The Communications Decency Act was the most hotly contested parts
of the Telecommunications Act. It has recently been ruled
unconstitutional by a panel of Federal judges. Senator James Exon, [D]
Nebraska was the most vocal supporter of the bill, while Senator Leahy of
Vermont was a staunch opponent. As one of his tactics to oppose the
bill, Sen. Leahy started a petition against the CDA, which generated
115,000 signatures in 5 months. On average, that means that someone
different signed the petition every one minute and 45 seconds. All 1500
pages of the petition were shown on the Senate floor. He also asked the
Federal Department of Justice to comment. Their official statement read,
"[The CDA] would significantly thwart enforcement of existing laws
regarding obscenity and child pornography, create several ways for
distributors and packages of obscenity and child pornography to avoid
criminal liability, and threaten important First Amendment and privacy
rights."
Even with the Dept. of Justice's statement that the bill would be
useless for its stated purpose, it was not enough to hinder the passing
of the bill. Speaker Gingrich himself had this to say:
"I think that the [CDA] will have no real meaning and have no real impact
and in fact I don't think will survive. It is clearly a violation of free
speech and it's a violation of the right of adults to communicate with
each other. I don't agree with it and I don't think it is a serious way
to discuss a serious issue, which is, how do you maintain the right of
free speech for adults while also protecting children in a medium which
is available to both? That's also frankly a problem with television and
radio, and it's something that we have to wrestle with in a calm and
mature way as a society. I think by offering a very badly thought out and
not very productive amendment, if anything, that put the debate back a
step."
After the bill was signed into law, thousands of Netizens turned
their web pages black for 48 hours in protest. The ACLU, backed by the
EFF, filed a lawsuit almost immediately to contest the constitutionality
of the CDA. Needless to say, they won.
Many people do not understand why this small section of the
Telecommunications Act was so hotly contested. There are many reasons,
only a few of which are listed here.
- The wording of the bill would have made it a felony to send a private
email message with an "indecent or filthy" word in it.
- You can also be punished with a two-year jail term if you send any
message with one of the "seven dirty words" in it to a minor.
- You will risk criminal liability by using a computer to share with a
child any material containing "indecent" passages. (In some areas,
"Seventeen" magazine is considered to be "indecent" because it contains
information on sex and sexuality.)
- There would also be felony penalties for using a "four-letter word"
on an internet chat area that is accessible to children.
No longer would Internet users be able to take part in
far-roaming discussions on newsgroups or chat areas that minors could
access. Language and topics would have to be maintained at a
Kindergarten level just in case a minor wandered in. Any user who does
anything that is deemed "indecent" could spend two years in jail.
Some services did not wait to begin censoring where they thought
it would be necessary. AOL deleted the profile of a woman who
communicated with fellow breast-cancer survivors on-line. They did it
because she used the "vulgar" word "breast." [AOL later apologized and
said the word could be used "where appropriate."]
We are lucky that we have the right to free speech, and we have
to fight to keep that right. If we allow government to infringe on it,
even a little, then next year it will want a little more, then a little
more. It will all seem reasonable, little by little, until we are living
under the grip of "Big Brother." Senator Leahy states it best when he says,
"The Internet is a great new communications medium. We should not
underestimate the effect that the heavy-hand of government regulation
will have on its future growth both here and abroad. With the passage of
this bill the US Government is paving the way for the censorship of
Internet speech."
Our elected representatives are the ones who make these
decisions. Don't forget that we choose who they are. Exercise your
power. Exercise your vote.
Seth Waddell
[back to verbosity]