If true, this is of particular concern to me:

AT&T has rolled out new Terms of Service for its DSL service that leave plenty of room for interpretation. From our reading of it, in concert with several others, what we see is a ToS that attempts to give AT&T the right to disconnect its own customers who criticize the company on blogs or in other online settings.

My DSL service is with Bellsouth, which recently was reabsorbed into the AT&T borg collective. So if they’re serious about this, they could in fact choke off my tube to the Interweb. After all, when one Googles Bellsouth DNS Problems,” one of my posts comes up number two. Same thing with my complaints about “Bellsouth Usenet Problems.” And don’t even get me started on email.

So, yeah, I’m concerned, I guess, but as the article points out, it wouldn’t be very good PR for them to cut off service to critics (particularly when the criticism is completely legitimate).

But I also have a problem with the article:

There’s nothing which guarantees that what AT&T is doing here is either legal or what the company intends. This wouldn’t be the first time that poorly thought-out legal language made it into a contract used by a major corporation. Why are we thinking it’s an oversight? Simple: we believe that AT&T isn’t misguided enough to expect to be able to squash First Amendment rights with a ToS contract without losing both face and their cozy legal status.

Apparently, very few people understand the First Amendment, at least insofar as it protects speech rights. Ahmadinejad had no First Amendment right to speak at Columbia, and he had no First Amendment right to not be criticized, either before, during or after his speech. And I have no First Amendment right to AT&T DSL service, or to not have it cut off if I express an opinion over its tubes. All that the First Amendment says is that “Congress shall make no law,” not “Columbia University will grant a podium and audience,” or “AT&T shall provide Internet service regardless of the behavior of the customer.”

AT&T has a right to do this, but as is often the case, what it has a legal right to do wouldn’t necessarily be right. And I would hope that they don’t do it, both for their sake and mine.

[Update on Wednesday morning]

For what it’s worth, AT&T says not to worry:

“AT&T respects its subscribers’ rights to voice their opinions and concerns over any matter they wish. However, we retain the right to disassociate ourselves from websites and messages explicitly advocating violence, or any message that poses a threat to children (e.g. child pornography or exploitation). We do not terminate customer service solely because a customer speaks negatively about AT&T. This policy is not new and it’s not unique to AT&T.”

I kind of assumed that was the real intent.

From the IBD:

A high-tech revolution had spread ideas of freedom across the Web. Migrant laborers returned home with tales of glimpsing freer societies. The economy had tanked, with fuel prices doubling and public tolerance of the morally bankrupt regime hitting an all-time low. There didn’t seem to be a way this regime could last.

There is an exception, however: The brute force of a violent military regime that cares little what the world thinks. It’s a message real tyrants send with a soggy U.N. establishment doing nothing. They expect to get away with it. They’re counting on a few visits from U.N. officials, a few statements of condemnation, a few expressions of “concern” and then another 20 years of tyranny.

After all, they’ve looked at the opprobrium America drew from this global consensus when it sent in troops to overturn a comparable tyranny in Iraq. That verdict from the global establishment that calls itself “the world”

From the IBD:

A high-tech revolution had spread ideas of freedom across the Web. Migrant laborers returned home with tales of glimpsing freer societies. The economy had tanked, with fuel prices doubling and public tolerance of the morally bankrupt regime hitting an all-time low. There didn’t seem to be a way this regime could last.

There is an exception, however: The brute force of a violent military regime that cares little what the world thinks. It’s a message real tyrants send with a soggy U.N. establishment doing nothing. They expect to get away with it. They’re counting on a few visits from U.N. officials, a few statements of condemnation, a few expressions of “concern” and then another 20 years of tyranny.

After all, they’ve looked at the opprobrium America drew from this global consensus when it sent in troops to overturn a comparable tyranny in Iraq. That verdict from the global establishment that calls itself “the world”

From the IBD:

A high-tech revolution had spread ideas of freedom across the Web. Migrant laborers returned home with tales of glimpsing freer societies. The economy had tanked, with fuel prices doubling and public tolerance of the morally bankrupt regime hitting an all-time low. There didn’t seem to be a way this regime could last.

There is an exception, however: The brute force of a violent military regime that cares little what the world thinks. It’s a message real tyrants send with a soggy U.N. establishment doing nothing. They expect to get away with it. They’re counting on a few visits from U.N. officials, a few statements of condemnation, a few expressions of “concern” and then another 20 years of tyranny.

After all, they’ve looked at the opprobrium America drew from this global consensus when it sent in troops to overturn a comparable tyranny in Iraq. That verdict from the global establishment that calls itself “the world”

Roger Simon thinks so.

I’m skeptical, at least insofar as there would have been an actual invasion and occupation. I’m not sure that he would have even overthrown the Taliban. He might have bombed the hell out of them, but I’m not convinced that we’d have a democratic government there now had Gore been in charge. I find this support for Roger’s thesis uncompelling:

The Clinton-Gore administration wasn

He’s mentioning the unmentionable, and questioning the notion of citizenship as a birthright.

I think that this is a long overdue discussion (and I’ve thought that for decades, long before the immigration controversy heated up). But in order to discuss it, we have to have a discussion about what citizenship means.

In my opinion, citizenship of this nation is something that should have to be earned, even for those born here (I think that Heinlein was on to something with Starship Troopers, though I don’t necessarily agree that only military service would convey the privilege). But I won’t make the opponents of illegal immigration happy when I also state that I don’t think that one should have to be a citizen to live and work here (and for those born to American citizens, there would be no obvious place to which to deport them, even if they don’t earn citizenship). I think that non-citizens on US soil should enjoy most of the constitutional rights currently accruing to citizens.

Here’s what I don’t think they should get. They shouldn’t be able to vote. They shouldn’t be entitled to welfare benefits. They shouldn’t be entitled to public schooling (though, of course, I don’t think that that’s something that should be inflicted on citizens, either). They could live, and work, and spend their entire lives here, and even bear children, but they shouldn’t be allowed a franchise to be a parasite on the rest of society. And if they work hard, and pay taxes, and/or volunteer for public service of some kind, they should be granted a route to citizenship.

I in fact would rather have as a citizen someone who was willing to walk across miles of desert to be here, than someone born here who thinks that the world owes him a living as a result of that accident of fate.

Note, while I haven’t fleshed this out completely, it’s quite conceivable that I might come up with criteria by which I myself wouldn’t currently be eligible for citizenship. If so, though, because I consider my American citizenship of great value, if that were the case, I would do what I could personally to rectify the situation as soon as possible.

Mark Steyn, on the self-absorption of academia.

Mark Steyn, on the self-absorption of academia.

Mark Steyn, on the self-absorption of academia.

Murtha is going to be deposed in the slander suit against him.

It’s about time that he was held accountable for his vicious demagoguery. Being a Congressman doesn’t give you license to vilify troops in arms without basis.