Jacking in from the "You Can't Fool All the People All The Time" Port:

[Dave Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

CyberWire Dispatch // Copyright (c) 1995 //


Warning:  This article contains material that is potentially criminal in
nature and could be considered "indecent" under certain provisions of the
proposed Senate Telecommunications reform bill.  You have been warned.


Jacking in from the "You Can't
Fool All the People All The Time" Port:


Washington -- The brain-dead, ill-named Communications Decency Act
(S.314) was, as expected,  folded into the Senate's telecommunications
reform package today, which was approved on a 17-2 vote by the
Commerce Committee.


This bill, sponsored by Senator James Exon (D-Neb.), who is punching
out of the Senate after his term ends this year, would essentially
make criminals of anyone sending messages ambiguously defined as
"indecent" across the Internet.


The bill makes no distinction between consensual or nonconsensual:  If
you're given to sending the occasional lusty message to that someone
special, under this bill, you're fucked. In fact, under the language
of the bill, that last sentence could land me a cozy jail cell and tap
my checkbook for a cool $100,000 in fines.


The bill has whipped up a firestorm of controversy, resulting in what
amounts to a virtual uprising among Internet users.  The day before
the Senate committee vote, an Internet driven petition that garnered
more than 100,000 "signatures" was presented to Commerce Committee
Chairman Larry Pressler (R-S.D.).  The petition apparently fell on
deaf ears.


The bill, added as an amendment to the Telecommunications Competition
and Deregulation Act of 1995 was passed on a voice vote;  there were
no dissenters.


The bill's co-sponsor, Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.), gave lip service
to the concerns raised by civil liberties groups, saying that because
our "kids have access to all this junk" on the Internet, the amendment
was needed.  Gorton said Exon had sufficiently addressed the
"outcries" of the Internet community by changing language in the bill
that would have held Internet service providers, commercial
information systems such as America Online, CompuServe and Prodigy and
telecommunications carriers libel by the mere fact that they were
party to the "indecent speech" because it was swept through their
electronic veins.


Apparently, only the individual sending the message is now held
criminally responsible.  Well, fuck that.  (Damn, that's two counts of
indecency... quick, delete this from your system or you, too, may be
held accountable...)


Just how much Exon has changed the bill isn't known;  his staff didn't
circulate the amendment's new language.  Regardless, the bill is bad
blood.  "We absolutely still oppose this bill," said Jerry Berman,
ex-EFF director who's now heading his own policy group, the Center for
Democracy and Technology.  Even if the bill has been "narrowed" to
sting only individuals, "it's still unconstitutional," Berman said.


Berman's group has floated a proposal that relies on technological
advancements that would enable parents to keep their innocents from
being virtually violated by the Internet's sometimes rough and tumble
language.


The bill is flawed from the outset.  While a 12-year-old can sneak a
peek at Playboy at this local 7-11 or drool while reading the graphic
descriptions of blow jobs in a Daniel Steele novel at Crown Books, the
same type of material will land you in jail under this bill.


And now, instead of being able fight the bill as a stand alone item,
it's now wrapped into the broader telecommunications reform package, a
piece of legislation that everyone in the industry with a heart beat
has a hard on for.   To defeat this beast now will require procedural
surgery when the reform bill hits the Senate floor for debate.


The moronic stance of this bill can be illustrated by taking a short
stroll to men's restroom, the one just down the all from where this
august body of lawmakers was holding forth on how to shape the future
of telecommunications.  Once inside the men's room, a left turn into
any of the several stalls reveals entire walls of graffiti that looked
like they were plucked from Alt.Sex.Suck-My-Dick.


Here you'll find phone numbers with invitations to get personal with
someone's  "Big 10 inch."  There are anatomically correct -- if
slightly exaggerated -- sketches of homoerotic acts.  And in another
stall, someone has even clipped what appears to be photos from a
sexually explicit gay men's magazines and pasted them to the walls and
toilet paper dispensers.


Exiting the restroom, a youngster, no more than 10, visiting his
"lawmakers in action" pushed passed me to the stalls, a pained, urgent
look on his face...


Leaving the restroom I turned to check for a warning sign, something,
anything that would have warned my urgent young stranger about the
experience he was about to partake of in the pursuit of a moment of
freedom.  There was no warning.  No sign. I made a note and dropped it
off at Exon's office.  I was going to Email him, but he doesn't have
it... and I doubt he'd accept it from an "indecent message trafficker"
such as myself anyway.


Meeks out...