FC: Linda Chavez on Net-porn, Tauzin, new DoJ MS lawyers

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,41022,00.html
   
   Bush to Porn: Run for Cover
   by Declan McCullagh (declan () wired com)
   
   2:00 a.m. Jan. 6, 2001 PST
   
   There's only one thing that Linda Chavez likes less than pornography,
   and that's when she finds it on the Internet.
   
   The conservative queen of syndicated outrage, who happens to be George
   W. Bush's pick to head the Department of Labor, has repeatedly warned
   of what she describes as the perils of sexually explicit material
   online and urged government action against it.
   
   If the Senate gives her the nod, Chavez will not have any day-to-day
   responsibilities dealing with online speech. But her nomination
   signals the approach that a Bush presidency is likely to take toward
   sexually explicit material online.
   
   One example: Chavez, currently a weekly columnist, jumped into a
   dispute in 1998 over the use of filtering software in a Virginia
   public library.
   
   After a federal judge ruled that Loudoun County's restrictive
   filtering policy was too broad and violated the First Amendment,
   Chavez showed up at the library board's next hearing and urged the
   members to appeal the courtroom defeat.
   
   "Judge Brinkema's decision goes far beyond any reasonable
   interpretation of the 'free speech' clause of the First Amendment and
   sets dangerous legal precedent that if left unchallenged will debase
   the political freedoms of citizens in a democracy to enact sensible
   policies designed both to protect children and uphold community
   standards of decency and decorum in public places," Chavez said in a
   written statement.
   
   In a column at the time, she blasted U.S. District Judge Leonie
   Brinkema's ruling, saying Loudoun County will be where "the
   constitutional right to view child pornography, bestiality and snuff
   films in a public library was first established, thanks to a federal
   court ruling last week."
   
   She also condemned a Supreme Court decision last year to strike down
   some rules governing cable TV scrambling on free speech grounds.
   
   Another column complained about her "unwanted brush with gay
   pornography" when she was channel-surfing late one night in a
   Manhattan hotel room.
   
   In other appointments:
   
   The House Republicans on Friday chose committee chairmen for the 107th
   Congress.
   
   Taking over the Commerce committee is Rep. Billy Tauzin, another
   Washington pornophobe.
   
   "Frankly, I think the Justice Department's record on prosecuting
   obscenity and indecency on the Internet is appalling," Tauzin
   (R-Louisiana) said last May.
   
   Tauzin, who was the telecom subcommittee chairman, has also complained
   that under the Clinton administration, dot-gov firms did not
   adequately protect online privacy. Last month he attacked the FCC for
   embarking "on a pernicious form of regulation using the process of
   licensing approval and renewal, or whatever gets someone in front of
   them, to get whoever it is to stay in that room until they agree to
   the commission's policies."
   
   Tauzin has supported restrictions on Internet gambling and won an
   award from the Business Software Alliance last year for backing the
   controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
   
   Microsoft update: Microsoft tipped us off late Friday that two new
   lawyers will represent the Department of Justice and the state
   attorneys general in the next phase of the antitrust case.

   Superstar attorney David Boies has bowed out of the proceedings, and
   taking his place are David Frederick and Jeffrey Minear. Both are
   members of the DOJ's solicitor general's office.
   
   Frederick was born in 1961 and was admitted to the bar in 1989, after
   graduating from the University of Texas at Austin's law school. He
   appears to have been the same David Frederick of Austin who
   represented the Sierra Club in a dispute with the U.S. Fish and
   Wildlife Service over the Endangered Species Act.
   
   Minear was born in 1955 and attended the University of Michigan's law
   school, passing the bar in 1983. He has frequently represented the
   Clinton administration in court as assistant to the solicitor general
   in cases such as prisoner free speech rights.
   
   Richard Urowsky from Sullivan and Cromwell, who has represented
   Microsoft intermittently before U.S. District Judge Thomas Jackson,
   will be arguing for the company before the DC Circuit Court of
   Appeals. Microsoft says he has appeared before the appeals court twice
   before in suits involving the DOJ.

   TechNet CEO: Rick White, a former congressman from Washington state
   who was defeated in his 1998 reelection bid, has found a new job.

   [...]
   



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