Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 12:07:40 -0500 To: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com> From: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com> Subject: Declan McCullagh Re: Steganography... Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 10:39:38 -0500 From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> To: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com> Cc: cypherpunks@lne.com, jw@bway.net Subject: Re: Steganography, My Ass: The Dangers of Private and Self-Censorship in Wartime Mail-Followup-To: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com>, cypherpunks@lne.com, jw@bway.net User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.2i X-URL: http://www.mccullagh.org/ Sender: declan@cluebot.com
I always enjoy Jonathan's essays, and this one is no exception. He properly points out the disturbing analogy that Attorney General Ashcroft seems to make ( http://www.politechbot.com/p-02900.html ) between criticism and treason. The craven broadcast media, as Jonathan says, buckling to government "please-don't-air-this" pressure is almost as disgraceful.
But a few points:
* Is it appropriate to use the powerful word "censorship" to describe what happened when the National Review dropped Ann Coulter? Coulter has other outlets that will publish her work; she is not muzzled. Like other news organizations with a certain perspective, the National Review has an implicit contract with their writers that says something like our-publication-has-a-distinct-point-of-view-and-we-don't-want-to-run- stuff-far-outside-of-it. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, it's reasonable to assume that she understood this implicit agreement when she signed up. More to the point, she (I recall) took her initial grievance over not running the column public and slammed the editors, who then axed her. Using "censorship" to characterize the facts of this dispute weakens the term for when it's really needed -- to describe government action that puts people in prison cells.
* Of course it's disturbing when government officials tell Americans to self-censor. But it is also important to note, lest this vital fact be lost in the charges of "private censorship," that I can think of no court action the government has taken to prevent people from speaking or publishing information about the "war on terror." A quick review of ( http://www.ncac.org/issues/freeex911.html ) doesn't show anything. Obviously phone calls from White House aides can have a chilling effect, but then again the news organization or ISP can stand firm and call the government's bluff. (And yes, I'd say this lack of such cases is due in large part to the actions of civil libertarians like Jonathan.)
-Declan
PS: Not all libertarians believe the "the public responsibilities of the press are a myth." It's entirely possible to reconcile that phrase with the idea that a newspaper is a for-profit business.
On Wed, Dec 12, 2001 at 02:29:18AM -0500, Matthew Gaylor wrote: > From: jw@bway.net
> To: freematt@coil.com
> Subject: Year Zero: Private and self-censorship
> Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 00:44:34 GMT
> < http://www.spectacle.org/yearzero/ >
>
> Steganography, My Ass:
> The Dangers of Private and Self-Censorship in Wartime
> by Jonathan Wallace jw@bway.net
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