Interesting People mailing list archives
IP: From Barlow -- Congress is about to blow it!
From: Dave Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>
Date: Tue, 05 Dec 1995 17:46:23 -0500
Folks, It appears that Congress is clueless as ever about the Net. The Exon Anti-Porn Amendement to the Telecommunications Bill, deleted from the House version, has now re-emerged as a powerful possibility in the conference committee which was hashing out the differences between the two bills. Indeed, even more censorious language than Exon proposed has been put forward by Rep. Henry Hyde, responding to an initiative led by Edwin Meese on behalf of a large group of fundamentalist organizations. It now appears likely they will prevail in this effort. While I suspect that whatever these old idiots do will, in the long run, be irrelevant to the Net, I would hope to forstall as long as possible a truly bitter showdown between the citizens of Cyberspace and the Old Order. This could be the "Stamp Act" which inspires many virtual Boston Tea Parties, and I think it's too early for this sort of thing to be happening. We're not strong enough yet. If you have a congressman or senator on the conference committee (see list below), please consider calling him or her TODAY and registering your opinion. Even if you aren't a constituent, it would be well to have these phones ringly loud with our dismay. Furthermore, I would appreciate it if you could pass this message along to your other wired friends as quickly and widely as possible. And if it passes, I will be proud to start putting links from my home page to every pornographic site I can find outside of the borders of the United States, and I hope you will do likewise. Wearily, John Perry
Current thread:
- IP: From Barlow -- Congress is about to blow it! Dave Farber (Dec 05)