Ellen, Had you truly read my note, then you would have understood exactly what was being said. Offensive speech is likely protected here because of FCC regulations on modems and telephone lines and things of that nature which invoke, sadly, federal issues. It may also be protected due to the invocation of the interstate commerce issues of the internet (and since IAGenWeb is soliciting donations, the entire project may be considered to be in the stream of commerce via the interstate commerce theories), not to mention national security. Yeah, those guys in IAGenWeb and Friends of IAGenWeb may actually force everyone else to do the exact same thing to protect themselves and their projects. Nonetheless, that is not the issue we are arguing. The issue here is the protection of speech. The only speech that is protected is offensive speech - the speech you do not wish to hear - because there is no need to protect speech which you want to hear. Of course, there are limits to those protections. For instance, an email full of vulgarities would likely not be protected. Moreover, stories of an unlawful sexual nature (I am not going to go into detail on this - use your own favorite immoral or indecent sexual offense) would liklely not be protected. On the other hand, your claims, offensive as they may be to me, that I was notified of my removal from the EC, are protected without regard to the truth or falsity of the same. And my opinions with which you and the NC and others disagree are also protected. So, yes, offensive speech is protected here. Richard ---------- Original Message ----------- From: Ellen Pack <e.j.pack@natchezbelle.org> To: STATE-COORD-L@rootsweb.com Sent: Sat, 23 Aug 2003 11:00:21 -0500 Subject: Re: [STATE-COORD] PLEASE STOP > At 09:13 AM 8/23/2003 -0500, you wrote: > >Ellen....had you read Mr. Petty's ENTIRE post instead of looking for > >something to make a cutting comment about, > > I did read the entire note. Read his previous notes, too. Also > read Vicki's note, and Isaiah's, and everyone else. Understood them > all quite nicely. > > And now I'm reading yours. > > Ellen ------- End of Original Message -------