@v@ XXX

[nobody@REPLAY.COM (Anonymous)]

Wall Street Journal, 8 Dec 1995

On-Line Society Angered by Plan to Curb Content

By Jared Sandberg

The latest move in Congress to curb "indecent" material on the
Internet triggered outrage and scorn in cyberspace, as on-line
users decried it as censorship and plotted ways to overturn
it.

"Welcome to the age of electronic book burning," said Craig
Johnson, a consultant who worries that the term "indecent"
could be applied to literary works, publichealth and medical
exchanges, and serious discussion of AIDS and sexual behavior.

"It's not only ridiculous - it's unfair, un-American and
unconstitutional," said Eileen Kent, vice president of new
media at Playboy Enterprises Inc. She finds it
"incomprehensible" that the on-line version of Playboy could
be deemed illegal while the printed magazine isn't. "Are they
going to send me to jail and fine me a hundred grand because
I put a Playmate on the Net?" she asked. If so, "then I'm
quitting."

House conferees hammering out a sweeping telecommunciations
bill voted 17-16 on Wednesday to make it illegal for anyone to
knowingly display indecent material that can be viewed by a
minor, punishable by a $100,000 fine and up to two years in
prison.

Yesterday, critics tried to counter punch. The American Civil
Liberties Union is preparing a court challenge on First
Amendment grounds. The Center for Democracy and Technology, a
cyberspace civil-liberties group, vows to do the same. On-line
services drafted a letter of protest to House Speaker Newt
Gingrich, who has opposed earlier attempts to impose
restrictions on Internet fare.

On-line advocates also are pushing for a new vote by the House
conferees to define just what "indecency" means. They are
hoping the 17-16 balance of the first vote is tenuous enough
to allow them to ease the restrictions in defining the terms.
Backed by the hectic lobbying efforts, Rep. Rick White of
Washington state, who favors a less-restrictive approach, and
allies have begun laboring to devise a limited definition of
indecency that would be acceptable to civil libertarians and
smut-fighters alike.

Without a clearer, limited definition, the "indecency"
standard faces the almost certain prospect of being struck
down by the courts as unconstitutional, the White forces
contend.

On-line experts, moreover, argue the latest measure could
create big problems and unintended consequences. If one 16-
year-old zaps lewd fare to another, could the sender be
imprisoned? If an adult makes a racy observation on an
electronic bulletin board and a minor tracks it down and reads
it, should the adult be punished?

Last week, America Online Inc., in an effort to strike
vulgarity from members' personal on-line "profiles," decided
to strike all uses of the word "breast" - and thereby erased
the biographies of scores of women who had breast cancer.

AOL "responded to the climate of fear created by Congress,"
Mike Godwin, legal counsel for the Electronic Frontier
Foundation. An AOL spokeswoman said the deletions were "a
mistake on our part."

Robert L. Smith, executive director of the Interactive
Services Association, said such snafus could occur more and
more as Internet access providers fret about whether their
so-called content might be deemed indecent. "It's going to
cause confusion, industry uncertainty and years of litigation,
which will result in Congress not solving the problems they
wanted to solve," Mr. Smith said.

The crackdown effort, moreover, may be fruitless in a global
computer network that reaches more than 150 countries. "Those
American laws don't apply to me," said Patrick Groeneveld, a
professor at Delft University in the Netherlands. Mr.
Groeneveld, who once ran a popular Internet archive that
included pornographic material, said Congress's efforts amount
to U.S. "imperialism."

"I didn't vote for America's congressmen," he said.

"Legislators and some consumers don't understand the
Internet," said Jerry Berman, executive director of the Center
for Democracy and Technology. "So, it becomes an easy target
for political posturing."

-- Albert R. Karr contributed to this article.