In a Nutshell:

1. Censorship is the use or threat of power to suppress ideas.
2. Ideas are as essential to the spirit as is food to the body. Freedom of thought and expression are inalienable rights.
3. People are easily persuaded to support censorship of the ideas they find threatening to themselves, to their loved ones, or to the groups with whom they identify. If you've never wanted to censor, chances are you don't care very deeply about anything.
4. Because those who already have power can most effectively suppress ideas, the usual effect of censorship is the protection of elites and maintenance of power imbalances. Censorship benefits the powerful, not the powerless.
5. All ideas, bad and good, should be subject to public scrutiny. No idea is so dangerous that it must be suppressed. Therefore, speech must never be banned because of its persuasive or emotive impact. Speech must never be banned because some consider it offensive, obscene, pornographic, politically incorrect, or "hate speech." Speech must never be banned because some believe it might have a bad effect on those deemed dangerous or vulnerable -- including children. Mere possession of speech must never be criminalized.
6. Freedom of speech is not freedom of action, and people must be held accountable before the law for what they do. Although people make decisions based on information, speech does not "cause" action -- possibly excepting instances such as shouting fire in a crowded theater or inciting a hysterical mob to a lynching. Speech is an inherent component of certain crimes, but the presence of speech doesn't legitimize the crime. For example, it is a crime to use speech to coerce behavior through bribes or threats, to rob people, or to hire or order someone to commit a crime.
7. The right to be left alone is as essential as the right to free speech. The right to choose what to see and hear includes the right not to see, not to hear. No one has the unlimited right to impose unwanted speech upon another. When such unwelcome intrusions unreasonably interfere with an individual's ability to function, they constitute harassment. To protect people from harassment, reasonable restrictions of time, place or manner -- not of content -- are permissible.
8. Excepting reasonable fair use, intellectual property rights and privacy rights should be respected.
9. The best response to lies is the truth. Because of current inequities in access to the means of communication, however, individuals injured by lies (at least in some instances) should also have the right to seek redress through civil action.
10. Labeling, rating, and filtering systems are censors' tools. (And "voluntary" systems are usually the worst.)
11. Child pornography is a problem if and only if producers harm or exploit children or distributors violate their privacy rights. Laws should protect children and their privacy, not punish harmful ideas.
12. Minors' rights should be respected. When children are very young, parents and legal guardians do have the right to limit access to speech. But parents should value their children's rights, respect them, and not cede them to the state or its agents.

I don't consider these points carved in stone and I continue to struggle with most of them. Speech and action are so intricately interwoven in human behavior, for example, that it's often difficult to determine where one leaves off and the other begins. The boundary between the right to free speech and the right to be left alone is much disputed. The same holds true for the boundaries between free-speech rights and privacy and intellectual property rights. And whenever you concede any competing right or consideration, you find yourself on a slippery slope.

Another enormously difficult question: Under what circumstances should lies be considered protected speech? All? None? Most? I abhor lying in all forms as a great moral evil. In fact, I abhor lying for precisely the same reasons that I abhor censorship. The unjust concentrations of wealth and power that exist throughout the world are maintained by censorship and lies, and the poor and powerless can do next to nothing about it. I know from personal experience the horror of being very publicly defamed by a wealthy and powerful institution. But limiting freedom of speech is not the answer.

Children's rights is another extremely important issue, and one that doesn't much interest politicians because kids don't vote -- and parents do. Parents' rights reasonably prevail within the home, or when kids are very young. And the state generally should keep its nose out of the parent-child relationship. But many parents want their children indoctrinated with their own ideas and values. Kids must learn to think for themselves, and cannot do so if they are sheltered from ideas their parents disagree with or find abhorrent. Educators have a duty to expose kids to "objectionable" ideas -- the ideas their parents don't want them embracing -- and to teach kids how to evaluate ideas and arguments. In some cases -- that of gay and lesbian teenagers, for example -- such exposure saves lives.

You may also have noted that nowhere do I make reference to Constitutional rights or the First Amendment. This was done quite deliberately. As others have said, in cyberspace the First Amendment is just a local ordinance.

As I continue to wrestle with these issues, I welcome your comments. Email me at kyp@ultranet.com.