Have you heard of the Patriot Act? Tom is correct that this does set a precedent of suppressing freedom of speech (I realize this is not a right in the EU like it is in US). "They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."


On 3/20/2020 10:10 AM, Mike Bolitho wrote:
"It is something that matters, because it has the potential to set a dangerous precedent."

Can we stop with this talk... around everything? We're literally living through an unprecedented event right now. My 86 year old grandmother said she's never seen anything like this in the US. My friends 94 year old grandmother in Italy said she hasn't seen this since WWII. Nobody is going to say "Well we did this during a global pandemic so we can now do it because we feel like it". People will laugh them out of the room. I live in Phoenix, the mayor shut down bars and restaurants (carryout only) in order to help stop us from becoming Italy. One of our city councilmen was saying the same thing: "This is martial law and sets bad precedent! We must open everything up!" Of course, they then held a closed to the public meeting because city council can't be exposed. The point is, the mayor isn't going to do the same thing in six months on a whim because traffic on the freeway is bad. Thankfully calmer heads prevailed and the rest of the council told him to pound sand, at least for now.

Something that keeps happening on this mailing list over the last few weeks is this tendency to try to take the "Moral high ground". And from way up there people are looking at the whole topic from an idealistic point of view like we live in some Network Operators Utopia with perfect conditions where money doesn't exist and we can do whatever we want because there is no upper management. We should be having a practical conversation that sits within the confines of reality. We don't have perfect networks built. We don't have unlimited resources. We are facing a global pandemic. Money is tight. In principle, I agree with what you guys are saying. But in reality, we're going to have to bend our convictions in order to protect populations from COVID-19. You will be changing your tune when your mother is sick and can't get the care she needs because the system is overwhelmed because we (communities, not just network operators) didn't do what was necessary because of some idealistic hard line people drew in the sand.

- Mike Bolitho