by Chris Ridder
In cyberspace, news travels fast and furious with almost no help from the "media establishment." Like water seeping through cave rock in geologic time accelerated to computer warp speed, important news filters through the users evenly, gently caressing us as it flows by in soothing waves of publications and multicast e-mail.Black Thursday grabbed me around the throat.
They were calling it that almost before it happened, and when I woke up the morning of February 8th, the day Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act into law, it was shouting from every corner of cyberspace. More of a presence than the nudie-pictures themselves, the anti-censorship campaign had filtered through the net and taken hold in a matter of hours. Users in Anchorage were talking about it, thousands of high-profile Web pages were blackened in protest, and the e-mail was flying inæthe beginnings of a political battle the internet community has been gearing up for since the 1970s.
It wasn't the telecommunications bill internet users were upset about - the bill is the beginning of a new era in telecom regulation - one that will open opportunities for businesses to diversify their telecom offerings and for technology to advance faster. Presumably that's why it passed the House and Senate overwhelmingly. But most users are stunned by a rider that Senators Exon (D-NE) and Gorton (R-WA) successfully buried within the bill, imposing serious limitations on constitutionally-protected free speech.
How the rider got through committee we may never understand, but the Communications Decency Act (CDA) imposes a fine up to $250,000 and 2 years in prison for anyone who knowingly makes indecent material available to minors over the internet.The problem is, it's impossible to control such content at the server end, and numerous filtering and security systems are available for parents who wish to screen their children from subject matter more appropriate to adults.
Indecent speech is that which could be offensive or inappropriate for minors, and is constitutionally protected under the First Amendment (see FCC v. Pacifica Foundation(1978)). Furthermore, it must be regulated by the "least restrictive means" (see Sable Communications v. FCC). Obscene material was defined in Miller v. California(1973) as unprotected speech, and has always been illegal on the internet. But the Communications Decency Act has gone much farther - criminalizing broad classes of speech, including material that has serious scientific, literary, artistic, political, and cultural value.
Denizens of the internet are overwhelmingly united against this type of censorship and have been surprisingly organized and active on the issue for a while. Recent CDA protests in San Francisco and Washington D.C. have marked the beginning of the RL (real-life) presence of the internet community -a presence bound to increase dramatically as the internet gains more users and greater functionality. Two senators are opposing the measure in cyberspace, with more sure to follow suit.
The internet community has more communications power and technological sophistication than their luddite opponents, they are strongly aligned on this issue, and they have the Constitution on their side. The Justice Department agrees that the provision is unconstitutional, and said February 7th that they would not enforce it, especially in regard to provisions that limit the availability of information about abortion.
The Telecommunications Act was supposed to bring deregulation to the industry. Instead, people interested in speaking the unpopular are forced to hide from their government or risk arrest. The only good thing about the CDA is that it's brought the internet community together in political solidarity and demonstrated their power to mobilize political action on a moment's notice.
The most amazing free speech tool since the printing press has just been invented; the flow of information through the internet will not be contained. And this law, just as China's cyberspace censorship laws, won't have much effect beyond further dividing the country and tying up our court system. The first lawsuits have already been filed by the ACLU and EFF, and Sen. Leahy (D-VT) has already introduced a measure to repeal the CDA.
Do they think if we put the techno-literate and those willing to speak their minds in jail, things will be any better? Can restricting the free flow of information possibly be a good idea? For more information about the Communications Decency Act and how you can get involved in crushing it, check out these Web sites.
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Voter's Telecommunications Watch
*Words in bold are hypertext links to further information
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