[Notes: the forum took place on 15 February 1994. Speakers included Jim Kalbfleisch, provost; Sally Gunz, chair of the Ethics Committee that recommended the banning; Jeffrey Shallit, associate professor of computer science; and me. I had a severe cold and could barely keep my balance or think on that day. Fortunately, I spoke from a prepared text.]
I don't know why I was asked to speak at this forum. I have no public axe to grind on this issue; my research isn't relevant; and I have no legal training. I may be a disappointment to many of you here. I suspect that what you want is a battle with heroes and villains. You want big bad ogres like Jim Kalbfleisch to speak in bureaucratic tones, and you want knights in shining armour like Jeff Shallit to skewer the ogres (metaphorically) while you cheer. Well, I'm not going to be a hero or a villain.
I want to start by telling you about the last time I heard the phrase "freedom of expression" spoken in a lecture hall. About a month ago, I attended a talk given on campus by the editor of the Sarajevo daily newspaper, called "Liberation". Shortly after the Bosnian conflict began, they came under attack, because they upheld the ideal of a multiethnic, cosmopolitan society. Their modern ten-story building was pounded to rubble by mortar fire. They dragged some of their equipment into a fallout shelter in the basement and continued to put out the paper. Snipers make it too dangerous to move in and out of the bunker freely, so most of the staff takes seven-day shifts. Every day, a few journalists take turns going out and selling the paper on the street. Some of them have died doing this. I wanted to ask why anyone bothered to put out a newspaper under such circumstances, but the editor told me. He said, "We felt it was important to try to preserve our freedom of expression."
I tell you this story to point out that no one in this room is going to be able to occupy the moral high ground. The moral high ground is already occupied, by those journalists in a basement in Sarajevo.
I respect my colleague Jim Kalbfleisch. I don't agree with all the decisions he's made in this job or his last one, but he has a tough job to do keeping this place running -- and for the most part, it runs pretty well. I don't like his being part of an autocratic management team which can announce a process one day and its results on the very next day.
I respect my colleague Sally Gunz. As a woman in academia, she continues on an uphill struggle. Chairing a University-level committee is not easy, especially one which constantly has to deal with complex and difficult situations. I don't like the lack of explanation or supporting material for the decision her committee took, or the narrow legal terms in which the decision was framed, leaving open questions like "Roughly how much illegal material must appear, and in what sort of newsgroup, before it is removed?"
I respect my colleague Jeff Shallit -- as a scientist, a teacher, and an activist. He brings his energy and zeal to a wide range of causes, and he often says things that I'm thinking but don't dare articulate. I don't like his approach to freedom of speech, which I will call "First Amendment absolutist" -- all freedoms granted by the First Amendment to the US Constitution are rights and some of the ones not granted should also be rights. Furthermore, this is true not only for the US in 1994 but for all societies at all times.
I respect the organizers and the audience, for putting time and energy into something that won't show up on a transcript or resume. I don't like the way the organizers are trying to portray this forum as "neutral" while publicly stating their opposition to the ban. As for the audience, I don't really know what you think. If you're for the ban, I don't like the way you are accepting it without worrying out loud about possible precedents and implications. If you're against the ban, I don't like the way you're calling for a reversal without trying to find the germ of truth in the administration's concerns and coming up with fresh proposals to address those concerns.
Having criticized everyone in the room except myself, I will now proceed to berate you a little more.
I'm tired of this debate. I'm tired of hearing it focussed in narrow terms: You're either for censorship or you're against it. You're either for obscenity or you're against it. You're either for freedom of speech or you're against it. You're either for misogyny or you're against it. Things are rarely that black and white.
I'm tired of debate itself -- of small skirmishes over a hundred minor points where no one wants to give an inch, where the goal of the whole exercise is to be able to proclaim, "I win, you lose." Why are the dominant metaphors for intellectual activity all drawn from warfare?
I'm tired of cheap sarcasm, reductions to the absurd, slippery slope arguments that deny the capacity of human beings to form rational judgements. I'm tired of legal and technical hairsplitting.
I'm tired of people mentioning censorship and in the next sentence pointing out that all of the material in question remains accessible by a one-line UNIX command.
I'm tired of "freedom of speech" being used as a three-word mantra -- repeat it often enough and you can justify anything. Freedom of speech is not absolute -- none of our rights are.
I'm tired of rights talk, of every situation where human beings are in conflict being framed as a "clash of rights". I always thought that in most situations involving conflict, all parties involved have all their rights, and that what is needed is some political resolution, some compromise acceptable to all involved. Oops, I used the forbidden C-word, "compromise". I know how much that word upsets some people.
I'm tired of students demanding absolute freedoms from a university while accepting passively, even willingly, on co-op work terms and in permanent jobs, a repressive corporate culture in which these freedoms are sneered at. When the dust clears from the upcoming battles, and Time-Warner-Paramount-QVC-Viacom-Rogers-MacleanHunter-BCE acquires what's left of Ontario Hydro and thereby owns every wire running into your house... if there's ever a conflict between your perceived right to freedom of speech and their perceived right to make money, who do you think will win out? They don't even have to pull the plug on you; they can just raise your access cost until you reconsider your stand. Oops, another forbidden C-word -- "cost". I must be more careful.
The university isn't a democracy; it's run like a corporation, albeit an odd one that allows some autonomy and some dissent at lower levels. You don't have a say in what newsgroups are removed. You don't have a say in who is hired to teach you, who is tenured, how your tuition fees are spent, not even what meal choices you are offered in residence. I don't have a real say in who is hired as my colleague, or as my administrator. Is that right? Probably not. But the problem is organic. You can't expect your opinion on newsgroups to be heard and considered when you don't get heard and considered on anything else. If I were a Machiavellian administrator, I could think of no better diversion than to remove a few newsgroups and let people expend their energy having them restored.
I'm tired of the phrase "academic freedom" being used out of context. It, too, is not absolute.
I'm tired of technology being passively accepted. Ursula Franklin writes, "Many of the political decisions related to the advancement of technology and the provision of appropriate infrastructures are made on a technical level, far away from public scrutiny. But these decisions do incorporate political biases and political priorities which, in a technical setting, need not be articulated. As far as the public is concerned, the nature of the decision, and its often hidden political agenda, becomes evident only when the plans and designs are executed and in use. Of course, at this point change becomes almost impossible." This is exactly what has happened with Usenet.
I'm tired of technology being used to justify evasion of responsibility and accountability. The net can be used to violate obscenity laws, to violate publication bans, to promote racial hatred, to utter death threats -- without any accountability or any responsibility on the part of the passive reader. People say, "We can't do anything about these problems without shutting down the whole net." Ursula Franklin again: "Let me emphasize that technologies need not be used the way we use them today. It is not a question of either no technology or putting up with the current ones." There are other alternatives -- but if we don't find them by the time the courts, the legislatures, and the people of this country get sufficiently concerned, then they just might shut Usenet down.
I'm tired of people comparing the net to the phone system. Usenet is a broadcast medium -- the most unregulated broadcast medium I know of. We have not, so far, consented to allowing individuals the power of wide broadcast without any accountability. Perhaps it's time to permit this. But that's not a decision for you or I to make alone.
I'm tired of people saying "if it offends you, don't read it". The whole point of laws on obscenity or hate literature is not to protect the sensibilities of some innocent bystander, but to protect society as a whole.
Finally, I'm tired of seeing the phrase "reprinted without permission" used on the net to justify casual violation of copyright. I hold copyright on these remarks of mine, and I hereby deny permission to have them posted to any newsgroup.
Enough ranting. I spent some time trying to figure out how I would explain this issue to an average Saturday shopper at Fairview Park Mall. This is what I came up with. "Before, the information in question would come automatically onto the University's computers, under arrangement between the University and organizations in other cities. It would stay on file in University computers for a period of time ranging from days to weeks, whether or not anyone wanted to look at it, and then it would automatically be removed. Now, the information has to be brought to the University by an explicit command issued by an individual using a University computer." Looked at in that light, it seems clearer how the administration, in removing certain groups, is trying to transfer responsibility to the individual. That might not hold in a court of law, but it might hold in the court of public opinion, which is what the administration is really concerned about.
I had to cut the half of my speech with all the constructive solutions, but they were so eccentric that you wouldn't have liked them anyway. I saved two important points. First: Shouldn't we -- together -- be coming up with policies and procedures that can be used as models by the courts and the legislatures, rather than waiting for them to tell us what to do?
Second: before jumping into the fray, please do some background reading. On the relationship between the individual and society, read John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty", Rousseau's "The Social Contract", maybe Locke's two treatises on government. These books used to be considered an essential part of a decent education. Ursula Franklin's book "The Real World of Technology" is a great introduction to the issues that arise when technology impinges on society. As far as obscenity goes, the current issue of Ms. magazine contains a round-table discussion on pornography that includes some First Amendment defenders; it's worth reading. For an extreme viewpoint, read Andrea Dworkin: her collection of short pieces "Letters from a War Zone" is out in paperback. You will probably hate this woman, but she will move you.
Read for a while -- I think it's part of what Voltaire at the end of Candide meant by the phrase "tending our gardens" -- and then figure out what you want to do and how to do it. And while you're tending your garden, remember that in Sarajevo, the gardens have been destroyed, and the only thing they have left to tend is their freedom of expression.