[TriLUG] On Topic - trusted computing vs Linux usability (wasOT : Don't let Cheney hide)

[Brian Henning]

I rarely have much useful to say about politics, but I would like to offer a
simple analogy to perhaps shed a different shade of light on the First
Amendment flame war that seems to be smoldering here.

If I were to walk into a public library with a group of friends and we were
to begin singing "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" at the top of our
lungs, at the very least, we would be urged to express ourselves in a less
voluminous manner.  At the most, we could be forcibly removed from the
premises and banned from future entry.

Is this a violation of my Constitutional rights to freedom of assembly
and/or expression?  Perhaps my friends and I simply felt we could only
adequately express ourselves by loud singing in a public library.

I encourage all of us to view this thread not only from the point of view of
the singers, but also the viewpoint of the library staff and other library
patrons.

It is not outside the realm of reasonability for the library patrons to
expect an environment conducive to personal study to be enforced within the
walls of the library facility.  Neither is it outside the realm of
reasonability for members of a particularly-purposed forum to appreciate the
forum environment being similarly policed.

And that's all I have to say about that.

~B