[Imc-tech] Re: [Imc] Website Issue

[John Wason]

At 11:38 AM 11/29/02 -0600, Mike Lehman wrote:

>John Wason wrote:
>> It's not my interest at this juncture to explore Andrew McRae's guilt or
>> innocence, or his phyche.  (Yes, I've read the articles now.)  My concern
>> is that he arguably had some valid things to say in his two posts.  And I
>> don't feel that I am associated in any way with his actions unless I choose
>> to be.  Even then, the only way I'd be associated with his actions would be
>> to express approval or disapproval.  That by no stretch of the imagination
>> makes me an accomplice or accessory to the murder of the police officer.

>My problem with his posts is that he takes a very well-reasoned set of
>arguments against corporate domination and conflates it with his
>obviously insane idea that his example of committing a random killing of
>a cop will do anything effective to attack corporate abuses. I know that
>you know that this is ridiculous. The problem is all the readers steered
>here by dominant media reporting on this who will jump to the conclusion
>that this otherwise well-reasoned point of view represents anything
>except the delusional state of McCrae's mind.

I don't think the IMC can worry about or be responsible for what readers
think or how they respond.  Nor do I necessarily think that McRae was
insane or delusional.  Are all the Palestinian suicide bombers insane?
Were the Buddhist monks who set fire to themselves in protest of the Viet
Nam War delusional?  I certainly don't think that violence, to oneself or
to others, is the optimum means of effecting social change, but neither do
I think that brutal repressive regimes are particularly receptive to calm,
rational persuasion.  For IMC and First Amendment purposes, at any rate, I
think that all points of view should be allowed free expression.


>You're obviously a fair-minded person who can logically differentiate
>the nuances involved in this situation. The problem is both the current
>repressive political climate and the fact that most of those who oppose
>the Indymedia project have no interest in being fair-minded and
>objective about this situation.

That can't be helped.  Those repressive folks will always be around, and
the IMC exists precisely to counteract their ignorant and strident voices.


>I seriously doubt that IMCs would act on their own to turn info over to
>the authorities in the absence of legal process. But we have no control
>over what law enforcement might do to us to get what they think they
>need in an investigation. We have taken certain steps that make any such
>attempts to exploit the IMC network moot by simply not retaining any
>identifying records in most cases. But if the real objective is to shut
>down IMCs, the authorities will not make such distinctions when they are
>simply fishing for an excuse to attack us.

Again, if the alternative is voluntary suppression of speech out of fear of
repression, the IMC has lost its way and its primary purpose.  The idea of
not maintaining IP logs is, of course, a good one.


>The problem with the fact that any such attack would be without legal
>foundation is that the law seems to be no impediment to the government,
>particularly since 9-11. We would still incur large costs in defending a
>position, even if we ultimately prevail. Oftentimes, the fact that such
>a large cost would be imposed on an innocent, but disfavored party, is
>EXACTLY why the government may choose to attack us in an ultimately
>insupportable way. The drain on resources would undermine our ability to
>conduct our mission, which they can't attack directly.

All that I understand, but I still think that IMCs have to take the risk.
If there's expensive litigation, they/we have to hope that the ACLU or
other attorneys concerned about the First Amendment will step in.  William
Kunstler and other similar attorneys of the 60s come to mind.


>The First Amendment cuts both ways here and in most such cases which are
>addressed by the Steering group. People do have the right to speak their
>minds, as provided for under the First Amendment. However, the First
>Amendment also doesn't force us (a non-government body) to continue to
>publish anything that doesn't fall within our very broad website use
>policy. So the First Amendment applies to BOTH the author's decision to
>post what they do AND to our right to decide whether such material
>should continue to be openly displayed on our website.