[800] in libertarians
FWD: online petition drive to oppose '95 Communications Decency Act
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (hhuang@MIT.EDU)
Wed Mar 8 14:26:19 1995
From: hhuang@MIT.EDU
Date: Wed, 8 Mar 95 14:20:45 -0500
To: safe-announce@MIT.EDU, libertarians-announce@MIT.EDU, objectivism@MIT.EDU
Many of you have probably received this already, but in case
not, here it is:
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Subject: "Communications Decency Act of 1995"
Date: Wed, 08 Mar 1995 13:49:39 EST
From: James Cullison <jhc@MIT.EDU>
You've possibly heard about this: A pair of Senators are re-introducing
a bill that sets limits on communications sent electronically in much
the same way telephone communications are limited. This bill deals with
the electronic nature of the communication partly by placing responsibility
for enforcement on the _providers_ of electronic communication services as
well as on the senders. MIT would be liable for messages I sent out over the
Net using their computers if these messages are "obscene, lewd, lascivious,
filthy, or indecent".
From the petition:
S. 314 would prohibit not only individual speech that is "obscene, lewd,
lascivious, filthy, or indecent", but would prohibit any provider of
telecommunications service from carrying such traffic, under threat of
stiff penalty. Even aside from the implications for free speech, this
would cause an undue - and unjust - burden upon operators of the various
telecommunications services. In a time when the citizenry and their
lawmakers alike are calling for and passing "no unfunded mandates" laws
to the benefit of the states, it is unfortunate that Congress might seek to
impose unfunded mandates upon businesses that provide the framework for
the information age.
Interest aroused? I should hope so. Read on for info on how to find and
sign the petition, where to find more information online, and a bit more
depth on the bill and the petition.
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The Basics Of Acting:
To read the petition, the bill, and an analysis of the bill, see:
http://www.phantom.com/~slowdog/petition.txt
From Athena, try:
athena% add sipb; Mosaic http://www.phantom.com/~slowdog/ &
For fullest effect, signatures should be received _before_ 3/16/1995.
To sign the petition, send an email as follows:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
To: s314-petition@netcom.com
Subject: <anything>
--------
SIGNED jhc@mit.edu James H. Cullison YES
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
SIGNED should be in allcaps.
The next three things are <your email address> <your full name> <US citizenry>.
If you are a U.S. citizen, use YES; otherwise, use NO.
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Other Information:
Via ftp: ftp wookie.net
login: anonymous
password: <your e-mail address>
/pub/users/slowdog/
Coming RealSoonNow, sign the petition via WWW:
http://uvacs.cs.virginia.edu/~hwh6k/public/S314_stuff.html
The petition statement was written by Christopher Frankonis,
<slowdog@wookie.net>, super.net.freedom.fighter
Send any comments you may have about the situation to:
Dave C. Hayes <dave@kachina.altadena.ca.us>
Excerpts from (http://www.phantom.com/~slowdog/*):
About the Bill:
Senators Exon (D-NE) and Senator Gorton (R-WA) have
introduced legislation to expand current FCC regulations
on obscene and indecent audiotext to cover *all* content
carried over all forms of electronic communications
networks. If enacted, the "Communications Decency Act of
1995" (S. 314) would place substantial criminal liability
on telecommunications service providers (including
telephone networks, commercial online services, the
Internet, and independent BBS's) if their network is used
in the transmission of any indecent, lewd, threatening or
harassing messages. The legislation is identical to a
proposal offered by Senator Exon last year which failed
along with the Senate Telecommunications reform bill (S.
1822, 103rd Congress, Sections 801 - 804).
About the Petition:
Approximately 76300 electronic signatures have been gathered as of
Saturday, March 4, 1995.
Time is of the essence, we are going to turn this petition and the
signatures in on 3/16/95, so if you are going to sign this please
do so ASAP or at least before midnight Wednesday, March 15, 1995.
Even if you read this petition after the due date, please submit your
signature anyway as we expect Congress to continue debating these issues
in the foreseeable future and the more signatures we get, the more
influence the petition will have on discussion. And even if Congress
rejects S. 314 while signatures are being gathered, do submit your
signature anyway for the same reason.
It must first be noted that this is a petition, not a
vote. By "signing" it you agree with *all* the requests
made in the petition. If you do not agree with everything
in this petition, then your only recourse is to not sign
it. [or to start your own petition] In addition, all e-mail
signatures will be submitted to Congress, the President of
the United States, and the news media. Including your full
name is optional, but *very highly encouraged* as that would
add to the effectiveness of the petition. Signing via an
anonymous remailer is highly discouraged, but not forbidden,
as an attempt will be made to separately tally signatures from
anonymous remailers. We do encourage non-U.S. citizens to sign,
but their signatures will be tallied separately.
Within a few days of receipt of your signature, an automated
acknowledgment will be e-mailed to you for e-mail address
verification purposes. You do not need to respond or reply to
this acknowledgement when you receive it. We may also contact
you again in the future should we need more information, such as
who your House Representative and Senators are, which is not asked
here as it is unclear whether such information is needed.
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