On Fri, 12 Mar 2004 16:06:04 -0500, Nathaniel Borenstein wrote:
With respect, I think this argument is going nowhere because
some of us want to discuss it in terms of property rights, and others
of us want to discuss it in terms of human rights. I believe that
communication should be viewed as a human right, and that property
rights can and should be limited where necessary to ensure those rights.
I propose we recenter this discussion on our mission, which is
enhancing communication. With that in mind we can ask ourselves whether
--on the evidence--hypothetically protective measures like blacklisting
are useful or not for enhancing communication (not just for one person
but for the entire community of users). Property rights and human rights
issues are not irrelevant but they are not central to this discussion.
At the moment the Internet is lawless. We are discussing among ourselves
what measures the community can take until law comes, and enforcement comes.
Issues like abuses by (hypothetical) monopolies are peripheral. I don't
have all the answers (though I have formulated one which I think is a good
one, see URL below) but I believe "will it enhance communication" is the only
way to approach the problem in the current state of lawlessness.
Jeffrey Race
<http://www.camblab.com/misc/univ_std.txt>