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Fwd: Results of Internet Protest
--- begin forwarded text
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 1995 11:16:31 -0500
Subject: Fwd: Results of Internet Protest
From: Joel Bowers <[email protected]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Apparently-To: <[email protected]>
Subject: Results of Internet Protest
Sent: 12/18 2:06 AM
Received: 12/18 8:18 AM
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected] (MCN Members)
Sender: [email protected] (John Friedlander)
To: [email protected] (MCN Members)
========================================================================
CAMPAIGN TO STOP THE NET CENSORSHIP LEGISLATION IN CONGRESS
THE NET ROCKS AMERICA'S CAPITOL - NEARLY 20,000 PARTICIPANTS
THURSDAY DECEMBER 14, 1995
SENATE CONFEREES COULD STILL VOTE THIS WEEK
RALLIES HAPPENING IN AUSTIN, NEW YORK, SF, & SEATTLE
PLEASE WIDELY REDISTRIBUTE THIS DOCUMENT WITH THIS BANNER INTACT
REDISTRIBUTE ONLY UNTIL December 25, 1995
________________________________________________________________________
RECAP: INTERNET DAY OF PROTEST: TUESDAY DECEMBER 12, 1995
The net came into its own as a political force on Tuesday. The
press release has more details. If you haven't taken a moment to
call, fax, or email, do so now. We're still keeping track and only
need a few more to break 20,000.
VTW had someone onhand in DC monitoring the response at the Congressional
offices. The feedback was amazing; Congress got the message. We need to
sustain that by continuing to tell them we're not happy with the options
being offered to us at this time.
Directions for calling Congress can still be found at http://www.vtw.org/
and the many other sites listed at the end of this message. Take a moment
to call! Don't forget to mail us a note at [email protected] to let us
know you took part in the Day Of Protest (and Day 2, and Day 3, and Day
4).
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 13, 1995
Contact: Steven Cherry
(718) 596-2851
[email protected]
Shabbir Safdar
(718) 596-2851
[email protected]
New York, NY
Are 20,000 phone calls a lot? 30,000? 50,000? They are if you're one of a
handful of Congressional staffers trying to field them. Tuesday, December
12th was the Internet's Day of Protest. A variety of net-activists and
telecommunications-related services exhorted the on-line community to call
a selected group of Senators and Representatives to declare their
opposition to the threat of Internet censorship. And call they did.
As the Senate members of the Telecommunications Reform conference
committee contemplated portions of legislation that would censor
"indecent" material on-line, their staffers were being overwhelmed with
phone calls. Senator Inouye's office said they were "getting lots and lots
of calls and faxes." Senator Lott's said they were "flooded with calls."
At Senator Stevens' office there were so many calls they couldn't keep
a complete tally.
At Senator Exon's office, the fax machine was "backed up." And at one
point, activists couldn't even get through to Senator Gorton's office to
ask. Exon is the Senator whose Communications Decency Act started the
nearly year-long struggle between those who would create special
regulations to restrict speech on-line (even, in certain instances,
private email between two individuals) to a greater extent than even
traditional broadcast media; regulations that, according to the ACLU and
many other civil liberties groups, will certainly be proven to be
unconstitutional if passed into law.
"We've never seen anything like it," said Stanton McCandish of the
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The EFF is one member of the on-line
coalition that has been fighting an array of censorship legislation since
this spring, when Senator Exon introduced his Communications Decency Act.
"We may have almost overwhelmed our provider," said Shabbir Safdar, head
of Voter's Telecommunications Watch (VTW). VTW is the organization that
organized the on-line coalition. Their on-line connectivity is provided by
Panix.com, a New York-area Internet service provider. "Panix has been
doing some maintenance work today, so it's hard to tell," Safdar
continued. "But we think it's actually made a dent in their connection
to the rest of the Net."
How many calls were actually made? No one can tell. For Leslie Miller, a
reporter for USA Today, it took much of the afternoon to get some counts
from Congressional staffers, and she couldn't get any report from the
Senate's Sergeant-At-Arms, the office nominally responsible for the
Senate's telephone system. VTW may be the only organization that can
really make an educated guess.
"In our Alerts we ask that people drop us an email note after they call,"
explained VTW board member Steven Cherry. "The message count peaked in the
late afternoon at over 70 per minute. Many of those were from people who
called several offices. By 7:30 P.M. (EST) we had gotten 14,000 messages.
By Wednesday morning the count was over 18,000. And of course there are
the people who called but didn't send us email. So all told, our very
rough guess is there were well over 50,000 phone calls and faxes made on
the one day."
"The Net is coming of age, politically," said Jerry Berman, Director of
the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), another member of the
on-line coalition. Safdar, of VTW, concurred, saying, "I think Washington
got the message today that there's a new grass-roots interest group
around, and we're going to be a big part of the 1996 elections." (VTW's
initial election activities can be found at http://www.vtw.org/pledge.)
In addition to the Day of Protest, rallies are scheduled on Thursday,
December 14th, in San Francisco and Seattle, and a protest will be held
that day at 2:00 in New York City.
The New York rally will be at the Cyber-Cafe, 273A Lafayette St from 2-3pm
on Thursday, Dec 14th. Contact Steven Cherry or Shabbir J. Safdar for
details.
The Austin rally is planned for Tue. Dec 19th. No more information is
available at this time.
Information about the San Francisco rally can be obtained from
http://www.hotwired.com/staff/digaman/.
Information about the Seattle rally can be obtained from
http://www.wnia.org/WNIA/hap/rally.html.
Voters Telecommunications Watch is a volunteer organization, concentrating
on legislation as it relates to telecommunications and civil liberties.
VTW publishes a weekly BillWatch that tracks relevant legislation as it
progresses through Congress. It publishes periodic Alerts to inform the
about immediate action it can take to protect its on-line civil liberties
and privacy.
More information about VTW can be found on-line at
gopher -p 1/vtw gopher.panix.com
www: http://www.vtw.org
or by writing to [email protected]. The press can call (718) 596-2851 or
contact:
Shabbir Safdar Steven Cherry
[email protected] [email protected]
________________________________________________________________________
WHERE CAN I LEARN MORE?
At this moment, there are several organizations with WWW sites that now
have, or will have, information about the net censorship legislation and
the National Day Of Protest:
American Civil Liberties Union (ftp://ftp.aclu.org/aclu/)
Center for Democracy and Technology (http://www.cdt.org/)
Electronic Frontier Foundation (http://www.eff.org/)
Electronic Privacy Information Center (http://www.epic.org/)
Wired Magazine (http://www.hotwired.com/special/indecent/)
Voters Telecommunications Watch (http://www.vtw.org/ or finger
[email protected])
________________________________________________________________________
End Alert
========================================================================
----------------------- Headers --------------------------------
_________________________ Joel M Bowers & Assoc [[email protected]]
Multiuser Database Design [MCN,ASPN & Claris Solutions Alliance]
_________________________ Voice 603-778-7494 Fax 603-778-7484
_________________________15 Curtis Road, Hampton Falls, NH 03844
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