As far as I can tell, the law does not *discriminate* against in-state and out-of-state spammers, either by design or impact. That an act crosses state lines does not necessarily mean that the state may not regulate the impact within its own borders--a cross-border shooting is the easiest example. Shipping of articles banned in the state is an act of interstate commerce, yet the receiving state may still ban it.
I think that the federal government could certainly pre-empt state spam laws, but until it does, states will remain free to pass laws governing spam delivered within their borders.
The "World Series" does *not* mean "World Championship," though in modern use it tends to b e thought of that way (and realistically, even the best teams from other countries would have no chance at winning).
However, "World" is the name of the newspaper that concocted the series in the first place, pitting the champions of each of the two major leagues against each other in order to sell more newspapers. It could just have easily been the "Chronicle Series" or whatever. The World has long since vanished, but the name remains.
>From what I read in the Constitution, it seems >that it's just the Federal gov't that's >prohibited from messing with intrastate commerce, >not the other way around.
Nope; exactly backwards. The feds have the authority to regulate interstate commerce, and state interference is presumptively invalid. In fact, interstate trade wars were one of the primary reasons to shift from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution.
However, mere effects are not always enough to invalidate state action; prohibitting fireworks in a state certainly impedes interstate commerce, but is valid. If the law is truly and honestly (not just technically) neutral between in-state and out-of-state actors, it likely (not necessarily) is not an improper restraint on interstate commerce.
I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. See a lawyer in your own state if you need some.
Advertising by flyer or in a newspaper is a useful comparison here. The law does not consider the ad an offer to sell, but an invitation for buyers to make offers at that price (it would do serious violence to contract law and markets otherwise). Similarly, the posting of a web site is an offer to show information, and repeating this offer to the world will generally be no more odious than telling the world about the wonderful price on grapefruit in this morning's paper.
>Ok, your argument would have some merit if you >could demonstrate that 50% of all athletic >scholorships were given to female athletes... >which you can't.
If he's in the U.S., he most certainly can. Except for the handful of colleges that completely avoid federal contact, all U.S. Colleges are forced to give out scholarships in proportion to enrollment by gender--not that this makes sense.
Requiring some such "equality" in non-cash sports makes a certain amount of sense, but including football and basketball (and someday, Women's Gymnastics??) programs that make money in the same count as programs that cost money is just plain odd. Then again, I think it's disgraceful that athletic scholarships outnumber academic scholarships by orders of magnitude . . .
And understanding this, you are now allowed to use *the* programming language, Fortran. Swap a "D" for the "E", and you specify double precision while you're at it.
>They had no interest in doing DOS, >since they had no OS experience
That's overstating it. Thd "DOS" of most 8 bit non-CP/M machines at the time wre extensions to Microsoft BASIC. They shipped three levels, "BASIC", "Extended BASIC", and "Disk BASIC." Typically, Extended BASIC was in ROM, and the remainder of Disk BASIC would be loaded in from disk by a bootstrap loader.
on alt.folklore.computers. The "who invented the mouse" thing got beaten to death. Apparently similar concepts arose independently from at least a couple of sources.
About a year ago, the WSJ was so amused at the cover letter for a resume from a photographer, explaining how suited his work was to their paper in particular, that they ran the sentence in the last paragraph on column four with a "not quite clear on the concept" label.
[hmm, for those not understanding this, the WSJ doesn't use photographs, but drawings. Though occasionally on page B1 now, the arrangement includes photographs of products.]
And on yet another hand, Xerox didn't come up with it all internally--some of it was based on Raskin's graduate work. Implementing his thesis work at Apple would hardly be stealing from Xeorox (unless he stole the code he'd written), even if Xeorox had been opposed.
>The C could have very well been a hard >drive under CP/M, or it could have been a floppy >drive.
Both are technically possible, but neither are likely:)
While it was physically possible to have a third floppy drive, it didn't happen very often. Come to think of it, I don't think I ever saw one.
I *did* have a 10M hard drive attached to an Osborne for development work in 1982. It wasn't all that useful:) No directories in CP/M, and the drives were generally aftermarket hacks (though there was the superbrain, with 5/10/15 options to replace the second floppy).
For the most part, though, if development work needed either the third floppy, or the hard drive, a microcomputer wasn't the right tool back then.
8 bit CP/M didn't have directories, though it had a notion of "user"--seting this number (4 bits? it's been a while) prevented files from other user numbers from appearing.
CPM/86 was running MS-DOS executables and could use MS-DOS format by sometime in '84 (maybe earlier), but directories appeared as file names, and couldn't be reached. CCP/M could multitask by that point, too.
>I'm still waiting to see if they can produce >parts in a timely manner. Intel just stumbled, >and if AMD can't produce K7s in quantity they >will miss one of the few opportunities they will >ever get to be number one.
That is indeed the sixty-four dollar question. This isn't one of the few opportunities for AMD, they've had it for each of the last couple of generations, and blown it each time by not being able to produce in quantity. If they make it this time, their stock goes through the roof. If they don't, can they survive another blunder? Each time they pay the full R&D cost to get current, and lose the early sales that pay for the R&D. Commodity chips don't cover that cost (unless you're using an old enough technology, like the C5).
While I am a lawyer this is not legal advice. If you need advice on this matter, see a lawyer in your own jurisdiction.
The repercussions from this could be interesting . . .
MS has made a habit of pulling licenses for windows from companies that modify the windows startup screens, taking the (peculiar?) position that the companies are distributors for microsoft.
This won't work with the bios for a couple of reasons. The first is the lack of a contractual relationship with microsoft--microsoft doesn't have any threats to make, or contracts to claim it will enforce. The more interesting variation is that it puts microsoft in the same position w.r.t. Phoenix as Compaq was in with regard to microsoft--if the MS arguments are accepted, windows cannot tamper with the bios ads.
I don't know the exact year, but I presume it was by June 86, because I was still at my parents' home.
One of my cousins who worked at HP came by a family gathering with one of their latest & greatest--a "portable" running unix--and apparently X. Plasma display (i think), wall-power, and a 68k processor. At the time, something drawing a space-shuttle by wire frame on your kitchen table was quite impressive . . .
How about T? (lyx plug & ncurses while I'm at
on
Fifteen Years of X
·
· Score: 2
A couple of years ago, I came up with the idea of "T", both for "text" and coming *before* W (hmm, why did I know about W then???)
I think it came after using a program whose name I forget that let me have 7 vt100 windows on a mac over a regular dial-up line.
The basic idea was to have a T-window rather than X-window, and to not transmit as much of X as possible, allowing use over slow lines (I was still using a 2400 modem. Come to think of it, every few months I still do:). Essentially, allow the X applications and mouse interface, but translate (and cache) icons to text, and limit positioning to character rather than pixel position.
Lacking the time & knolwedge, nothing ever happened with it:)
While I'm at it, Lyx 1.2 (or 2.0, whatever it ends up) will be toolkit independent (currently it's locked to xforms, and klyx with qt uses.12 instead of 1.0, and is grossly out of date). One of the planned toolkits is ncurses, meaning a text interface (of course, equations won't fully display, but it will allow work when only text is available).
Gratuitious plug: If you're interested in such things, see www.lyx.org, and peek into the "Devlopers only" area (we need a better name:). Currently, most of the developers are tied up with the (purportedly) final release of 1.0.x, and little if any work is occurring on 1.1. But more coders, and particularly documenters, are welcome. There will not be individual ports to particular tookits, but a toolkit-free core, glue/wrappers/whatevers (not my area).
Mmm, and if anyone wants to take over the mail-merge portion, I'd be happy to pass it on:)
>It's been a while since my Constitutional Law >class.:)
I don't seem to want to admit how long it's been:) But I could teach it . . .
>"Federalism" in the context of the Constitution >has a different meaning than what I intended.
"Federali*zation*" has a meaning close to what you intended, as well. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen the term used outside of U.S. political & constitutional discussions . . .
Madison, Hamilton, and Jay all used the pseudonym, and scholars agree on which wrote most of them. At the time, I'd probably have been in the anti-Federalist camp with Jefferson & Paine, though over the years I'm seeing my sympathies switch from Jefferson to Madison.
"New Federalism" was a term from the classic liberal faction in the Reagan administration for the process of returning usurped functions to the states. Generally, it was the effort to swing the pendulum back to the states. It wasn't entirely the same issue as deregulation, but the camps overlapped. I have no idea where Reagan himself stood on the issue (or how much he really had to do with the administration, for that matter), but his rhetoric puts him in this category. His rhetoric was generally classic liberal, but governance tended more to the right wing.
>Please disregard these questions if they will >result in my being billed.:)
Awe:)
But this is your big chance! My hourly doesn't double from $200 to $400 until the middle of next month when I successfully defend the Ph.D. [If "$10,000 + $400/hour" makes you blink, you're not big enough to have an anti-trust problem needing a lawyer-economist:) ]
That's about as far from a bedrock principle as you can get:)
I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. See a lawyer in your own jurisdiction for that.
The Bill of Rights does not apply directly to the states, but only by way of the 14th Amendment and by "selective incorporation."
The particular restraints that kick in are those "fundamental to the notion of ordered liberty." Trial by jury applies, but the jury size of 12, and unanimous verdicts, only apply to the feds. States can have preliminary hearings rather than grand juries in felony cases. The free exercise clause applies, but applying the establishment clause is rather new (state-supported churches existed not only before the fourteenth, but two states continued to have an established church afterwards).
Some pieces apply, some don't. Libraries selectively providing access could go either way (they're not required to provide any access), but I'd expect (but wouldn't bet) that the federal limits would apply to states and their subdivisions.
The federalist notion is to keep things at the lower level, only giving the central government the power to do that which can't be done efficiently by the states. (The anti-federalists took it farther, wanting to yield essentially nothing to the center except on a case-by-case basis).
Increasing the number of decisions made by D.C. flies in the face of federalism (and in that of the "New Federalism," too, for that matter).
There was a mac prototype that used a 6809. They got quickdraw running at least somewhat, and had a bouncing ball on the screen. However, the bright idea of "a single bank of memory" meant that it would have 64kx8, or 64k of memory, and would lose a third to the video display. Thus the 68000 was brought in, for 64kx16 total memory [ I *wish* I was making this up!]
He is probably the wealthiest grade school teacher in the area, then:)
Sure, he's spent lots of his fortune. But the reported "loss" on the US concert included *buying* the land it was held on. Don't worry about him, he may be down to his last couple dozen million, but he'll be fine:)
As someone else pointed out, the II did not run at 2 but 1 mhz. The III ran at 2, and would drop to 1 for compatibility mode.
I'm not sure that all of the II's came with cases. The old purple manual was softbound, so I presume it came with the II. It was written with the assumption that the user would be supplying case and keyboard, and had instructions to connect these (and power supply, iirc). I believe that at least some of the boards shipped, and remained on the product list long after they could be ordered. I saw one once at Alltronics, in a blue wooden case--though I now wonder if it was an original and not a II.
As I recall, noone ever designed a clone of the Apple II. [though there was one machine (Sorceror?) that had a 6502, z80, and 8088 (6?)) that could run apple, trs-80, and ms-dos software. It died when it could no longer run pc-dos software when programs starting using keyboard scan codes instead of ascii input].
Franklin and the others simply flat-out stole the apple design. Copied the ROM's, and usually the motherboard layout. Then, having saved on R&D costs, they undercut apple. In short, these weren't competitors, but thieves.
Also, this did *not* cause the Apple II to die. Apple finally pulled the plug because people wouldn't stop ordering them (and still, they made an emulation card for the LC). Each sale of a II put apple that much further behind the ms-dos machines. Yes, the II had a loyal following, but it was an anchor holding apple back from progress. They certainly could have sold more in the short term, at the expense of the long term prosepects for the mac.
This is not legal advice. WHile I am an attorney, I am probably not admitted in your jurisdiction. If you need legal advice on this matter, consult an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction.
Those cases address a *prohibition* on *speaking* in the first place. Furthermore, the prohibition is by a government.
That is a far cry from using anonymity to protect oneself from the *consequences* of speech.
Free speech governs the right to make the statement. It does not protect one from the consequences. To look at your second example, while the local government can't block the distribution of the pamphlets, if teh information was defamatory, the employer would still be able to issue supoenas to determine her identity in a defamation action. There is no conflict.
Slashdot Mirror
As far as I can tell, the law does not *discriminate* against in-state and out-of-state spammers, either by design or impact. That an act crosses state lines does not necessarily mean that the state may not regulate the impact within its own borders--a cross-border shooting is the easiest example. Shipping of articles banned in the state is an act of interstate commerce, yet the receiving state may still ban it.
I think that the federal government could certainly pre-empt state spam laws, but until it does, states will remain free to pass laws governing spam delivered within their borders.
hawk, esq.
The "World Series" does *not* mean "World Championship," though in modern use it tends to b e thought of that way (and realistically, even the best teams from other countries would have no chance at winning).
:)
However, "World" is the name of the newspaper that concocted the series in the first place, pitting the champions of each of the two major leagues against each other in order to sell more newspapers. It could just have easily been the "Chronicle Series" or whatever. The World has long since vanished, but the name remains.
And as for the WWF: take it, please
>From what I read in the Constitution, it seems
>that it's just the Federal gov't that's
>prohibited from messing with intrastate commerce, >not the other way around.
Nope; exactly backwards. The feds have the authority to regulate interstate commerce, and state interference is presumptively invalid. In fact, interstate trade wars were one of the primary reasons to shift from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution.
However, mere effects are not always enough to invalidate state action; prohibitting fireworks in a state certainly impedes interstate commerce, but is valid. If the law is truly and honestly (not just technically) neutral between in-state and out-of-state actors, it likely (not necessarily) is not an improper restraint on interstate commerce.
I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. See a lawyer in your own state if you need some.
Advertising by flyer or in a newspaper is a useful comparison here. The law does not consider the ad an offer to sell, but an invitation for buyers to make offers at that price (it would do serious violence to contract law and markets otherwise). Similarly, the posting of a web site is an offer to show information, and repeating this offer to the world will generally be no more odious than telling the world about the wonderful price on grapefruit in this morning's paper.
hawk, esq.
>Ok, your argument would have some merit if you
>could demonstrate that 50% of all athletic
>scholorships were given to female athletes...
>which you can't.
If he's in the U.S., he most certainly can. Except for the handful of colleges that completely avoid federal contact, all U.S. Colleges are forced to give out scholarships in proportion to enrollment by gender--not that this makes sense.
Requiring some such "equality" in non-cash sports makes a certain amount of sense, but including football and basketball (and someday, Women's Gymnastics??) programs that make money in the same count as programs that cost money is just plain odd. Then again, I think it's disgraceful that athletic scholarships outnumber academic scholarships by orders of magnitude . . .
And understanding this, you are now allowed to use *the* programming language, Fortran. Swap a "D" for the "E", and you specify double precision while you're at it.
>They had no interest in doing DOS,
>since they had no OS experience
That's overstating it. Thd "DOS" of most 8 bit non-CP/M machines at the time wre extensions to Microsoft BASIC. They shipped three levels, "BASIC", "Extended BASIC", and "Disk BASIC." Typically, Extended BASIC was in ROM, and the remainder of Disk BASIC would be loaded in from disk by a bootstrap loader.
on alt.folklore.computers. The "who invented the mouse" thing got beaten to death. Apparently similar concepts arose independently from at least a couple of sources.
About a year ago, the WSJ was so amused at the cover letter for a resume from a photographer, explaining how suited his work was to their paper in particular, that they ran the sentence in the last paragraph on column four with a "not quite clear on the concept" label.
[hmm, for those not understanding this, the WSJ doesn't use photographs, but drawings. Though occasionally on page B1 now, the arrangement includes photographs of products.]
Usable footnotes. I'd never seen them on a microcomputer before word 1.0.
:) It wasn't new, but implementing & selling it for a microcomputer was innovative.
BASIC. The early years
Combined with Bob, that gives you three innovations--unless you want to count tha damned paper clip in addition to Bob . . .
And on yet another hand, Xerox didn't come up with it all internally--some of it was based on Raskin's graduate work. Implementing his thesis work at Apple would hardly be stealing from Xeorox (unless he stole the code he'd written), even if Xeorox had been opposed.
>The C could have very well been a hard
:)
:) No directories in CP/M, and the drives were generally aftermarket hacks (though there was the superbrain, with 5/10/15 options to replace the second floppy).
>drive under CP/M, or it could have been a floppy
>drive.
Both are technically possible, but neither are likely
While it was physically possible to have a third floppy drive, it didn't happen very often. Come to think of it, I don't think I ever saw one.
I *did* have a 10M hard drive attached to an Osborne for development work in 1982. It wasn't all that useful
For the most part, though, if development work needed either the third floppy, or the hard drive, a microcomputer wasn't the right tool back then.
8 bit CP/M didn't have directories, though it had a notion of "user"--seting this number (4 bits? it's been a while) prevented files from other user numbers from appearing.
CPM/86 was running MS-DOS executables and could use MS-DOS format by sometime in '84 (maybe earlier), but directories appeared as file names, and couldn't be reached. CCP/M could multitask by that point, too.
>I'm still waiting to see if they can produce
>parts in a timely manner. Intel just stumbled,
>and if AMD can't produce K7s in quantity they
>will miss one of the few opportunities they will
>ever get to be number one.
That is indeed the sixty-four dollar question. This isn't one of the few opportunities for AMD, they've had it for each of the last couple of generations, and blown it each time by not being able to produce in quantity. If they make it this time, their stock goes through the roof. If they don't, can they survive another blunder? Each time they pay the full R&D cost to get current, and lose the early sales that pay for the R&D. Commodity chips don't cover that cost (unless you're using an old enough technology, like the C5).
While I am a lawyer this is not legal advice. If you need advice on this matter, see a lawyer in your own jurisdiction.
The repercussions from this could be interesting . . .
MS has made a habit of pulling licenses for windows from companies that modify the windows startup screens, taking the (peculiar?) position that the companies are distributors for microsoft.
This won't work with the bios for a couple of reasons. The first is the lack of a contractual relationship with microsoft--microsoft doesn't have any threats to make, or contracts to claim it will enforce. The more interesting variation is that it puts microsoft in the same position w.r.t. Phoenix as Compaq was in with regard to microsoft--if the MS arguments are accepted, windows cannot tamper with the bios ads.
curioser & curioser . . .
hawk, esq.
I don't know the exact year, but I presume it was by June 86, because I was still at my parents' home.
One of my cousins who worked at HP came by a family gathering with one of their latest & greatest--a "portable" running unix--and apparently X. Plasma display (i think), wall-power, and a 68k processor. At the time, something drawing a space-shuttle by wire frame on your kitchen table was quite impressive . . .
A couple of years ago, I came up with the idea of "T", both for "text" and coming *before* W (hmm, why did I know about W then???)
:). Essentially, allow the X applications and mouse interface, but translate (and cache) icons to text, and limit positioning to character rather than pixel position.
:)
.12 instead of 1.0, and is grossly out of date). One of the planned toolkits is ncurses, meaning a text interface (of course, equations won't fully display, but it will allow work when only text is available).
:). Currently, most of the developers are tied up with the (purportedly) final release of 1.0.x, and little if any work is occurring on 1.1. But more coders, and particularly documenters, are welcome.
:)
I think it came after using a program whose name I forget that let me have 7 vt100 windows on a mac over a regular dial-up line.
The basic idea was to have a T-window rather than X-window, and to not transmit as much of X as possible, allowing use over slow lines (I was still using a 2400 modem. Come to think of it, every few months I still do
Lacking the time & knolwedge, nothing ever happened with it
While I'm at it, Lyx 1.2 (or 2.0, whatever it ends up) will be toolkit independent (currently it's locked to xforms, and klyx with qt uses
Gratuitious plug: If you're interested in such things, see www.lyx.org, and peek into the "Devlopers only" area (we need a better name
There will not be individual ports to particular tookits, but a toolkit-free core, glue/wrappers/whatevers (not my area).
Mmm, and if anyone wants to take over the mail-merge portion, I'd be happy to pass it on
hawk
>It's been a while since my Constitutional Law :)
:) But I could teach it . . .
:)
:)
:) ]
>class.
I don't seem to want to admit how long it's been
>"Federalism" in the context of the Constitution
>has a different meaning than what I intended.
"Federali*zation*" has a meaning close to what you intended, as well. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen the term used outside of U.S. political & constitutional discussions . . .
Madison, Hamilton, and Jay all used the pseudonym, and scholars agree on which wrote most of them.
At the time, I'd probably have been in the anti-Federalist camp with Jefferson & Paine, though over the years I'm seeing my sympathies switch from Jefferson to Madison.
"New Federalism" was a term from the classic liberal faction in the Reagan administration for the process of returning usurped functions to the states. Generally, it was the effort to swing the pendulum back to the states. It wasn't entirely the same issue as deregulation, but the camps overlapped. I have no idea where Reagan himself stood on the issue (or how much he really had to do with the administration, for that matter), but his rhetoric puts him in this category. His rhetoric was generally classic liberal, but governance tended more to the right wing.
>Please disregard these questions if they will
>result in my being billed.
Awe
But this is your big chance! My hourly doesn't double from $200 to $400 until the middle of next month when I successfully defend the Ph.D. [If "$10,000 + $400/hour" makes you blink, you're not big enough to have an anti-trust problem needing a lawyer-economist
That's about as far from a bedrock principle as you can get :)
I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. See a lawyer in your own jurisdiction for that.
The Bill of Rights does not apply directly to the states, but only by way of the 14th Amendment and by "selective incorporation."
The particular restraints that kick in are those "fundamental to the notion of ordered liberty." Trial by jury applies, but the jury size of 12, and unanimous verdicts, only apply to the feds. States can have preliminary hearings rather than grand juries in felony cases. The free exercise clause applies, but applying the establishment clause is rather new (state-supported churches existed not only before the fourteenth, but two states continued to have an established church afterwards).
Some pieces apply, some don't. Libraries selectively providing access could go either way (they're not required to provide any access), but I'd expect (but wouldn't bet) that the federal limits would apply to states and their subdivisions.
hawk, esq.
The federalist notion is to keep things at the lower level, only giving the central government the power to do that which can't be done efficiently by the states. (The anti-federalists took it farther, wanting to yield essentially nothing to the center except on a case-by-case basis).
Increasing the number of decisions made by D.C. flies in the face of federalism (and in that of the "New Federalism," too, for that matter).
Graphical [mumble] Machine
There was a mac prototype that used a 6809. They got quickdraw running at least somewhat, and had a bouncing ball on the screen. However, the bright idea of "a single bank of memory" meant that it would have 64kx8, or 64k of memory, and would lose a third to the video display. Thus the 68000 was brought in, for 64kx16 total memory [ I *wish* I was making this up!]
Could this have been the GLM?
He is probably the wealthiest grade school teacher in the area, then :)
:)
Sure, he's spent lots of his fortune. But the reported "loss" on the US concert included *buying* the land it was held on. Don't worry about him, he may be down to his last couple dozen million, but he'll be fine
As someone else pointed out, the II did not run at 2 but 1 mhz. The III ran at 2, and would drop to 1 for compatibility mode.
I'm not sure that all of the II's came with cases. The old purple manual was softbound, so I presume it came with the II. It was written with the assumption that the user would be supplying case and keyboard, and had instructions to connect these (and power supply, iirc). I believe that at least some of the boards shipped, and remained on the product list long after they could be ordered. I saw one once at Alltronics, in a blue wooden case--though I now wonder if it was an original and not a II.
As I recall, noone ever designed a clone of the Apple II. [though there was one machine (Sorceror?) that had a 6502, z80, and 8088 (6?)) that could run apple, trs-80, and ms-dos software. It died when it could no longer run pc-dos software when programs starting using keyboard scan codes instead of ascii input].
Franklin and the others simply flat-out stole the apple design. Copied the ROM's, and usually the motherboard layout. Then, having saved on R&D costs, they undercut apple. In short, these weren't competitors, but thieves.
Also, this did *not* cause the Apple II to die. Apple finally pulled the plug because people wouldn't stop ordering them (and still, they made an emulation card for the LC). Each sale of a II put apple that much further behind the ms-dos machines. Yes, the II had a loyal following, but it was an anchor holding apple back from progress. They certainly could have sold more in the short term, at the expense of the long term prosepects for the mac.
This is not legal advice. WHile I am an attorney, I am probably not admitted in your jurisdiction. If you need legal advice on this matter, consult an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction.
Those cases address a *prohibition* on *speaking* in the first place. Furthermore, the prohibition is by a government.
That is a far cry from using anonymity to protect oneself from the *consequences* of speech.
Free speech governs the right to make the statement. It does not protect one from the consequences. To look at your second example, while the local government can't block the distribution of the pamphlets, if teh information was defamatory, the employer would still be able to issue supoenas to determine her identity in a defamation action. There is no conflict.
Hawk, Esq.