From: nobody@REPLAY.COM (Anonymous)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: April 1: Esther Dyson announces ratings partnership with Vatican
Date: 1 Apr 1998 20:03:32 +0200
Organization: Replay and Company UnLimited
Message-ID: <6ftvhk$2tn@basement.replay.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: basement.replay.com


DisAssociated Press International (DIP) - April 1 1998, Rome. Today,
Esther Dyson, a leading expert on cyberspace and chairwoman of the
Electronic Frontier Foundation, announced a strategic alliance which
spans the oncoming future of technical standards-setting of the
Internet and the ancient past of the Vatican. The partnership will
revive Rome's nearly extinct Holy Office of the Inquisition, and put
the power of the Church behind widespread efforts to deploy ratings on
the web.
        Said Mather Torquemada, the current holder of the position of
Vatican Censor, "We're very excited about the possibilities offered by
all Dyson has shown us. From PICS to censorware, there's so much we
can do to advance our mission. In the old days, we had a big problems
with our Index of Prohibited Books. It was hard to update and
difficult to distribute. Now we can be as on-line as the heretics".
        Not all reactions to the alliance were positive. Several
civil-libertarians pointed out the history of book-burning and torture
of authors by the Inquisition. Freedomfire, a group with authors who
had already been listed as blasphemous and candidates for death by
torture, strongly decried an implied endorsement of censorship
inherent in the partnership. But Dyson brushed aside such concerns,
stating "What organizations like Freedomfire seem to forget is that
the issue here is not that there should be no content control, but
that there should be no content control imposed by government. As long
as people are free to choose the Prohibited Web Index or avoid it, this
is not censorship, but optional filtering."
        Mike Godwin, staff counsel for the EFF, agreed, adding "Free
speech protects even the most offensive speech. We all have free will.
People have to understand that calling for an author to be burned at
the stake is just as protected under the First Amendment as anything
else". Moreover, he said the ACLU or American Library Association
had the same right to publish lists of books to be burned or authors
to be killed.
        The final word was given by writer Lirpa Sloof, who said "Just
as you can find satanic messages by playing records backwards,
spelling my name backwards gives you an important message about this
article even if you couldn't figure it out earlier."