Go to listserv.cesnet.cz LWGate Home Page.From: Vladimir Vrabec <vrabec@CS.FELK.CVUT.CZ>
Subject: Re: bude cenzura?
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 1995 11:19:21 EST
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>Date: Fri, 17 Mar 1995 13:03:22 +0200
>From: Milos Rysavy <rysavy%VAX.UJF.CAS.CZ@EARN.CVUT.CZ>
>Subject: bude cenzura?
>To: Multiple recipients of list CSINFO-L
>Tem, kteri to uz cetli, se velice omlouvam. Ostatni to mozna bude zajimat.
V net@cs.felk.cvut.cz vznikl myslenka pripojit se k protestum proti
schvaleni S314 v americkem kongresu. Snad privitate text petice a
navod jak ji podespat e-mailem.
Vladimir Vrabec
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******(2) The Petition Statement
In united voice, we sign this petition against passage of S. 314 (the
"Communications Decency Act of 1995") for these reasons:
S. 314 would prohibit not only individual speech that is "obscene, lewd,
lascivious, filthy, or indecent", but would prohibit any provider of
telecommunications service from carrying such traffic, under threat of
stiff penalty. Even aside from the implications for free speech, this
would cause an undue - and unjust - burden upon operators of the various
telecommunications services. In a time when the citizenry and their
lawmakers alike are calling for and passing "no unfunded mandates" laws
to the benefit of the states, it is unfortunate that Congress might seek
to
impose unfunded mandates upon businesses that provide the framework for
the information age.
An additional and important consideration is the technical feasibility of
requiring the sort of monitoring this bill would necessitate. The
financial burden in and of itself - in either manpower or technology to
handle such monitoring (if even legal under the Electronic Communications
Privacy Act) - would likely cause many smaller providers to go out of
business, and most larger providers to seriously curtail their services.
The threat of such penalty alone would result in a chilling effect in the
telecommunications service community, not only restricting the types of
speech expressly forbidden by the bill, but creating an environment
contrary to the Constitutional principles of free speech, press, and
assembly - principles which entities such as the Internet embody as
nothing has before.
By comparison, placing the burden for content control upon each individual
user is surprisingly simple in the online and interactive world, and there
is no legitimate reason to shift that burden to providers who carry that
content. Unlike traditional broadcast media, networked media is
comparatively easy to screen on the user end - giving the reader, viewer,
or participant unparalleled control over his or her own information
environment. All without impacting or restricting what any other user
wishes to access. This makes regulation such as that threatened by this
S. 314 simply unnecessary.
In addition, during a period of ever-increasing commercial interest in
arenas such as the Internet, restriction and regulation of content or the
flow of traffic across the various telecommunications services would have
serious negative economic effects. The sort of regulation proposed by
this
bill would slow the explosive growth the Internet has seen, giving the
business community reason to doubt the medium's commercial appeal.
We ask that the Senate halt any further progress of this bill. We ask
that the Senate be an example to Congress as a whole, and to the nation
at large - to promote the general welfare as stated in the Preamble to
the Constitution by protecting the free flow of information and ideas
across all of our telecommunications services.
******(3) Instructions for signing the petition
======================================
Instructions for Signing This Petition
======================================
It must first be noted that this is a petition, not a
vote. By "signing" it you agree with *all* the requests
made in the petition. If you do not agree with everything
in this petition, then your only recourse is to not sign
it.
In addition, all e-mail signatures will be submitted to
Congress, the President of the United States, and the
news media.
Including your full name is optional, but *very highly
encouraged* as that would add to the effectiveness of the
petition. Signing via an anonymous remailer is highly
discouraged, but not forbidden, as an attempt will be made
to separately tally signatures from anonymous remailers.
Because this is a Petition to the U.S. Congress, we ask
that you state, as instructed below, whether or not you
are a U.S. citizen. We do encourage non-U.S. citizens to
sign, but their signatures will be tallied separately.
Signing this petition is not hard, but to make sure your
signature is not lost or miscounted, please follow these
directions EXACTLY:
1) Prepare an e-mail message. In the main body (NOT the
Subject line) of your e-mail include the ONE-LINE statement:
SIGNED <Internet e-mail address> <Full name> <US Citizen>
You need not include the "<" and ">" characters. 'SIGNED'
should be capitalized. As stated above, your full name is
optional, but highly recommended. If you do supply your
name, please don't use a pseudonym or nickname, or your
first name -- it's better to just leave it blank if it's
not your full and real name. If you are a U.S. citizen,
please include at the end of the signature line a 'YES',
and if you are not, a 'NO'. All signatures will be
tallied whether or not you are a U.S. Citizen
****************************************************
Example: My e-mail signature would be:
SIGNED dave@kachina.altadena.ca.us Dave C. Hayes YES
****************************************************
2) Please DON'T include a copy of this petition, nor any
other text, in your e-mail message. If you have comments
to make, send e-mail to me personally, and NOT to the
special petition e-mail signature address.
3) Send your e-mail message containing your signature to
the following Internet e-mail address and NOT to me:
===========================
s314-petition@netcom.com
===========================
4) Within a few days of receipt of your signature, an
automated acknowledgment will be e-mailed to you for e-mail
address verification purposes. You do not need to respond or
reply to this acknowledgement when you receive it. We may
also contact you again in the future should we need more
information, such as who your House Representative and
Senators are, which is not asked here as it is unclear
whether such information is needed.
Thank you for signing this petition!
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