INTERNET AS TERRORIST / THE SEQUEL

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

> Posted-Date: Sat, 27 May 1995 03:04:32 -0400
> From: Doug Michels <doug () sco COM>
> To: farber () central cis upenn edu
> Subject: INTERNET AS TERRORIST / THE SEQUEL
> Date: Fri, 26 May 1995 23:59:00 -0700 (PDT)
>
> > From sco.sco.com!woolf.individual.com!individual.com!first Thu May 25
> > 23:21:05 1995
> Date: Fri, 26 May 1995 02:19:11 -0400
> From: first () individual com (An Information Service of INDIVIDUAL Inc.)
> Message-Id: <199505260619.AA23377 () individual com>
> To: individual () sco com
> Profid: SCOKL1
> Addrid: NEIL1
> Subject:  INTERNET AS TERRORIST / THE SEQUEL
>
> ============================================================================
> SUBJECT:  INTERNET AS TERRORIST / THE SEQUEL
> SOURCE:   ZiffWire via First! by Individual, Inc.
> DATE:     May 25, 1995
> INDEX:    [6]
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>  Inter@ctive Week via First! : A Senate panel went gunning for the
> Internet. They didn't miss.
>
>  During a May 11 hearing titled "The Availability of Bomb Making
> Information On The Internet," several senators, led by presidential
> candidate Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), made
> the Internet out to be a prime purveyor of terrorism.
>
>  Specter chaired the hearing of the Subcommittee on Terrorism. He did not
> mince words: "There are serious questions about whether it is
> technologically feasible to restrict access to the Internet or to censor
> certain messages." His Subcommittee wants to find the answer.
>
>  Although rumblings about the Internet's role in terrorism have been
> echoing through the halls of Capitol Hill ever since the bombing in Oklahoma
> City, Specter's hearing was the first to officially investigate the issue in
> a congressional forum.
>
>  The Subcommittee heard from five expert witnesses. Each acknowledged that
> even the "mayhem manuals" -- as Specter called the Internet text files that
> contain bomb-making information -- should be considered protected speech
> under First Amendment guidelines. However, Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon
> Wiesenthal Center questioned whether Congress couldn't, somehow, devise a
> way to censor speech. The "obscene or threatening phone caller" doesn't have
> protected speech, Hier said. "Why are those protections afforded if he
> launches the same attack via the Internet?"
>
>  Sen. Feinstein couldn't brook with the idea that the First Amendment
> extended to "information . . . that teaches people to kill." The expert
> testimony "really has my dander up," Feinstein said, suggesting that such
> information be banned from electronic networks.
>
>  Bomb-making instruction books made available online should be targeted for
> censorship, Feinstein suggested, because that information is "pushing the
> envelope of free speech to extremes." She told the experts that the
> "doctrine of prior restraint is one we have to look at." After all, she
> said, that such information "isn't what this country is all about."
>
>  That line drew a sharp rebuke from Jerry Berman, executive director of the
> Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology: "Excuse me, Senator,
> that is what this country is all about." Berman then asked: "Are you
> proposing we outlaw that kind of speech for bookstores?" Feinstein just
> glared.
>
>  Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) added his two cents, saying that if Americans
> "really knew about the dark back alleys of the Internet . . . they would be
> shocked." Kohl went on to suggest that Congress would look at placing
> artificial restraints on access to the Internet. "In other words, the
> industry acts now or Congress will do it for you," Kohl said. "After all, if
> we have the technology to get kids on the Internet, we have should have the
> technology to get them off."
>
>  The Department of Justice got its licks in when Deputy Assistant Attorney
> General Robert Litt testified. "Not only do would-be terrorists have access
> to detailed information on how to construct explosives," he said, "but so do
> children." He followed that line with a shot aimed at commercial services
> such as Prodigy, America Online and CompuServe: "This problem can only grow
> worse as more families join the Internet 'society.'"
>
>  America Online's Government Affairs Director William Burrington pointed
> out that any restrictions the U.S. might place on Internet access would
> largely be ignored by the rest of the world, given the "international
> information ocean" that is the Net.
>
>  Specter was set on his heels when he questioned Litt. "What first-hand
> knowledge or statistics do you have about crimes that have taken place as a
> result of information gathered from the Internet?" Specter asked. "None,"
> replied Litt. Specter reframed the question twice, but Litt could find no
> other answer. Specter asked him to "investigate" the question and report
> back.
>
>  Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) broke from his colleagues, saying, "Before we
> head down a road that leads to censorship we must think long and hard about
> its consequences." He then cut to the bottom line of the debate: It is
> "harmful and dangerous conduct, not speech, that justifies adverse legal
> consequences," Leahy said.
>
>  The most telling blow came from former U.S. Attorney Frank Tuerkheimer.
> Currently a law professor, Tuerkheimer gained notoriety in the 1970s when,
> arguing the government's case, he successfully blocked the publication of
> the How to Make an H-Bomb article in The Progressive magazine, providing a
> precedent for the "prior restraint" doctrine.
>
>  Tuerkheimer said that today he regrets arguing that case, first because
> the information was all available in public libraries, and second because
> another publication ended up printing it anyway. Those circumstances, he
> said, show the fallacy of trying to censor information, which "will find a
> way to get out," he said.
>
>  Tuerkheimer also pointed out to the Senate panel that even the
> Encyclopedia Britannica includes detailed bomb making information. Further,
> a publication called the Blaster's Handbook, which contains a detailed
> recipe for an Ammonium Nitrate/Fuel oil bomb like that used in Oklahoma
> City, is available for free -- from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's
> Forestry Service.
>
>  Brock N. Meeks, Inter@ctive Week
>
> [05-25-95 at 17:27 EDT, Copyright 1995, ZiffWire, File: c0525204.4zf]
>
>  Copyright (c) 1995 by INDIVIDUAL, Inc.  All rights reserved.
>
> ===========================================================================
> =====