Scott Dorsey wrote:
Chuck Harris wrote:
As I understand things, it is a "common carrier" sort of thing. If you make
no effort to filter or censor a feed, then you are not responsible for its
content. If RCN were to make an effort to filter out junk like the MI5 stuff,
and other nasties, and they missed some, then they would be open to being sued
for what they missed. It is like the protection the telephone company has
against being sued because of folks that use the telephone to perform illegal
activities.

That's stupid. Dump RCN and get an account with a competently run news
server. Anybody who would hide behind that sort of reasoning has no business
connecting their machine to Usenet.

I am not aware of RCN having made any statements on the subject. I am simply
telling you my understanding of the legal issue.

ISPs have NO common carrier protection of any sort...

Oh but they do! Otherwise they would be liable for all of the nasty
stuff goes over their feed. Things such as illegal downloads of copyrighted
material, software piracy, kiddie porn...

and if a good faith
effort at maintaining their feed isn't sufficient, that is no excuse not
to make such an effort...

Personally, I would prefer that they didn't attempt to be a censor of what
comes over my feed. There tastes might differ from my own. I would prefer
to control the filters.

-Chuck