Fun_People Archive
7 Mar
Gross or Net Activism
Date: Tue, 7 Mar 95 13:33:10 PST
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: Gross or Net Activism
Forwarded-by: David_Fox@intergate.rocketsci.com (David Fox)
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CAMPAIGN TO STOP THE US COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT (S. 314/H.R. 1004)
PLEASE WIDELY REDISTRIBUTE THIS DOCUMENT WITH THIS BANNER INTACT
DO NOT REDISTRIBUTE AFTER MAY 1, 1995
Feb. 22, 1995
[updated Mar. 3 to include House version's bill number]
Distributed by the Voters Telecommunications Watch (vtw@vtw.org)
and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (ask@eff.org)
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CONTENTS
Introduction
What you can do
Contact Information
Background
Current status of S. 314
Where can I learn more about the bill? (URL included)
Where will I learn about updates to this alert?
Current list of participating organizations
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INTRODUCTION
Dear Net Citizens:
Legislation has been introduced before the Senate which would severely
restrict your freedom of speech, halt the free flow of information on
the net, and require all telecommunications carriers to censor your
public and private communications.
The "Communications Decency Act of 1995" (S. 314), introduced in early
February by Senators Exon (D-NE) and Gorton (R-WA), would place
substantial criminal liability on telecommunications carriers (including
traditional telephone networks, Internet service providers, commercial
online services such as America Online and Compuserve, and independent
BBS's) whenever their networks are used to transmit any material
which is deemed indecent or harassing. In order to avoid these penalties,
carriers would be forced to restrict the activities of their subscribers
and censor all public and private communications.
We must act quickly to stop the progress of S. 314. The bill may soon
be incorporated into Senate telecommunications reform legislation, which
is currently being drafted by the Senate Commerce Committee. The
telecommunications reform bill may be introduced as early as mid March,
and is expected to be considered on a fast track. If S. 314 is included
in this bill, it will be extremely difficult to change or remove and
could pass quickly.
We are asking you to join us in urging key members of the Senate to
prevent S. 314 from being included in Senate telecommunications reform
measures and to hold open, public hearings on the issue.
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WHAT YOU CAN DO (IN ONLY FIVE MINUTES)
1. Contact Sen. Larry Pressler (R-SD, Commerce Committee Chairman),
Sen. Bob Packwood (R-OR) and Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-SC, ranking
member) and urge them to keep S.314 from being incorporated into
telecommunications reform legislation. You'll find their addresses,
phone numbers, and fax numbers below.
Also, if you live in:
AK AZ HI KY LA MA ME MO MS MT ND NE NV OR SC SD TX WA WV
you should also contact your own Senator from the Commerce committee.
Remember, the best and most effective means of influencing a member of
Congress is to write a letter in your own words.
2. Write/Fax/Email them a letter or make a phone call. Try to mention
as many of the points below (marked with a *) as you can fit
politely into communication.
3. DON'T FORGET TO DROP A NOTE TO VTW@VTW.ORG to tell us who you contacted.
We'll tally the results and feed them back to all participating
organizations. It's crucial we have this feedback, even if you just
got a form letter, or a "thank you" to your phone call.
4. Feel good about yourself. You've just participated in democracy
without leaving your seat.
5. (Extra bonus activism) Reproduce this alert with the expiration date
and contact information intact to other non-Usenet places. Fax it
to your friends, post a copy to your local bulletin board. Please don't
spam it to places like rec.pets.cats, but place it in places where people
who don't read a lot of Usenet might see it. Non-net connected BBSs are
great, as are physical bulletin boards. Please don't post it to email
lists or newsgroups not related to politics, as this will annoy people.
Most especially, try to reach people in the larger online services,
such as America OnLine and Compuserve and the large PC networks, such
as Fidonet.
When writing a letter or making a phone call, try to include the following
points in your message:
* S. 314 must not be incorporated into the Senate telecommunications
reform bill.
* The bill would force communications service providers to limit or
remove my access to file archives, discussion forums, and
electronic mail.
* S. 314 would dramatically restrict the free flow of information
through out the online world and limit the free speech and privacy
rights of individual users.
* Placing criminal liability on communications service providers
will force providers to censor the activities of their
subscribers.
* As a user of interactive communications technologies, I am capable
of deciding for myself and for my children what content I wish to
receive. The government should not be involved in deciding what
kinds of content I may access.
* Public hearings must be held to consider possible technological
means and policy alternatives to government content restrictions
in interactive media.
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CONTACT INFORMATION
Here are the Commerce committee members. Please contact Sen. Larry
Pressler (the Committee Chairman) and Sen. Ernest Hollings at a minimum.
If you see your state listed below, contact your own senator as well.
All addresses are Washington, D.C. 20510
P ST Name and Address Phone Fax
= == ======================== ============== ==============
R SD Pressler, Larry 1-202-224-5842 1-202-224-1259*
243 RSOB larry_pressler@pressler.senate.gov
*Note this is the Commerce Committee's fax number
D SC Hollings, Ernest F. 1-202-224-6121 1-202-224-4293
125 RSOB
R OR Packwood, Robert 1-202-224-5244 1-202-228-3576
259 RSOB
D HI Inouye, Daniel K. 1-202-224-3934 1-202-224-6747
722 HSOB
R AK Stevens, Ted 1-202-224-3004 1-202-224-1044
522 HSOB
D KY Ford, Wendell H. 1-202-224-4343 1-202-224-0046
173A RSOB wendell_ford@ford.senate.gov
R AZ McCain, John 1-202-224-2235 1-202-228-2862
111 RSOB
D NE Exon, J. J. 1-202-224-4224 1-202-224-5213
528 HSOB
R MT Burns, Conrad R. 1-202-224-2644 1-202-224-8594
183 DSOB
D WV Rockefeller, John D. 1-202-224-6472 1-202-224-1689
109 HSOB
R WA Gorton, Slade 1-202-224-3441 1-202-224-9393
730 HSOB Senator_Gorton@gorton.senate.gov
D MA Kerry, John F. 1-202-224-2742 1-202-224-8525
421 RSOB
R MS Lott, Trent 1-202-224-6253 1-202-224-2262
487 RSOB
D LA Breaux, John B. 1-202-224-4623 1-202-224-2435
516 HSOB
R TX Hutchison, Kay Bailey 1-202-224-5922 1-202-224-0776
703 HSOB senator@hutchison.senate.gov
D NV Bryan, Richard H. 1-202-224-6244 1-202-224-1867
364 RSOB
R ME Snowe, Olympia 1-202-224-5344 1-202-224-6853
176 RSOB
D ND Dorgan, Byron L. 1-202-224-2551 1-202-224-1193
713 HSOB
R MO Ashcroft, John 1-202-224-6154 1-202-224-7615
170 RSOB
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CURRENT STATUS OF S. 314
The bill was introduced on February 1, 1995 by Senators Exon (D-NE) and
Gorton (R-WA). It is currently pending before the Senate Commerce
Committee (chaired by Senator Pressler (R-SD)).
No committee action has been scheduled as of February 21, 1995.
It may be included in the Senate telecommunications reform legislation,
expected to be introduced by mid-March.
A House of Representatives version of the bill has also been introduced
with almost identical text, as H.R. 1004.
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BACKGROUND
S. 314 would expand current law restricting indecency and harassment on
telephone services to all telecommunications providers and expand
criminal liability to all content carried by all forms of
telecommunications networks. The bill would amend Section 223 of the
Communications Act (47 U.S.C. 223), which requires carriers to take
steps to prevent minors from gaining access to indecent audiotext and
criminalizes harassment accomplished over interstate telephone lines.
If enacted, S. 314 would compel service providers to severely restrict
your online activities. Your access to email, discussion lists, usenet,
the world wide web, gopher, and ftp archives would be substantially
reduced or cut off entirely. The bill would also force providers to
closely monitor and pre-screen your electronic mail, and refuse to
transmit any message or other content which may be considered to be
indecent.
This bill poses a significant threat to freedom of speech and the free
flow of information in cyberspace. The bill also raises fundamental
questions about the right of government to control content on
communications networks, as well as the locus of liability for content
carried in these new communications media.
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WHERE CAN I LEARN MORE ABOUT THE BILL? (URL INCLUDED)
The Voters Telecommunications Watch has set up a gopher page where
you can get a copy of the bill (including analyses by the American
Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the
Electronic Messaging Association, and others). Here's the URL:
WWW URL: gopher://gopher.panix.com/11/vtw/exon
Gopher command : gopher -p 1/vtw/exon gopher.panix.com
If you have difficulty getting to this gopher page, or if you don't
have access to Mosaic/gopher, drop a note to:
vtw@vtw.org
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WHERE WILL I LEARN ABOUT UPDATES TO THIS ALERT?
We will post updates to this alert in three places:
-On the account vtw@panix.com (finger vtw@panix.com)
-On Usenet (comp.org.eff.talk, comp.org.cpsr.talk, and alt.privacy)
-Through our announcements mailing list, vtw-announce@vtw.org.
To subscribe, simply send a message to listproc@vtw.org with the
following in the message body:
subscribe vtw-announce Firstname Lastname
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CURRENT LIST OF PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS
At this time, the following organizations have signed onto this
campaign and are receiving the legislative feedback that VTW is compiling:
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), infoaclu@aclu.org
Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), ask@cdt.org
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), ask@eff.org
Electronic Frontier Foundation-Austin (EFF-Austin), eff-austin@tic.com
(Note that EFF-Austin is not a chapter of the DC-based EFF)
Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), info@epic.org
Hands Off! the Net petition drive, slowdog@wookie.net
People for the American Way (PFAW), jlessern@reach.com
Society for Electronic Access (SEA), sea@sea.org
Voters Telecommunications Watch (VTW), vtw@vtw.org
Note that the Voters Telecommunications Watch does not speak for these
organizations. Any opinions contained herein are those of the author,
and not necessarily endorsed by participating organizations.
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© 1995 Peter Langston
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