Yet it is quite simple for any Web surfer anywhere to view files published this way. The details of its design give Publius another important property. The Federal Bureau of Investigation would not comment on how it might track down those who use Publius to put illegal material on-line. Publius thus appears to allow speech without accountability, and that is something fundamentally new. Deep Throat was anonymous, for example, but the Washington Post still had to defend its Watergate story in court.
Some nations go much further, of course.
Governments are working on international moral censorship schemes, observes Michael Sims of the Censorware Project. Companies are working on international economic censorship schemes. Publius, Sims says, is a response to this trend. When the censorship crosses their individual moral thresholds, some of them start to act in response. Publius has many obviously good uses, Rubin argues.