bruce.el

bruce.el

[Glenn Morris]

Err, what's the point of lisp/play/bruce.el? It is spook.el with
`spook' replaced by `bruce', and a data file that doesn't exist by
default. An exercise in surrealism? I've read the commentary and I
still don't get it.

Re: bruce.el

[Richard Stallman]

    Err, what's the point of lisp/play/bruce.el? It is spook.el with
    `spook' replaced by `bruce', and a data file that doesn't exist by
    default. An exercise in surrealism? I've read the commentary and I
    still don't get it.

The data file is empty because the requisite contents would have been
prohibited by the CDA itself.

See etc/CENSORSHIP for more explanation.

The CDA was 12 years ago, and I believe the Supreme Court did declare
that provision unconstitutional.  It would be good to add a note to
the end of etc/CENSORSHIP with a reference to an EFF page with more
information.

This issue has mostly good away and been replaced by other worse
threats to human rights in the US.  So perhaps we should delete
bruce.el.  If not, a reference to etc/CENSORSHIP would help explain
it.

Re: bruce.el

[Glenn Morris]

Richard Stallman wrote:

> The data file is empty because the requisite contents would have been
> prohibited by the CDA itself.

That I can understand. What I don't understand (there's no need for
you to take the time to explain it to me) is why, in addition to that,
you had to copy spook.el to bruce.el and s/spook/bruce. Why wasn't it
sufficient to remove the spook data file, or replace the contents with
a single line "Censored for your protection on behalf of the US
Government"? (Also, I'd have expected etc/sex.6 to be a bigger problem!)

> The CDA was 12 years ago, and I believe the Supreme Court did declare
> that provision unconstitutional.  It would be good to add a note to
> the end of etc/CENSORSHIP with a reference to an EFF page with more
> information.

I think the CENSORSHIP license prohibits me changing it.

Some notes for possible updates:

The http://www.vtw.org/ website is no more (it redirects to someone's
blog now).

Here is a relevant quote from http://w2.eff.org/legal/victories/

    In 1996, EFF and a coalition of public interest groups sued to
    block the Communications Decency Act, which criminalized
    publishing certain content online that the government clearly
    could not prohibit offline. Unanimously, the U.S. Supreme Court
    struck down the law and established that online speech deserves
    the full protection of the First Amendment. Congress still didn't
    learn its lesson, subsequently passing the slightly narrower but
    still gravely dangerous Children Online Protection Act. Again, EFF
    fought back, and the Supreme Court has twice upheld injunctions
    against the law.

Here is the EFF statement from June 26, 1997 when the CDA was ruled
unconstitutional:

  http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/EFF_ACLU_v_DoJ/19970626_eff_cda.announce

Here are the details of "CDA II":

http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/ACLU_v_Reno_II/

> This issue has mostly good away and been replaced by other worse
> threats to human rights in the US.  

There do seem to be one or two small worries in this area these days...

> So perhaps we should delete bruce.el.

I would suggest this.

Re: bruce.el

[Richard Stallman]

    That I can understand. What I don't understand (there's no need for
    you to take the time to explain it to me) is why, in addition to that,
    you had to copy spook.el to bruce.el and s/spook/bruce.

spook.el inserts keywords that spies might get distracted by.
bruce.el is supposed to insert indecent words.

Also, bruce.el contains an explanation of what it is about,
totally different from that in spook.el.

    sufficient to remove the spook data file,

There was no need to do anything to the spook data file.
(But maybe someone should update it now.)

					      or replace the contents with
    a single line "Censored for your protection on behalf of the US
    Government"? (Also, I'd have expected etc/sex.6 to be a bigger problem!)

sex.6 does not use the indecent words, so as far as anyone could guess,
it was not indecent.

I will edit CENSORSHIP.

Re: bruce.el

[David Hansen]

On Mon, 25 Feb 2008 05:57:18 -0500 Richard Stallman wrote:

>     That I can understand. What I don't understand (there's no need for
>     you to take the time to explain it to me) is why, in addition to that,
>     you had to copy spook.el to bruce.el and s/spook/bruce.
>
> spook.el inserts keywords that spies might get distracted by.
> bruce.el is supposed to insert indecent words.
>
> Also, bruce.el contains an explanation of what it is about,
> totally different from that in spook.el.
>
>     sufficient to remove the spook data file,
>
> There was no need to do anything to the spook data file.
> (But maybe someone should update it now.)

Should "TWAT" (The War Against Terrorism) go into spook.lines or
bruce.lines?  This thing turned out to be pretty indecent, so I vote for
bruce.lines.

David

Re: bruce.el

[Richard Stallman]

    Should "TWAT" (The War Against Terrorism) go into spook.lines or
    bruce.lines?  This thing turned out to be pretty indecent, so I vote for
    bruce.lines.

I doubt that surveillance agencies are officially looking for TWAT.
The individual agents perhaps, but not as part of their job.

Re: bruce.el

[Sascha Wilde]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:

>     Should "TWAT" (The War Against Terrorism) go into spook.lines or
>     bruce.lines?  This thing turned out to be pretty indecent, so I vote for
>     bruce.lines.
>
> I doubt that surveillance agencies are officially looking for TWAT.
> The individual agents perhaps, but not as part of their job.

:-)

I vote for adding this to etc/DEVEL.HUMOR

cheers
sascha
-- 
Sascha Wilde
Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool.

Re: bruce.el

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Richard Stallman writes:

 >     Should "TWAT" (The War Against Terrorism) go into spook.lines or
 >     bruce.lines?  This thing turned out to be pretty indecent, so I vote for
 >     bruce.lines.
 > 
 > I doubt that surveillance agencies are officially looking for TWAT.
 > The individual agents perhaps, but not as part of their job.

Of course the surveillance agencies are looking for TWAT.  That's
their Officious Mission from the President.  The problem is that in
order to prosecute the high-profile cases, they have to search for the
lower-case version first.