Re: CDT, RSACi, and "public service" groups (1/3)

[Tim May <tcmay@got.net>]

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At 9:18 AM -0700 7/25/97, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>---------- Forwarded message ----------

>On Thu, 24 Jul 1997, Jonah Seiger wrote:
>
>> We do not believe ratings are appropriate for news sites or sites that are
>> geared toward public discussion of political/social issues (CDT has refused
>> to rate our sites with RSAC).
>
>Of course that hasn't stopped CDT from, as I understand it, proposing
>a "public service site" exemption to RSAC, similar to the "news site"
>exemption.
>
>Under such an RSAC-PS scheme, organizations defined as legitimate "public
>service" groups -- and only those groups! -- would be exempt from labeling
>each of their pages for violence, nudity, and so on. After all, if CDT
>wanted to label and the RSAC-PS scheme didn't exist, they'd have to cordon
>off the portion of their site with the Pacifica decision as inappropriate
>for children. The RSAC working group discussed "public service sites,"
>according to RSAC head Stephen Balkam, during a conference call on
>July 10.

This echoes a similar dichotomy between the alleged "rights" of newsmen to
"protect their sources" and the rights of non-newsment to protect their
sources or confidants. I have never believed that a reporter for the
"Washington Post" has any more rights to refuse to disclose his
conversations than I have. The so-called "shield laws" seem to create
protected classes of the rights of free speech and association (and
"privacy" in a sense).

Same as with "religious confessionals." If I claim that conversations I
have are part of a priest-penitent or "confessional" relation--after all, I
am a prelate in the First Church of Odin--and the courts claim I am not a
"valid" religion....

Giving special status to some news organizations or some religious
organizations is a clearcut violation of the First.

--Tim May


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Pacifists: No  Government Officials: No  Nihilists: Yes  Anarchists: Yes
Vegetarians: Yes  Vegans: No  Homosexuals: No  Atheists: Yes
Caucasoids: Yes  Negroids: No  Mongoloids: Yes
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**SUMMARY**
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Composite Age Rating: 45 years