Maybe you had to be there, but I can't seem to discern who's right and who's wrong in this dispute.

Dennis claims to have just posted quotations without an agenda, and in that he's invoking an old precedent, exemplified by the Dan Spires News Service (the main reason I still read Current Events). I take Dan's article posts as informational--Dan's gathering information and funneling it back to the Zone for our edification.

But it's also true that sometimes people speak through the words of another. Usually it's clear from the context, the classic pattern of a person's opinion followed by a citation that backs up the position. It's ambiguous when there's nothing but a quote.

I'd like to suggest letting this one slide, while adopting a convention in the future of indicating the purpose of a quote. A simple line like "quoted without comment" at the front or in the subject line would serve to distance the poster from the words, and convey the message "let's talk about this"; conversely, taking a position for or against would eliminate ambiguity. Best to not hide behind another's words--join them or reject them. Take a stand.

Afterall! Habitablezone.com is not a government or state run website.

Sadly enough, the US Government is waging a war on civil liberties, including freedom of speech, as part of its war on terrorism. I've received a couple of dozen copies of the BadTrans.B worm in the last week, and I suspect that BadTrans.B is really the FBI's "proposed" Magic Lantern surveillance software. They also have a serious proposal on the table to force server operators, like me, to install software to let the government easily monitor email and BBS message traffic.

I think that it's going to be up to us ordinary people to defend civil liberties--we certainly can't rely on the government to respect our rights. We can start by showing the utmost respect for freedom of speech, and by treading very lightly in the minefield of censorship and banning and shunning. We should value our dissenters as members of an endangered species, and be wise enough to realize that we could be next to be muzzled.

--Robert