[governance] Senate OKs Immunity for Telecoms

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

Dan Krimm [17/02/08 13:10 -0800]:
>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.

Let us put it this way. It is not just Gilmore. There are multiple EFF
deeplinks, blog posts by various EFF people etc etc that all use the same
theme, the same "meme" shall we say.. for xample, the "goodmail is
blackmail" meme turned up on dearaol.com, eff deeplinks, politech posts etc
etc. If it was just one guy ranting, I can always killfile and ignore him.
If it is an entire organization with pernicious policies that they decry
when (say) swift boat and karl rove do these, then I react.

I will not post further about this here, as it is off topic for this
mailing list. But I will post these few URLs here. And then welcome further
discussion offlist.

http://www.politechbot.com/2006/04/15/debate-over-dearaolcom/

Some other posts summarizing history - though there's a lot more -

http://www.politechbot.com/2006/04/15/details-on-how/
http://www.politechbot.com/2006/04/13/why-was-moveonorg/
http://www.politechbot.com/2006/04/15/john-gilmore-on/

>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.

I have seen similar themes expressed, as I said, in EFF deeplinks,
soundbites to reporters etc etc. Certainly not the extreme language Gilmore
has used on occasion. But still, with a lot of attention to propagating a
meme. For example, 

Brad Templeton says "protection racket"
http://ideas.4brad.com/node/373
"One particular disturbing thing about the goodmail program is that it
reminds me a bit of a protection racket."

So ok, a personal blog post again. Then there's this EFF deeplink.

Cindy Cohn on goodmail, in an EFF deeplink - calls it a shakedown
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004398.php
"And prepare to be shaken down if you run a noncommercial mailing list"...

Now, "blackmail", "shakedown", "protection racket"... see the common theme?

>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

I do hate slippery slope arguments.  They are always the first to be
trotted out in such cases, and rebuttal takes quite some time though they
are patently absurd [yes that is a logical fallacy of some sort but its
late, i am just off a plane in sanfran after 16 hours in the air, so ..]

	srs
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