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

[Robin Whittle]

Jan Whitaker wrote:

> =========================================
> At the request of the SESAHS of the NSW Government,
> the Link manager is advising readers of this historical
> post to Link from 2000 that the SESAHS no longer at time
> of this amendment [insert date added] provides access
> to any? some? most?
> of these newsgroups and "...have no connection to child
> pornography."  Any comments or questions about this
> should be directed to:  [email address of SESAHS rep.]
> =========================================

This seems wrong, unless the "Link manager" has personally and very
certainly established the truth of the above statements - and is willing
to take responsibility for a public statement to this effect.  How could
Tony be absolutely sure about what SESAHS provides?  It could change
moment by moment.

The purpose of the amendment is to allow the aggrieved party to attach a
note to an historical document.  I do not think that this is the place
for a supposedly factual statement about the 2003 situation to be made
by anyone else.

Maybe:

  At the request of XXXX the following note has been added to this
  archived message.  Please contact xxx at XXXX regarding this matter
  and refer to the discussion on this list regarding this and other
  potential notes being attached to archived messages, in April 2003.


     Blah blah blah

where "Blah blah blah" is pretty much anything that XXXX wants to add to
the archived message, provided that it does not involve additional
complications for Link.

In this case, they should give their website URL, their email address,
maybe a special page concerning this particular issue, and then a brief
statement that the situation has changed since this message was written.

It would be good to suggest to them that if they want to avoid this
message being found in search engines then terms like "child p...."
should be avoided.

 - Robin