FC: American Family Association steps up Yahoo attack, reply from annoy.com

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Following is:
1. A press release this week from the American Family Association (they 
apparently won't give up until Yahoo shuts down any group that is offensive)
2. Comments from annoy.com's Clinton Fein
3. Other responses

Background:
http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=trueman

-Declan

*********

AMERICAN
FAMILY
ASSOCIATION  ____________________________________
                                                                      Washington, 
D.C. Office
                                                                PRESS RELEASE
                                                                Contact: 
Patrick Trueman
                                                                        (202) 
544-0061

For Immediate Release                                            July 16, 2001


YAHOO! HELPS CHILD MOLESTERS, CHILD PORN TRADERS,
AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOC. SAYS

"Yahoo! is providing a free service on its own servers that helps 
pedophiles find children to rape and traders of child pornography to 
exchange illegal photos," said Patrick A. Trueman of American Family 
Association.  Through its "Child Pornography Crimes Members Directory" 
Yahoo! facilitates these illegal and despicable practices," he added.  On 
the directory, members list their Yahoo! I.D. Clicking on the I.D. opens up 
the members' personal Yahoo! profile, which includes information that the 
member has posted.  This includes, solicitations for sex with children and 
for child pornography, an e-mail address, often a sexually explicit photo 
of the member, a list of the members' favorite Yahoo! sex clubs and other 
Yahoo! member directories of interest.

One member, a male, 37, indicates his interests include incest & pedophilia 
and says he is "looking for wife with whom I can start an incest 
family."  Another lists his occupation as "child porn addict," and says his 
hobbies are exchanging child porn by e-mail and having sex with his 
daughter.  Another man makes the following solicitation: " Mom, dad, and 
daughter looking for a young girl to play with us. How young? Try it and 
see."

Yahoo! should get out of the business of facilitating child rapists and 
child pornographers," Trueman said.  "Yahoo! should immediately close its 
Child Pornography Crimes Members Directory, he added.

AFA is starting an online petition this week (www.afa.net) urging Yahoo! to 
clean up its site,
according to Trueman.  Trueman is AFA's director of governmental affairs, 
and was chief of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Criminal 
Division, U.S. Department of Justice, from 1988 to 1992.



                     227 Massachusetts Avenue, N.E., Suite 
302,  Washington, D.C. 20002
  (202) 544-0061, fax (202) 544-0504

*********

Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2001 04:36:52 -0700
From: "Clinton D. Fein" <clinton.fein () apollomedia com>
To: <declan () well com>, <politech () politechbot com>
Cc: <ptrueman () afo net>, <MarkKernes () aol com>, <athierer () cato org>

Patrick Trueman's understanding of the law is fundamentally confused,
and while his campaign to involve Attorney General John Ashcroft is well
within his constitutional rights, his crusade is weakened by his
inability to discern or differentiate legal content from discontent.

He states: "Sexually explicit material, whether in writing or pictures,
etc., may be found to be obscene." This, of course, can be true, but
certain images (including numerous on annoy.com, for instance, which
some people might consider to be obscene in some communities) have been
deemed merely indecent by both the Department of Justice and the Supreme
Court, and thus subject to First Amendment protection.

There is no conceivable government interest that could justify a content
prohibition of "indecent" speech, including of course, indecent speech
with intent to "annoy" people.  The government cannot even advance the
interest in protecting children from exposure to "indecent" material --
the interest that it unsuccessfully urged to support other provisions of
the Communications Decency Act held unconstitutional in Reno v. ACLU.

Trueman's convenient lumping together of all things not "family
oriented" ranging from consenting adult sex orgies to child pornography
without offering any legal distinctions or guidelines does his own
campaign a disservice. While obscenity and child pornography are legally
distinct, pornography is not. Any prosecution initiated by the Attorney
General on this basis would not provide reasonably ascertainable
standards of guilt and therefore would violate the constitutional
requirements of due process. In other words, a waste of time and tax
dollars from the outset.

First, Mr. Trueman should be reminded that even if material is deemed
obscene, not all obscene material is illegal. Indeed, even the Supreme
Court has recognized a constitutional right to possess obscenity in
one's own home (Stanley v. Georgia). In ApolloMedia v. Reno, the
District Court for the Northern District of California asserted that the
intent requirement in provision §223(a)(1)(A) of the Communications
Decency Act "clarifies Congress' intent that the statute proscribe only
obscene communications between non- -consenting adults."

Second, remaining and enforceable provisions of the Communications
Decency Act protect companies like Yahoo! from liability for third-party
content in their capacity as service providers - especially in the
absence of editorial supervision over such content. (In fact, in
Blumenthal v. Drudge, AOL was not even liable even when it was aware of
what was being published by a third-party in its capacity as publisher).

It is mind-boggling that Mr. Trueman considers sites such as Yahoo!,
(never mind annoy.com, or sites containing Independent Prosecutor
Kenneth Starr's Report) dangerous or harmful to minors, yet appears to
have no problem allowing children to visit sites that thinly veil
suggestions of violence against adulterers, abortionists or homosexuals,
for instance. (Where's Donna Rice Hughes when you need her?) What about
the exposure of children to sites that mock, ridicule and may promote
violence against Christianity or Wicca? What about biblical descriptions
of Sodom and Gomorrah or expressions of the nudity of Adam and Eve pre
Apple?

It seems that this campaign has more to do with sexual mores and an
imposition of standards or ideologies than any purported interest in
protecting children or a respect for the First Amendment. Especially an
Amendment that facilitates the verbiage and ranting of those who spend
months on end on dubiously moral quests to seek out material about
"fanaticizing about raping a woman", child pornography and deviant sex.
This transparent campaign, one might argue, is indecent and annoying,
intentionally so, but irrefutably constitutional.

Perhaps Mr. Trueman would be better off, however, spending more quality
time with his children, if he has any, directing what sites they go to
and what materials they are exposed to, and let the rest of us worry
about our own.
____________________________

Clinton Fein
President
ApolloMedia Corporation
370 7th Street, Suite 6
San Francisco, CA  94103
VOX 415-552-7655
FAX 415-552-7656
http://apollomedia.com/

*********

Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 15:25:24 -0400
From: Mich Kabay <mkabay () compuserve com>
Subject: RE: FC: American Family Association continues porn attack on
   Yahoo
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Cc: Patrick Trueman <ptrueman () afo net>

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Dear Declan,

Message text written by INTERNET:declan () well com
 >Now  anti-porn groups can come back every week (Patrick has
 >sent me at least two very similar press releases recently),
 >identify discussion groups that are purportedly offensive, and
 >compel Yahoo to take action. Since discussion areas can be
 >created without human intervention, it's an infinite loop. And
 >even if Patrick is successful, he'll merely succeed in driving
 >the participants back to Usenet. <

In what possible sense is the migration of hateful people into
the ghettos of the USENET a Bad Thing?  Making it harder for
such folk to express themselves seems like a Good Thing to me as
long as it is not through government action.  When I hear
homophobes and racists speaking in public, I speak to them to
express my revulsion at their language, even when it can be
dangerous to do so.  When I encounter people who write and speak
offensively about women, I protest their language.

This practice is known as "applying social pressure" and is one
of the ways that people help to define norms of acceptable and
unacceptable speech and behavior -- and yes, there _are_
legally-protected forms of speech that are nonetheless socially
unacceptable in a given context.  Just because it is _not
illegal_ to say that all Gorophians have their norbili stuffed
up their cranial otylimumpules is no reason expect to get away
with saying such a vile thing among civilized people.

 >Finally, if child porn exists, that's one thing -- but
 >fantasies that Patrick finds distasteful are still protected by
 >the First Amendment and perhaps even Yahoo's terms of service.<
 >

As for your including the First Amendment in your comments -- is
it not correct to state that there are no legal constraints
whatsoever on the restrictions that may be imposed on
subscribers by an Internet service provider and Web hosting
system like Yahoo and GeoCities?  First amendment restrictions
apply to government action, not to pressure groups and
corporations.  I suppose that if a firm wanted to, say, limit
all communications to words devoid of the letter "e" they could
do so perfectly legally.  Might lose some customers, but it
seems to me that it would be neither illegal nor immoral.

[I am not a lawyer and this is not legal  advice.]

Suppose you ran an office building with a vacant office and
neo-Nazi hatemongers proposed to rent it; would you have any
difficulty whatsoever in refusing to do business with them?
Years ago, my colleagues and I were asked to help a business
protect their intellectual property against copyright
violations.  We quickly discovered that the property was
pornography; we respectfully declined to take the contract.  You
have a problem with that?

- From the 1960s to the end of the 1980s I boycotted goods from
South Africa and urged others to do so too.  Thousands of people
cooperated to shame corporations into banning the fruits of the
apartheid regime because we saw apartheid as a crime against
humanity.

Today, I refuse to do business with corporations which abuse
workers making sports equipment, growing coffee and so on.  I
not only exercise my personal freedom in choosing with whom to
do business, but I also write letters to those companies
protesting their support of what I consider outrageous behavior.
  I talk to others about it; I send letters to friends; I'm sure
that some find me a royal pain in the ass for nattering on about
these things.  But there is nothing in law nor in morality which
would even suggest that I ought not to do so.

Does this mean that people with whose opinions I disagree should
also be free to express their disapproval of what corporations
and other organizations are doing?   Damn right.

I despise sexist, racist, violent speech -- but I don't argue
for government action to shut it down in the USA.  I don't agree
with anti-abortion fanatics, either, but I do not propose
preventing them from boycotting companies or hospitals which
provide abortions.

Supporting free speech means supporting the right to speech with
which we disagree.

Why are the AFA's actions in any way more or less reprehensible
than the anti-apartheid, the US civil rights or any other
movement's actions in fighting perceived abuse?  In all these
cases, people are acting peacefully and legally to apply
pressure to corporations to stop supporting what they see as
objectionable behavior.

They are, indeed, exercising their right to free speech.

More power to 'em, I say.


Best wishes,

Mich

M. E. Kabay, PhD, CISSP
Associate Professor of Computer Information Systems
Norwich University, Northfield VT
< http://www.norwich.edu >

Security newsletters and papers at
< http://www.nwfusion.com/newsletters/sec/ >
< http://www.securityportal.com/kfiles >

255 Flood Road
Barre, VT 05641-4060
V: +1.802.479.7937
E: mkabay () compuserve com

The opinions expressed in any of my writings are my own and do
not necessarily represent the position of my employer.


[You may publish my comments verbatim (always including the
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***********

From: "Thomas Leavitt" <thomasleavitt () hotmail com>
To: declan () well com
Subject: Re: FC: American Family Association continues porn attack on
Yahoo
Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 11:22:43 -0700

Declan,

I don't get the reasoning that equates an "orgy", which is a mutually
consensual activity, to rape and the sexual abuse of children? And
"teen"
is a code word in the adult entertainment industry for 18+... only the
truly naive think any of the commercial "teen" porn web sites have
minors
on them.

Also, I find it curious that they never include links, or any other
mechanism by which third parties can verify their claims, especially in
the
kiddie porn claims... all we ever heard is generic rants about offensive

materials. You'd think that posting URLs to this stuff would motivate
Yahoo
to wipe it out.

Someone should call them on this, and demand that they document their
claims, with screen captures and web site URLS. Otherwise, this might as

well be a generic template filled in with the "offensive site of the
week".

Further more, I have to say that I've complained about dozens of sites
that
violated Yahoo/Geocities AUP, and they were never less than prompt about

wiping them out, usually within 24 hours. Any large scale free web
hosting
service is always going to have a certain percentage of sites not yet
noticed that violate it's AUP. Yahoo might as well shut down now, if the

AFA wants their servers to be pure and pristnie of this stuff. Hell,
I've
even run accross adult and otherwise AUP violating material on
"Christian"
free web site hosting service.

Thomas

***********

From: "Percy Black" <pblack () sover net>
To: "Mich Kabay" <mkabay () compuserve com>, "Declan McCullagh" <declan () well com>
Cc: "Patrick Trueman" <ptrueman () afo net>
Subject: Re: FC: American Family Association continues porn attack on  Yahoo
Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2001 13:37:58 -0400

MEK,

Thank you for sharing the AFA's indignation over Yahoo's acceptance of
sexual and murderous fantasies and explicit images on Yahoo's servers.  You
ask for my comments on your response to AFA's request the Attorney General
to require Yahoo to cease and desist further dissemination of their current
practice.  Here is my view:

1. The Slippery Slope.  Like you, I fear that a too-ready hand by government
to control hateful speech and explicit images can generalize to areas that
invade personal and interpersonal expression.  Most of humanity continues to
squirm under such sledge hammers, and large numbers have even come to
proclaim the advantages of their chains (e.go., believers in the theocracies
of Afghanistan, Iran, and Sudan).  But....

2. The Requirements of Social Order.  Certain instances of behavior present
with clear likelihood of egregious harm.  These should be clamped before,
not after, they are permitted into the public domain.  Each case should be
examined on its
merits.  The issue revolves on the prospect and extent of harm.  We need
need here the inputs of various scholars such as historians, legal experts,
and scientists
such as sociologists and psychologists.  From a psychological perspective, I
should want to know what the likelihood there might be of modeling a given
instance of publicly disseminated behavior on various age groups and on
variations in mental status.  As a historian, I should ask what effects have
been noted from similar instances in the past, both in the U.S. and in other
countries.  And so on.
........................................

Pertinent to the present matter, I think, might be the reasoning of the
legal statutes in Canada and Germany that prohibit the dissemination of hate
against others because of race, religion, or national origin.  It might also
be pertinent to examine the reasoning, pro and con, the application by a
Nazi organization to march through Skokie, a neighborhood in Chicago where
many Jewish survivors of the
Holocaust perpetrated by Nazis--lived.  A similar situation continues to
exist in Belfast where Orangemen seek to continue their annual march through
a Catholic
neighborhood.  The English government says No.  It might be instructive to
avail oneself of their reasoning for this stricture.

So:  I don't feel that a definite Yes or No on the above issue is in the
best interests of individual rights or civil commonalty.  Difficult
questions need careful assessment along the lines I have mentioned.

PB

*********

From: "Mick Williams" <mickwilliams () visto com>
Subject: Re: FC: More on Yahoo and porn from AFA, Cato Institute, Adult 
Video News
Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2001 11:47:15 -0700
To: declan () well com
cc: politech () politechbot com

I think Patrick is barking up the wrong tree. I find it funny that the AFA 
would go after Yahoo!

Why? Is it easier to get AG Ashcroft to go after Yahoo!?

What about AOL? I don't see Yahoo showing ads about their chat rooms and 
telling the buying public how "Family Friendly" Yahoo! is like AOL does on 
a constant basis.

(They do it on Oprah and Judge Judy. Are they now pedophiles? Should we 
investigate the ladies?)

 Yet their are tons of Chat rooms across AOL and pedo's (Although I HAVE 
NOT personally met one on AOL)must be cruising AOL's Chat rooms?

How come Patrick and the AFA don't challenge Yahoo!?
Does the AFA own AOL/Time Warner stock?
Does Patrick?

Ashcroft own AOL/TW stock? Larry King won't let the AFA on his show?

WHAT?!?

Obviously, it is solely for Patrick and the AFA to spout their views and 
get free press. (And for us to discuss it)

That doggie don't hunt, Bunkey.

BTW, what are Patrick's fantasies? I'm sure AOL has a chat room called 
"Married Freaky Pious People Answer Your Questions" or one can be created 
to let him fullfill them.

;)



Just my opinion.

Mick Williams


Mick Williams' Cyber Line: The Planet Is Listening.

http://www.cyber-line.com

*********

Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2001 10:55:42 -0500
From: Greg Newton <gnewton () ou edu>
Subject: Re: More on Yahoo and porn from AFA, Cato Institute, Adult Video News
To: declan () well com

The court's answer--so far, anyway--to at least the jurisdictional
questions seems to be found in U.S. v. Thomas (W.D. Tennessee, 1994).
Prosecutors are apparently free to shop for the most likely venue to
convict. Robert and Carleen Thomas operated a bulletin board in
California, were prosecuted under federal obscenity law in Tennessee
(because prosecutors in Memphis were able to download material a
Tennessee jury found obscene from the Thomas' California server),
convicted and sentenced to 18 months in prison. The conviction was
upheld on appeal (U.S. v. Thomas, 74 F.3d 701).

BTW, the FCC anti-indecency campaign noted in the Cato article has
gotten much weirder since April. Despite new Chair Michael Powell's
public statements that he wasn't really interested in stepping up
enforcement in that area, the Commission seems to be doing just that
(and it's almost impossible to reconcile things they've recently
found to be indecent with dismissals from just a few months earlier).
Of particular note are the station in Denver that was cited for
playing the "radio edit" version of Eminem's "Real Slim Shady" (the
same one that thousands of stations across the country played
thousands of times last summer) and the non-commercial community
station in Portland, Oregon (KBOO) which ran afoul of the rules over
a rap song ("Your Revolution") that is political rather than anything
resembling describing sexual organs or activities in a patently
offensive manner (it's actually a woman's rant against the blatant
sexism present in much male rap, and the industry and society
supporting it). This one is just begging to be overturned in court,
but unfortunately the station probably doesn't have the resources for
the fight. Details, including transcript of the lyrics, are available
on the FCC's web site.

As a final note, there was a pretty good article on just how much
direct impact groups like AFA have on enforcement in this area
written by the lawyers who represented Pacifica Foundation in some
earlier indecency actions (Crigler & Byrnes, Decency Redux: The
Curious History of the New FCC Broadcast Indecency Policy, 38
Catholic U. Law Review 329, 1989).
--
Greg Newton

*********

From: "Singleton, Norman" <Norman.Singleton () mail house gov>
To: declan () well com
Subject: RE: More on Yahoo and porn from AFA, Cato Institute, Adult Video
        News
Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2001 08:50:43 -0400
this is a moral issue, not a political one. YAHOO is wrong to give 
pedophiles and rapists to a platform for their sick fantasies. AFA is right 
to publicize Yahoo's actions and shame them into changing their polices but 
is very wrong to get the government involved. I fear you my be wrong in 
defending YAHOO and the pedophile/rapists form even social pressure, unless 
I am misreading your position. However, I have noticed Politich subscribers 
seems more concerned aobut protecting the rights of NAMBLA then with the 
cases of censorship of political opinions.
*********




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