Well, I really don’t have any intention of turning this into a political action column. But, if you want to continue to have a CyberSpace to surf, at least here in the US, there are a few issues that I think everyone should be aware of.
The Communications Decency Act of 1995 (S. 314) has managed to snake its way through Congress by being attached to the current telecommunications deregulation bill. This act is now known as the Exon Amendment, after its sponsor, Senator James Exon, (D-NE). Opposition to the original S. 314 gathered 121,000 electronic signatures on an anti-S. 314 petition. A new petition in support of the more intelligent and sensible Child Protection, User Empowerment, and Free Expression in Interactive Media Study Bill (S. 714) is available at the URL http://www.phantom.com/ ~slowdog.
Other hyperlinks at the slowdog site will take you to copies of the press coverage, political contact information, and other on-line resources such as The Center for Democracy and Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Electronic Messaging Association, and The American Civil Liberties Union.
The Exon Amendment is founded on some erroneous assumptions, the first being that the ‘net is a dangerous place, i.e. not safe for women, children, or the feeble minded.The only thing I don’t feel safe from while sitting in front of my computer surfing the ‘net is a nuclear attack, and if that happens, it’s not coming over the ‘net.
How does safety on the net equate to banning "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy or indecent" content? This is what Exon’s bill attempts to criminalize, without addressing that question, or the slight constitutional problem of lumping obscene with indecent. Indecent speech is constitutionally protected, as upheld by the Supreme Court in 1978 in FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, and in 1989 in Sable Communications v. FCC in which the Court held that a ban on obscenity is constitutional, while a ban on indecency is not. The Court wrote that "the government may not reduce the adult population to only what is fit for children" (Internet World, Vol.6 No.8, p.91).
In this attack on free speech, the on-line services were originally also held responsible for the content that was on their equipment or transmitted through their services. At this point they too were very opposed to S. 314. After their lawyers rewrote portions of it to make the on-line services immune from criminal penalty, they became noticeably quite on the issue of user rights.
A further problem with the Exon Amendment is that it is yet another piece of unneeded legislation being introduced for what seems to be nothing more than publicity reasons by Exon. It's a nice soundbite to say you’re against porn and want to protect innocent children. However, distributing obscene content over the ‘net is already a federal crime under 18 USC 1465. Of course, neither Exon nor the aid in charge of the bill were aware of that (ibid).
The Department of Justice also attacks the Exon Amendment. They make particular reference to sections 402 and 405 of the Telecommunications Reform Bill of 1995 as being well intentioned but badly written. This analysis is available through the Voters Telecommunications Watch. In the analysis by Kent Markus, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the DOJ, he writes that passage of this bill with the Exon Amendment attached would "significantly thwart enforcement of existing laws...threaten important First Amendment and privacy rights...and impose criminal sanctions on the transmission of constitutionally protected speech."
Even with all the press the Internet is getting about being a safe haven for pedophiles and terrorists, eight days after the bombing in Oklahoma City, a Time/CNN poll found that 52% of respondents agreed that "the federal government has become so large and powerful that it poses a threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens" (Wired 3.07, p. 33).
In a world increasingly shaped by ideas (content), everyone should be able to speak out in the public forum that is the Internet. If you don’t like something, don’t look or listen in. The Internet is not an invasive medium like the broadcast industry. You don’t turn on the Internet and have obscene material blasted at you before you can change the channel as you would with radio or TV. You have to actively seek it out. This at least protects the feeble-minded :-)
Parents, not the government, should have the right, and should take the responsibility, to make whatever decisions they want in restricting the content their children can access. Existent filtering mechanisms are both less restrictive and more empowering.
And, I'm sorry, but I guess I'm enough of a feminist to believe that women don't need any special protection for their sensibilities because of their gender. The majority of the women I've known are healthy, horny, and well adjusted enough to make up their own minds about the content they choose to puruse, and it's not their fault that others aren't.
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Questions or comments about these Web pages? Send e-mail to
dave@reststop.net