My position as stated by a federal judge...
[The Internet]
"may fairly be regarded as a never-ending worldwide conversation."
~~Federal District Court Judge Lowell Reed Jr.
===============================================
Subject: Filtering and Free is Good ;^P
Date: Fri, 05 Feb 1999 16:05:45 -0500
From: "P.A. Gantt" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Organization: Electronic Media Design and Support
To: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Oppose Mandatory Filtering Software!
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 11:54:16
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
A technical glitch earlier this morning resulted in the members of ACLU
Action Network receiving an internal e-mail regarding a new letter to
Congress on filtering software that is posted on our web site. We
apologize for the confusion this "preview" of the new issue may have
caused, and have taken steps to make sure that this won't happen again.
As that earlier e-mail indicated, two new attempts to censor free speech
on the web have been introduced in the 106th Congress despite a
unanimous
1997 Supreme Court decision ruling that the Internet should have the
same
free speech protections as more traditional media.
Bills introduced in House and Senate (HR 368 and S 97 respectively)
would require public elementary and secondary schools to install clumsy
blocking software on all of their computer terminals with Internet
access.
HR 368 would also force public libraries to install blocking software on
one or
more computer terminals with Internet access.
Filtering software is notoriously clumsy and inevitably restricts access
to valuable, protected speech, significantly reducing the amount and
diversity of information available to individuals. For example,
filtering
programs have blocked access to non-controversial web sites on "mars
exploration"
simply because the letters "s-e-x" appear consecutively in the
document.
Similarly, some of those people wishing to find out more about last
weekend's Superbowl XXXIII results would be denied access to related
sites because of the Roman numerals "XXX".
Thanks to the vigilance of thousands of free speech advocates from
across the country who wrote, faxed, e-mailed and called their elected
officials in Washington during the last Congress, software filtering
legislation never even made it to the floor of the House or Senate for a
vote.
Let's make sure these ill-conceived software filtering bills don't
either!
Take action today by sending a FREE FAX to your Senators and
Representative from the ACLU web site at:
http://www.aclu.org/action/filtering106.html
===========================================================================
To my correspondence I added:
...Internet "may fairly be regarded as a never-ending worldwide
conversation."
He added: "As the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed,
the Internet deserves the highest protection from government
intrusion..."
--Federal District Court Judge Lowell Reed Jr.
[My comments:]
Here is why First Amendment speech must
take precedence over any and all other
objections. Filtering programs are available
for all parents.
Enforceable Acceptable Use Agreements signed by:
students and their parents and enforced by
school administrations is, of course,
a working solution that is serving our students
well. There is no need of further protective
legislation, if indeed, parents and educators
do their traditional and important duties to
protect our children.
Most respectfully,
[me]
[my address complete with zip+4]
--
P.A. Gantt, Computer Science Technology Instructor
Electronic Media Design and Support Homepage
http://user.icx.net/~pgantt/
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Subject=etech
http://horizon.unc.edu/TS/vision/1998-11.asp
Common sense is not common, and conventional wisdom is not
wisdom. But at least you can have conventional sense. ~~ Daily Whale
____________________________________________________________________
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Join The NEW Web Consultants Association FORUMS and CHAT:
Register Today at: http://just4u.com/forums/
Web Consultants Web Site : http://just4u.com/webconsultants
Give the Gift of Life This Year...
Just4U Stop Smoking Support forum - helping smokers for
over three years-tell a friend: http://just4u.com/forums/
To get 500 Banner Ads for FREE
go to http://www.linkbuddies.com/start.go?id=111261
---------------------------------------------------------------------
