IP: From Barlow -- Congress is about to blow it!

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

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