Wayne M. Smith said:
> > No it most certainly does not!
> >
> > Owning the equipment to comit a crime (especially if that equipment has
> > legitimate uses) is not (or at least should not) be equivalent to
> > comitting that crime.
> >
> I don't diagree with you, but read again what I said -- "distribution" not "ownership."
Then we should ban knife stores, gun shops, etc...hell, anything that sells or
distributes anything of any kind. you know, any object can be used to commit
a crime. It is a logical fallacy to draw an arbitrary line between
distributing a computer program or source code that could be used to commit a
crime and distributing a material object that can be used to commit a crime.
There is no philosophical distinction between the two, even if there is a
literal distinction. Once it becomes OK to ban the distribution of DeCSS or
like computer programs, how much farther do you need to go to ban distribution
of firearms? from there to knives? Since the legal precedent is in place that
it's ok to ban the distribution of ANYTHING (or, equally important, any IDEA)
because it MIGHT be used to commit a crime, we are on a very slippery slope
and something needs to be done about it NOW before we fall off the bottom.
- Dan Wright
(dtwright_at_uiuc.edu)
(
http://www.uiuc.edu/~dtwright)
-] ------------------------------ [-] -------------------------------- [-
``Weave a circle round him thrice, / And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honeydew hath fed, / and drunk the milk of Paradise.''
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan
Received on Wed Apr 03 2002 - 08:49:33 BST