On 9/19/2012 2:38 PM, Carsten Bormann wrote:
On Sep 19, 2012, at 22:28, Joe Touch <touch@xxxxxxx> wrote:
I'm simply refuting *any* argument that starts with "because it's
useful to the community".
Interestingly, these kinds of arguments are the only ones I'm
interested in.
Until there is a court decision impacting this usefulness (or one can
be reasonably expected), the legal angle is simply irrelevant.
(Just keeping the thread alive so it doesn't seem that everybody
agrees with the strangely luddite position taken here.)
Thanks for pressing the point.
I'm trying to imagine anything useful coming from decision-making
process that ignores utility. Accidents do occur, of course, but do we
want the utility of an effort to be an accidental outcome?
At the same time, the real-world imposes legal concerns whether we want
them or not. The challenge, here, is to balance realistic concerns
against realistic costs. It is as dangerous to pay too much attention
to legal issues as it is too much.
However...
We are a public-interest organization, with open participation,
automated issuing of I-Ds, and a policy of their permanent retention and
availability.
I'd expect an exceptional action to remove content from the permanent
archive to create substantial legal exposure in many jurisdictions.
Unfair bias and censoring of speech are two catch-phrases that occur to
my non-lawyer brain. I can too-easily serious liabilities for a removal
action deemed legally inappropriate.
Worrying about that exposure only after the fact does not strike me as
prudent.
d/
--
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net