In a free society, the obvious answer to that question should be a resounding YES! Free Speech should protect our right to post information that challenges the motives and financial positions of any organization. The Internet is the place where people can freely exchange ideas and opinions, and today there's a dangerous trend towards outlawing certain links or certain content.
Web sites that post information questioning the severity and degree of the Holocaust, for example, are routinely labeled "hate sites" regardless of their approach. Sites questioning the legitimacy of the Bush Presidency have been called "information terrorism" sites. And, of course, there's the inevitable "politically incorrect" label used to disparage any site that uses language that's too direct, too blunt, or too close to the truth to be comfortable to some readers.
The only way to keep our society free is to encourage the free flow of ideas and opinions: even ones we don't agree with. If we, as a nation, censor online content, we only darken the minds of ourselves and future generations. The Internet, in fact, is the last free medium left on the planet. Keep the Internet free.
A California appeals court on Friday reversed a 4-year-old order
barring the publication of a DVD-cracking tool on the Internet, finding
the injunction violated the defendant's free speech rights.
The plaintiff, the DVD Copy Control Association, had argued that
Andrew Bunner violated its intellectual property rights by posting on
the Internet code known as DeCSS that can be used to bypass Hollywood's
encryption scheme for DVDs.
That decision came two years after a federal appeals court in New York
found that DeCSS violated U.S. copyright law and upheld a lower court
order prohibiting publisher 2600 from linking to the code from its Web
site.