[LINK] A legal request to add a disclaimer to an old link posting

[Greg Taylor]

At 02:50 PM 16/04/03 +1000, Tony Barry wrote:
>Linkers
>
>Late last year ANU received a formal complaint from a section of the NSW 
>Government, the South East Sydney Area Health Service 
>http://www.sesahs.nsw.gov.au/ , regarding an item posted over two years 
>ago to link.
>
>The item is - http://www.anu.edu.au/mail-archives/link/link0007/0249.html
>
>This posting listed sexually related newsgroups which were located on the 
>SESAHS news server and which are now no longer available. SESAHS are 
>concerned that when a search is made for SESAHS on public search engines 
>this posting comes up is could mislead people as to their role.
>
>They requested that the posting be removed. The ANU replied formally that 
>they were not prepared to do this.
>
>They have now requested that a disclaimer be inserted in the posting 
>indicating in some form of words that they have no connection to child 
>pornography.
>
>While ANU sees reasons not to alter the historical record they are being 
>pressured on this and the original document would remain intact but with 
>an addendum. They regard the link archives as mine and seek my permission 
>to do this. I regard the archives as belonging to the list and I seek your 
>comments.

I wonder are they then going to ask for disclaimers on each of the 
following pages, which contain a repetition of the offending article, or 
part thereof:

http://www.anu.edu.au/mail-archives/link/link0007/0255.html

http://anumail1.anu.edu.au/pipermail/link/2000-July/005530.html

http://www.anu.edu.au/mail-archives/link/link0007/0247.html

http://www.anu.edu.au/mail-archives/link/link0007/0246.html

http://www.anu.edu.au/mail-archives/link/link0007/0251.html

http://www.anu.edu.au/mail-archives/link/link0007/0250.html

I think you should resist.  History is history.  Changing history is 
revisionism, whether by addendum or otherwise.

Besides, isn't adding the words "child p*rnography" to an addendum likely 
to result in even more entries on search engines ;-)

Greg