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Clintonites don't trust us in Cyberspace [well said djf]
From: David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>
Date: Sat, 29 Oct 1994 07:15:33 -0400
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 1994 23:03:09 -0700 From: mykes () mail best com (Mike Schwartz) I found this piece in the San Jose Mercury News, Sunday Oct. 23, 1994. It was written by a professional and mature journalist. CLINTONITES DON'T TRUST US IN CYBERSPACE Dan Gillmor, Computing Editor ------ Rush Limbaugh may view the Clinton administration as a nest of left-wing, permissive radicals, but you couldn't prove it by looking at some of the federal government's cyberspace policies. The Clintonites say they want to spur information technology - the so-called information superhighway. Last week, for example, they opened a White house site on the Internet's World Wide Web. At least they have a clue about this stuff. But they don't trust us. When it comes to civil liberties on-line, the Clintonites haven't just been indifferent. They've been actively hostile. In the name of public safety and social justice, they are sending us a disturbing message: In cyberspace you can forget your Constitutional rights. Consider: o This administration persuaded Congress to pass a digital wiretap law. As we do more and more on-line, this noxious law will expand greatly government's ability to spy on us. It forces telephone and other communications companies to build in doors allowing government surveilance of your calls and other electronic communications. Cybercrooks are bound to use the same doors. And compliance will cost a fortune; we'll all pay via taxes and phone bills. o This administration launched the infamous Clipper chip plan. The idea was to produce devices that could encrypt, or scramble, communications using a method that, in theory, only the government could crack from the outside. Apart from the assault on civil liberties this would be, domestic makers of telecommunications equipment and software aren't likely to sell much overseas when buyers know the U.S. government has the keys to supposedly secure communications. Clipper is in trouble, but the Clinton folks still like the concept. o This administration hauled the owners of a Milpitas computer bulletin board to the heart of the Bible Belt and prosecuted them on obscenity charges - an abuse of the criminal justice system and a direct attack on First Amendment rights. If the couple's conviction stands, standards in the nation's most repressive communities could determine what you and I may read, hear or view. o This administration again tossed free speech overboard when the Education Department's Office of Civil Rights sided with three California college students who were offended by sexist remarks on a campus computer messaging system. The proper response to offensive speech is not censorship but more convincing speech, a concept that eludes more and more people these days, and not just in government. The technology that is making it easier to spy on us also is giving us the tools to keep the spies at bay - whether the spies are our government, big business or the cybercrook down the street - and to send and receive materials others deem offensive. To stop this, you have to make criminals of people who use these tools, no matter how pure their motives. Administration denials to the contrary, that's the clear direction in which we're heading. I'm not indifferent to law and order or national security, nor to the reality that bad folks are using cyberspace in damaging ways. But I'm convinced that government control of this new medium will do far more harm than good: It will derail innovation, and it will erode people's faith in the system's security from prying eyes, governmental or otherwise. In the end, I guess, I trust us more than our government. ---------------- Write Dan Gillmor at the Mercury News, 750 Ridder Park Dr. San Jose, CA 95190 call (408) 920-5016 fax (408) 920-5917 Mercury Center: dgillmor. Internet: dgillmor () sjmercury com
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- Clintonites don't trust us in Cyberspace [well said djf] David Farber (Oct 29)