bitnet
Mount Holyoke College        |      Voice: (US) 413-538-2375 (daytime)
South Hadley, MA, USA        | Snail Mail: J. Botz, 01075-0629


------------------------------

From caf-talk Caf Aug 13 14:13:29 1992
Newsgroups: news.admin.policy,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,misc.legal,alt.censorship
From: kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Article 7--Re: Groups used to distribute illegal material
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 18:04:58 GMT

[A reply to an article in news.admin.policy]

jbotz@mtholyoke.edu (Jurgen Botz) writes:

[...]
>much of the material posted
>to alt.binaries.pictures.erotica is _illegal_ and therefor quite hard
>to defend.  (The illegality of this material stems from the fact that
>much of it is distributed in violation of copyright -- this means
>that it is illegal not only in the U.S., but in most of the world.
[...]

In my opinion, it is ok to exclude a newsgroup if it is illegal. I
think this position is supported by library policies. They say that 1)
laws should be obeyed 2) legal advice should obtained from compete
sources 3) restrictive laws should be challenged (with legal means) 4)
and that challenged material should be given due process.

Also note that in the U.S., material is not obscene unless when taken
as a whole, it lacks "serious literary, artistic, political, or
scientific value". In my opinion, alt.sex etc., when taken as a whole,
have such value. Copyright and libel laws don't use the "taken as a
whole" test. However, the case law suggests that if you don't know
(and can't reasonably be expected to know) about the violations, you
are not responsible for them.

As an example of what not to do, consider Iowa State University. It
decided to restrict alt.sex without previous notice or discussion.
When challenged it justified its action by referring to an obscenity
law that 1) says alt.sex is not obscene and 2) explicitly exempts
educational institutions.

I'm enclosing quotes from library polices, followed by on-line
references and information about the Computers and Academic Freedom
mailing list.

- Carl

================ Quotes from Library Policies =====================

------------------------------

From caf-talk Caf Aug 13 17:40:43 1992
From: ted@telematics.com (Ted Goldblatt)
Subject: Article 8--Re: Groups used to distribute illegal material
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 19:54:36 GMT

In article <WBE.92Aug13142802@crystal.bbn.com> wbe@bbn.com (Winston Edmond) writes:
>
>   As a practical matter, you can estimate the risk of carrying a group by
>determining what percentage of the stuff in the group is clearly illegal
>(copies without permission of copyrighted material in this case).  If, in
>your opinion, the illegal stuff is a significant fraction of the total, don't
>accept the group into your site.  At worst, anyone getting their feed of that
>group from you will have to find another feed.
>

The problem that was (at least implicitly) raised was not just risk to
the receiving site, but risk to Usenet (or the greater entity that
includes alt.*, anonymous FTP, etc.) as a whole.  There are both 
legalities and realities involved.  Considering a.b.p.e, at a guess
half(?) of its traffic could be considered to violate copyrights, 
the other half (:-)) violates community standards _somewhere_.
(other groups probably have a lower (but non-trivial) level of
such "problems".

If a purely common carrier argument could be maintained, then only
the posters and (possibly) receivers of such materical could legally
be held accountable.  However, this argument has never been tested,
and further, it ignores some of the reality issues.  The major
reality issue is that Usenet is heavily supported (at least in the 
US) by the taxpayers (the NSFNet and most of the regional backbones
have at least some public funding; most (if not all) .edu sites
receive some (if not all) of their funding from public sources).
Legal and moral arguments raised by lawyers and bible-thumpers
could resonate with Joe Taxpayer, or with a publicity seeking
politician (remember Proxmire and the Golden Fleece Awards).  This
could seriously impact us, even if the law itself was not a problem.
I don't know if similar problems could exist elsewhere in the world.

I'm not arguing for the elimination of a.b.p.e (we get it here :-))
or any other group, and I don't have a proposal to make.  I just 
think that arguing "you people are closed-minded" or "just don't
get the group if you don't want it" is both insulting to those
that raise a (potentially) serious issue, and is short-sighted.

ted
-- 
Ted Goldblatt    ted@telematics.com     (305) 351-4367
    Telematics Intl., Inc.   Ft. Lauderdale, FL


------------------------------

From caf-talk Caf Aug 14 15:33:16 1992
From: jbotz@mtholyoke.edu (Jurgen Botz)
Subject: Article 9--Re: Groups used to distribute illegal material
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 16:38:10 GMT

In article <neuhaus.713788374@vier> neuhaus@vier.informatik.uni-kl.de (Stephan Neuhaus (HiWi Mattern)) writes:
>Hi.
>
>I have read the ongoing discussion in this group with interest at
>first.  However, when I thought of it some more, I found that all of
>the followups seem to have ignored one central issue:
>
>  If a University or company offers a news feed, it is offering a
>*service*.  Usenet is not yet a right, it's a privilege.  A University
>or company has every right to control how their computers are used.
>After all, they belong to the University or company, not to the
>students or employees.  In analogy, a newsstand does not have to carry
>each and every available newspaper or magazine.  If I, as the
>newsstand's owner, find magazines containing porno photos, fascist
>propaganda, leftist propaganda, etc. unacceptable, I will not sell
>those magazines which will probably only take up shelf space anyway.

No, I think you're missing the point, entirely.  The question you're
addressing has been discussed at great length over years, and what it
boils down to is that while USENET is certainly a service and a 
priviledge, at an ACADEMIC institution most people consider it quite
inappropriate for any person or committee to judge what material is
acceptable and what is not, i.e. you either offer it all, or you 
don't.  (See Carl Kadie's articles on University Library policies.)

But the issue I raised isn't one of judging what's acceptable, but
rather one of what is legally justifiable.

>[...] but students or employees must not be punished for reading any
>group once it's available, and tracing who reads which newsgroups
>must not be done.

I can't imagine that anybody would disagree with THAT.

>  In direct answer to the original poster, I believe you should not
>play God yourself and simply cancel the groups.  You should ask for an
>official policy, if only to get your head out of the sling.  If you
>cancelled newsgroups at your own will, that would be arbitrary and
>despotic, even if those groups carried copyrighted or otherwise
>illegally published material.

That is not a direct answer to the original poster (me).  8-).

I have no intention of playing god.  (Why can't people ever read
articles carefully before replying?  Sigh!)  In fact, I very explicitly
stated that my interest in resolving this was to determine what my
recommendation to the powers-that-be should be when they come down
on my ass.

>  I would like to thank the poster for his rational tone, which has
>done everything to avoid unnecessary flamage.  Well done!

Thank you very kindly!  ;-)
--
Jurgen Botz                  |   Internet: JBotz@mtholyoke.edu
Academic Systems Consultant  |     Bitnet: JBotz@mhc.bitnet
Mount Holyoke College        |      Voice: (US) 413-538-2375 (daytime)
South Hadley, MA, USA        | Snail Mail: J. Botz, 01075-0629


------------------------------

From caf-talk Caf Aug 14 11:37:31 1992
From: jbotz@mtholyoke.edu (Jurgen Botz)
Subject: Article 10--Follow-up: illegal material in newsgroups
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 14:42:20 GMT

Less than 24 hours after posting my initial article raising this issue,
there are about 30 follow-ups in news.admin.policy and I have received
again as many replies via e-mail.

Many excellent points have been raised.  A surprisingly small percentage
of the total traffic was pure "you're a fascist censor" noise.

To summarize, after reading other people's views on the issue, I have
decided that for the time being I will continue my current policy of
carrying everything, and if I am challenged on it by my superiors, will
strongly recommend AGAINST restricting the flow of News through our
system in any way.

The main reasons for my decission are...

o  A considerable quantity of copyrighted material is posted to groups
   other than a.b.p.e.*, so monitoring groups to determine which groups
   carry illegal material, and which don't, appears impractical.

o  It seems likely that the legal responsibility for distributing
   copyrighted material rests with the poster.

o  There seems to be a good chance that a "common-carrier" type argument
   can be applied, and by making policy decissions on what to carry and
   what not to carry I'm more likely to hurt than help this argument.

o  If (when) this issue does result in law-suits, it is unlikely to be
   here at my small institution, and more likely will involve an organization
   such as UUNET which is already prepared for this eventuality and has
   formalized it's policy on the issue.

Those are my personal reasons for my decission, but the issue remains.

I think we will do well to discuss further what the impact on the
Altnet and USENET will be when this issue does get exposed to public
scrutiny.  Maybe one should start a directed campaign to discourage
the posting of copyrighted materials?  (After all, there does appear
to be a fair amount of "amateur" pornography posted to a.b.p.e which
can continue).  Not that I would expect such a campaign to have much
immediate impact, but again, I think it might in the best interest of
the Altnet to demonstrate that the majority of it's readership does
not condone it's use for the distribution of illegal materials.

I would like to repeat once again that I'm very much against censorship,
and that my primary reason for bring this issue up in the first place
is because I fear that the illegality of the materials under discussion
will serve as wellcome ammunition for those who would advocate broad
censorship of everything they do not like.  In fact, I'm sure it has
already happened at several sites that the entire Altnet was discontinued
because someone successfully argued that it was being used to distribute
illegal materials.
--
Jurgen Botz                  |   Internet: JBotz@mtholyoke.edu
Academic Systems Consultant  |     Bitnet: JBotz@mhc.bitnet
Mount Holyoke College        |      Voice: (US) 413-538-2375 (daytime)
South Hadley, MA, USA        | Snail Mail: J. Botz, 01075-0629




------------------------------

From caf-talk Caf Aug 13 14:37:16 1992
Newsgroups: alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,alt.censorship
From: kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: Article 11--WLU sys admins search out "nasty" filenames and passwords
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 18:21:57 GMT

[This article, by Jim Boyce, jboyce1@mamut.wlu.ca, appeared on July
14th in the Wilfrid Laurier University's student newspaper, the Cord.
It is posted with Jim Boyce's permission.]

     Questions have been raised about a program used by Computing
Services to find profane file names. In May, The Cord obtained
computer printouts from Kathy O'Grady, a student, which showed
that the program was running as recently as last October and was
designed to search through accounts in a section of the computer
system and find files with the words "cunt", "shit" and "fuck" in
their names.
     O'Grady said she had been sceptical of rumours about the
program's existence until last summer when she saw it operating
(it could be viewed by typing a computer command which causes all
running programs to be listed on the screen). She said she
continued to check the system regularly during the summer and the
fall and found it several more times. Copies of the program were
saved on computer and printed out by her and two other Laurier
students as proof.
     Carl Langford, the Systems Administrator, said the program
was started up two or three years ago and discontinued after a
few weeks. The program discovered last year by O'Grady and other
students was left running by mistake, he said, and had evaded
detection because it ran sporadically and late at night. "As I
recall, it was set to fire up at some ungodly hour of the
morning," he said, but added that no action was taken with the
results.
     Hart Bezner, Director of Computing Services, said the
program operated routinely during the mid-eighties, "but it [the
language] cleaned up so we quit looking." He also said that it
may have been running as recently as the past year: "there was
one occasion when we had a complaint and that must have been
within the last six months, maybe eight months, and I think we
ran it two or three nights on all six unix machines to see how
big the problem was."
     Bezner, however, was not explicit as to what was done with
the results from the program. A former Laurier student has told
the Cord that the password to his account was changed last
October, a few days before he had an assignment due. His password
included the word "fuck" [in reference to a Kurt Vonnegut novel]
and he said that when he contacted Computing Service, he was told
he would have to get a new one: "They said that the computer went
through and deleted nasty words".
     Bezner would neither confirm or deny that such incidents had
happened saying that no account had ever been cancelled but it
was, "quite possible that we changed a password".
     Langford and Bezner gave two reasons for intially creating
the program.
     First, according to Bezner, there had been many complaints
about profane file names during the mid-eighties. Some of these
complaints came from within Computing Services: "When the
operators do file saves, the names of files roll past and they
appear on a printout or a screen or both... and what triggered it
was a file called `curly cunt hairs'."
     Others came from computer users. Bezner said that during
these years output from the laser printer carried file names in
"inch-high letters" on the front page: "people flipping through
their output would come across these words and it just wasn't
very nice."
     He said that only the names of files were checked and never
the contents.
     Secondly, according to Langford and Bezner, two students
complained to Computer Services after seeing profane file names
on terminals that other students were using. The program was then
run to discover the degree to which profanity was being used.
     When asked whether those students should have been looking
at the terminals Bezner said, "it happens quite accidentally"
when they are passing by. He explained that the computer room was
a public place and equated the incident with someone going into
an elevator and seeing a swear word written on the wall.
     Kathy O'Grady, who has been the using the computers daily
for more than two years, disagreed with such a comparison:
"[Graffiti] forces the public to look at it, that's the whole
point of graffiti, it makes people look at it.... When I'm typing
in the main computer room I don't expect somebody to come up and
look at what I'm writing."
     Furthermore, it does not explain why a password should be
cancelled since it is known only to the user and cannot be seen
by anyone else.
     O'Grady said she talked to a professor several times during
the fall and winter about the program but decided to pursue the
matter further and contacted Bezner. She said she wrote to him
via computer mail and asked for an interview because she was
thinking of writing an article for The Cord. Bezner responded
with the following message: "If such a program still runs, it is
a hangover from the distant past when such words were less
acceptable. The program certainly doesn't appear to take any
action. Will look into it. HB." (February 10, 1992).
     O'Grady said that she has not seen the program running since
that time but has concerns that it might be "masked" or kept
dormant until she has left the university. She continues to check
for it regularly and maintains her opposition to such actions by
Computing Services: "it is totally ridiculous for any individual
or small group of individuals to determine the language that
students, or even professors, use."



--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@cs.uiuc.edu -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign




------------------------------

End of Computers and Academic Freedom News (Digest)
************************************
-- 
Carl Kadie -- I do not represent EFF; this is just me.
 =kadie@eff.org, kadie@cs.uiuc.edu =
Newsgroups: alt.grad-student.tenured,soc.college,soc.college.grad,soc.college.gradinfo,uchi.general