A follow-on to my earlier posting of today -- legally responding to ISP restrictions of speech is a difficult matter, for reasons we're now discussing -- but to bring the conversation back to where it started, which was the assumption of individuals who are politically active that switching to AOL or Yahoo in hopes of finding a more open speech environment -- this remains an unfounded assumption. In addition to attempting to push public forum analysis of ISPs through the courts, other approaches to trying to create, protect, or maintain an environment for free speech in the net by working with ISP terms of service include: - forming groups of users (such as all libraries, or all universities) large enough to negotiate preferred terms of service with ISPs (in the way that large business-oriented buildings get their own terms). - identifying protection of free speech as a market niche for an ISP that will choose to market itself that way. (with the problem, as we've recently seen, that such an ISP must have its own backbone or there is the possibility of being shut down by the backbone operator). - education of users to generate a shift in public attitude regarding what is acceptable in ISP terms of service and acceptable use policies. Sandra Braman