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C00002 00002	\centerline{Statement of Protest about the AIR Censorship of rec.humor.funny}
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\centerline{Statement of Protest about the AIR Censorship of rec.humor.funny}
csd@score
soliciting "Signatures" for statement of protest.
The following statement has about 50 "signatures".  To sign
mail to jmc@gang-of-four.  To comment mail to jmc@sail.
About Monday Feb 6 it will go to whoever admits having
authority in the matter, e.g. Ralph Gorin, Robert Street
and/or Donald Kennedy.

hk.rwb@forsythe
statement
The following as about 120 electronic signatures.  I'll get the
names from the computer mail and send them to you by Monday.
I'll also send you the longer description by Monday.

%Statement of Protest about the AIR Censorship of rec.humor.funny

Computer scientists and computer users have been involved in
making information resources widely available since the 1960s.
Such resources are analogous to libraries.  The newsgroups
available on various networks are the computer analog of
magazines and partial prototypes of future universal computer
libraries.  These libraries will make available the information
resources of the whole world to anyone's terminal or personal
computer.

Therefore, the criteria for including newsgroups in computer
systems or removing them should be identical to those for
including books in or removing books from libraries.  For this
reason, and since the resource requirements for keeping
newsgroups available are very small, we consider it contrary to
the function of a university to censor the presence of newsgroups in
University computers.  We regard it as analogous to removing a
book from the library.  To be able to read anything subject only
to cost limitations is an essential part of academic freedom.

We therefore think that AIR and SDC should rescind the purge of
rec.humor.funny.

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