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IP: ACLU Wary of White House Goals on "Voluntary" Internet
From: David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 18:33:45 -0400
ACLU Wary of White House Goals on "Voluntary" Internet Censorship FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Emily Whitfield Wednesday, July 16, 1997 (212) 549-2566 WASHINGTON -- After attending a White House summit on Internet censorship today, the ACLU said that it was wary of schemes to implement a universal, "voluntary" ratings system on the Internet. By seeking to coerce high-tech "self-regulation" from industry groups, the White House is putting free speech at risk all over again, said Donald Haines, ACLU Legislative Counsel who attended the meeting. "Although President Clinton is to be commended for not seeking new legislation, we're fearful that the Administration seems to be trying to achieve through technology what it could not achieve through the Courts," Haines said, adding that the ACLU is eager to work with the Administration= to protect free speech. The ACLU was invited to the summit late yesterday, in a last-minute reversal from the White House, which had initially excluded the ACLU and other free speech groups from the meeting. According to Haines, the gathering today came after a smaller group of 40 or so industry representatives and certain parents groups met privately with President Clinton and Vice President Gore earlier in the morning. "The pre-meeting resulted in pre-determined conclusions being presented to those who were invited to participate," Haines said. "Unfortunately, the ACLU and others who attended in a spirit of cooperation and with the hopes of making contributions were largely relegated to the role of spectator." At the larger meeting, President Clinton announced that Internet giant Netscape plans to join Microsoft and other major industry players in embedding a ratings software code in its World Wide Web browser. The code, known as PICS (Platform for Internet Content Selection) could then be used with a "V-chip"-type ratings software program to screen out sites. In order for the scheme to work, website operators and individual speakers must "voluntarily" label their web sites and speech, or risk being screened out altogether as an "unrated" site. =0C The ACLU cautioned industry groups not to rush towards a universal rating system based on individual self-labeling, and urged support for a= third-party filtering system that would allow diverse groups such as the PTA, the Christian Coalition and the Southern Baptists to create their own filtering schemes for parents to choose from. "In moving away from supporting third-party filtering systems, the government is once again heading down the wrong road," Haines said. "Rather than empowering parents, a universal rating system will in effect restrict the choices that parents can make." The "voluntary" nature of the rating initiatives is, in fact, little more than government- coerced censorship, he added, and the PICS program, once in place, could help enable the government to compel the use of such ratings, a move the ACLU would vigorously oppose. Today's meeting follows a landmark Supreme Court decision late last month striking down censorship provisions of the Communications Decency Act as unconstitutional. The ACLU filed a lawsuit challenging the CDA on behalf of 20 organizations and individuals, the day after President Clinton signed= the law. Writing for the nearly unanimous majority in Reno v. ACLU, Justice John Paul Stevens likened an online user to a "town crier" or a "pamphleteer," and concluded that "the interest in encouraging freedom of expression in a democratic society outweighs any theoretical but unproven benefit of censorship." "Imagine being forced to wear a sandwich board that says =EBviolent and sexual content' if you want to stand on the street and hand out a pamphlet on domestic abuse," said the ACLU's Don Haines. "This kind of content-based self-labeling is exactly what the Supreme Court opposed in its recent decision striking down censorship provisions of the Communications Decency Act." "If the First Amendment is good enough for the United States Supreme Court, it ought to be good enough for the Internet industry," Haines added. -endit-
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- IP: ACLU Wary of White House Goals on "Voluntary" Internet David Farber (Jul 16)