The problem with this type of discussions is that they are strongly affected by cultural biases. Consider these two examples. Bill Clinton, President of the USA, is said to have engaged in miscellaneous sexual activities with a woman in a van somewhere in a back road in Arkansas. Everyone knows about this, because the press talked about it big time. Bill Clinton has spent a lot of time protesting that he did not in fact do anything of the sort. Time which, obviously, was not spent running the country, but obviously Bill Clinton felt it was crucial to his success as a US President to invest all that time warding off the blows. Some people think the whole story was fabricated to harm the president, some think the woman is looking for $$$, etc. Francois Mitterand, President of France, had a mistress 20 years ago. At that time he was 58, and the woman was much younger. They had an "accident" and the woman decided to keep the baby. This did not come out when he ran for the presidential elections in 1981, even though some journalists knew. When he ran again in 1988, most of the press knew, and it still did not come out. It came out recently, through a journalist that decided to write a book while the president is still alive and the potential for $$$ is highest. This journalist is now being flamed by the rest of the press, including the papers that ordinarily devote a third of their space to flaming the president. The journalists feel it was totally unethical to mix the president's private and public life. Even the opposing parties said they "regretted" that this happened, or that this was a "very unfortunate" incident. Well, I'm sure one could put American and French journalists in a room and ask them to discuss these issues. It would be a total waste of time, though. The situation is very much the same with issues related to freedom, authority, control, etc. You can talk all you want and get nowhere. Journalists who think control is evil will continue to think list owners are out there to bash people's constitutionally protected rights to freedom. Journalists who think control keeps some order in the discussion will not begin to worry about freedom of speech. A couple percent might change their mind, and meanwhile the silent majority of people who're not interested in this discussion will start signing off. Eric