[governance] Senate OKs Immunity for Telecoms

[Dan Krimm]

It is interesting to discover your personal history with Gilmore, as it
explains a lot about your evaluation of him and EFF.  In fact, your
feelings about Gimore are understandable in light of the extremity of
Gilmore's comments that you quoted (assuming you quoted them accurately and
not out of context, which I am granting without examining the details this
time, since I don't have lots of time to do investigative journalism right
now).

However, Gilmore is simply one of several board members of EFF, and he
doesn't "call the tune" there --  Shari Steele is the ED and she calls the
tune, with some general strategic and mission-setting direction from the
board as a whole.

As to whether Gilmore is a "raving lunatic" that is a rather extreme
statement of opinion that says as much about the speaker as it does about
Gilmore himself.  I can understand that, as an anti-spam professional, you
might well take umbrage at a blanket statement condemning your profession
whole-hog.  I don't agree with everything that John writes or says, myself,
and I am willing to grant that there can be and probably are at least
*some* "honest" anti-spam professionals out there, who wish only to empower
end users to better control who send them email messages, especially when
spam can contain viruses and other connections to malware, or simply con
people into doing things against their own interests.

But, John actually does not speak directly for EFF at all times, and you
would do well to distinguish his personal comments from any official
matters of EFF policy.  What EFF actually does in the courtroom is beyond
reproach, and that is chiefly where they should be judged, IMHO.

As for Gilmore, he is passionate about free speech, and bless him for that.
That is, he is not just passionate about defending the First Amendment per
se (which only applies to censorship of speech by government), but he is
passionate about freedom of expression in all contexts including presumably
"private" and commercial contexts (such as a commercial communication
network that people have come to reply upon for necessary communications).
I happen to share this mission myself, and proudly so.

Frankly, while I find spam annoying, and when taken to an extreme it can be
unquestionably disruptive and costly and sometime even dangerous, if I were
to be faced with a trade-off between freedom of speech versus controlling
spam I would without question choose freedom of speech over an anti-spam
stance in that specific context, whatever it is.

In *my* personal hierarchy of values, free speech trumps rejecting spam.
And that means that I agree in principle with the motivation of Gilmore's
statement is the sense that if we are to err in drawing the lines of such a
trade-off, we should undoubtedly err on the side of free speech.

And frankly (again), we will never get a "clean" world where we can avoid
such trade-offs.  You might just as well try to square the circle.  So
where anti-spam systems cross the boundaries and start to oppress free
expression (and along the way start to create gatekeepers of communication
and information, which is a profoundly dangerous political precedent, even
if it might seem to be framed with only commercial motives), I am
whole-heartedly on Gilmore's side, and I believe anti-spam systems need to
reined-in, through whatever means are necessary, including public sector
regulation if that's what it takes.  I suspect you disagree with me here,
and that's fine, but it's a matter of political values, not objective
"fact" as facts do not get into this value judgment beyond the point of
determining exactly what the trade-off is in the first place.

Democratic governments operate best (i.e., with the least corruption) where
there is transparency to ensure accountability (like the access to public
records afforded by the US Freedom of Information Act, however weak it may
yet be).  IMHO, the same applies to the private sector.  When "security"
concerns are used (as they have been in many contexts, both public and
private) to chip away at freedom of expression, we begin our path down
slippery slope.

Eternal vigilance.  Each generation must fight for it anew.

Dan

--
Any opinions expressed in this message are those of the author alone and do
not necessarily reflect any position of the author's employer.



At 4:13 PM -0800 2/16/08, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:
>Dan Krimm [16/02/08 14:52 -0800]:
>>In short, EFF may be involved in "propaganda" at times, but not *just*
>>propaganda -- their main activity is litigation in the public interest,
>>usually against either large monopolistic corporations (progressive) or the
>>government itself (libertarian).  While EFF takes strong stands on ICT
>
>Progressive? When it comes to innuendo, twisting truth around like pretzels
>.. they have Karl Rove beat.
>
>I've had a longish record of calling their bluff on one uninformed bit of
>anti antispam propaganda after the other, the last one being this -
>http://www.circleid.com/posts/eff_use_of_propaganda_karl_rove/
>
>It doesnt really help that they have a raving lunatic like John Gilmore
>calling the tune there.  His diatribe here prompted me to write that post by
>the way .. scroll down, rather nearer the end of the thread. Pasted below
>
>[quote]
>
>http://blogs.securiteam.com/index.php/archives/664
>
>#
>John Gilmore, on October 25th, 2006 at 9:24 pm Said:
>
>Spam is a problem but anti-spammers are a much bigger problem. (Communism
>was a perceived problem in the US in the 50s but Senator McCarthy and his
>unaccountable blacklists created a much bigger problem.)
>
>e360 was right to sue Spamhaus for operating a conspiracy to drive their
>email businesses out of the market. I have never found an anti-spammer who
>was honest. My own server is on most anti-spammer blacklists though I have
>never sent a single spam message, nor have I violated any other law
>relating to sending email. (They.ve made up a whole set of other rules of
>their own devising . that they claim I.m supposed to follow, otherwise
>they.ll interfere with my communication.)
>
>Delegating censorship decisions about your email . and even worse, your
>customers. email . to unreliable third parties is not only irresponsible,
>it also constitutes a conspiracy to deny service. Antitrust laws outlaw a
>majority of firms in a market from doing exactly that. (It.s like Intel and
>Microsoft deciding that their products will refuse to work on an AMD
>processor.) Even worse, anti-spammers like Vixie or spamhaus deliberately
>block more people than the spammers, in order to blackmail those people
>into joining the conspiracy.
>
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