ISP 'censored' anti-war email

[Danocrat]

ISP 'censored' anti-war email
By Sam Varghese
July 27, 2005 - 10:30AM

A US broadband provider and a security services company have been accused of blocking emails relating to an anti-Iraq war protest.

American online activist David Swanson says the provider, Comcast, and security services company Symantec, blocked emails drawing attention to the so-called Downing Street memo, which activists have seized on as further proof that the Iraq war was planned well in advance. The leaked memo was first published in Britain's The Times newspaper.

Swanson, the founder of the AfterDowningStreet.org website, claims emails sent to and from his subscribers were blocked for a week as he tried to co-ordinate events around the United States. He said the events would have had a far bigger turn-out had the block not been in place.
http://smh.com.au/articles/2005/07/26/1122143836194.html?oneclick=true

Notice how it is an Australian source reporting this.

[samsingh]

1. why have so many people been open to giving up their freedoms

for bush and company?

[atreides1]

3. Why you ask

Because they honestly think that they will gain something for their support. Little do they realize that they will get nothing, and that they will eventually suffer the same fate that they wish upon us who believe in freedom and democracy.

[ixion]

2. this is exactly the reason I will never use comcast as an ISP

they're one of the worst, IMO.

[etherealtruth]

4. "We" were just talking about this last night ...

This was our suspicion; I can't say it's "nice" to have it confirmed...

[wakeme2008]

5. this is old news and was well covered in DU

Verzion and others that used Symantec "brightmail" filter all had the problem but it was corrected in < 12 hours by Symantecs.

[MsTryska]

6. well now...wait a second......

how do you know it was willful censoring and not a spam reduction measure?


i can't read the article without registering, and i won't be registering (as a spam-reduction measure).


i deal with symantec's Brightmail solution, and if spam parameters are not set correctly within it, you get a lot of false positives.


especially if you keep it too strict -and then any mail from anyone sending to more than one person can get caught in it.


I wouldn't be so quick to think that Comcast and Symantec are trying to stop democracy - there is entirely too much data flying back and forth across the world, for either company to be spending that much time analyzing people's mail. that's what computer filtering is for, and soemtimes that's a bad thing.

[mrfrapp]

7. Common Carrier

If this is what it appears to be (and it does) then Comcast should lose their common carrier status and face any consequences as a result.

[Solo_in_MD]

9. ISPs are not common carriers

That why they can kick off spammers and other abusers.

[wli]

8. time for everyone to book up on pgp/gpg

Enough of this crap.