On the recent admin decision concerning Anh KyAnh

[AnHai Doan <anhai@cs.washington.edu>]

Dear friends,

A short time ago, we made a decision to suspend the posting right of Anh
KyAnh after he posted a message about Radio Free Asia on VNSA. Since some
members expressed their concerns and confusions over this decision, in
this message we will explain how the admins arrived at the
decision.

Briefly, politically sensitive topics are not tolerated on VNSA for the
following reasons: (1) in setting up VNSA, it was understood by all the
involved sides (including the university supporting us on hardware and
technological issues) that such topics will not be discussed; furthermore,
if VNSA acquires a reputation of spreading politically sensitive materials
that can be interpreted as violating VNese laws, then (2)  DHS/NCS won't
join VNSA, which was created to serve them; (3) VNSA won't be able to
collaborate with domestic VNese organizations on charity, education,
technology and other projects;  and (4) it might be the case that the
VNese authority will hold the VNSA admins responsible for letting such
materials disseminated on VNSA. 

It is well-known that Radio Free Asia has been denounced by the VNese
government as a propaganda tool used to disseminate materials aiming at
undermine the current government. It follows that any information about
Radio Free Asia, in any form, is politically sensitive, and cannot be
tolerated on VNSA. It doesn't matter who posts such information on VNSA
with what motivation. If the VNSA admins doesn't react to this, all that
will be remembered is that we tolerate the spreading of materials aiming
at undermining the current VNese government, and so we will be held
responsible for that. 

Anh KyAnh clearly violated VNSA policy with his posting about Radio Free
Asia. We contacted him privately about this matter.  He said, in effect,
that he had learned long time ago not to be afraid from controversial
issues; that we should not make a fuss out of it; and that he merely
provided some "neutral" information, with good intention. It was clear
that not only he violated VNSA policy, he also didn't understand the
seriousness of the issue, and didn't grasp how much damage he could have
done to VNSA and us the admins with his RFA posting. 

This was also not the first time Anh KyAnh's posting violated VNSA policy.
In his very first VNSA message he also said politically sensitive things;
and we was forced to issue an admin message to kill that thread.

Anh TaNguyen violated VNSA policy with his Ha Si Phu posting, his posting
right was suspended for three months. RFA was almost as serious a matter
as Ha Si Phu's writings. We initially considered a two-month suspension,
but finally agreed on a one-month suspension decision.

VNSA Admins.
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