A couple quotes from our favorite lawyers:
"...some starry eyed individuals who access the Net think of Cyberspace as a community, with rules, regulations and codes of behaviour. Don't you believe it! There is no community. Perhaps there was some truth in that concept in the past, when the Internet was used exclusively by a small, homogeneous group of academics and corporate technical researchers. Today, with Internet access available to everyone, Iway travellers reflect every heterogeneous nuance of the world population.Along your journey, someone may try to tell you that in order to be a good Net "citizen", you must follow the rules of the Cyberspace community. Don't listen. The only laws and rules with which you should concern yourself are those passed by the country, state and city in which you live. The only ethics you should adopt as you pursue wealth on the Iway are those dictated by the religious faith you have chosen to follow and your own good conscience."
- Laurence Canter & Martha Siegel ("the Green Card Lawyers"), from an early review copy of their book, "How To Make a Fortune on the Information Superhighway," 1994.
Martha Siegel, part of the legal duo that caused an uproar last April by sending e-mail messages advertising their "green card" services to 6,000 Usenet groups, thinks the Internet is prime for regulation: "(T)here's no great difference between communications through the computer and other media. That's why we believe the FCC should officially take control of the Internet, just as it has all other communications media.The Internet is too big and powerful to go without official regulation. The public needs to be protected, and we have no doubt it will be. In a very short time, the dust will settle, and the mainstreaming of the Internet will be complete."
- (Inc. Technology, Summer '95 p.44)
It's amazing that even in America, freedom scares some people. "The public needs to be protected" is just a weasel's way of saying "I won't take responsibility for my own freedom. I want government to control it. That way, I will never have to take the blame." This kind of spineless scum doesn't deserve to live in a free country, and I guess if they have their way, they won't.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Freedom=Responsibility.
Or as the Big B. Franklin put it, so many, many years ago:
"They that will sacrifice liberty in exchange for temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety."