Re: Spin Control Alert (LI Newsday, 2/12/96)

["Declan B. McCullagh" <declan+@CMU.EDU>]

Excerpts from internet.cypherpunks: 14-Feb-96 Re: Spin Control Alert (LI
.. by jamesd@echeque.com 

> Name this Christian rightist who drafted or defended the CDA!

It wasn't one member of the religious right who supplied the legal
arguments to defend the CDA. Multiple religious righters were involved.
Try Deen Kaplan, John McMickle, and Bruce Taylor, for starters.

McMickle, a protege of Taylor's, *wrote* Sen. Chuck Grassley's
net.indecency legislation. McMickle is a longtime anti-porn activist and
worked in an office shared by the National Law Center, the National
Coalition Against Pornography, and Enough is Enough! McMickle now works
for Grassley.

> The primary anti porn activists involved in the effort to regulate the net
> were Donna Reed, and Marty Rimm, neither of whom are members of the
Christian 

Wrong. You are confusing what Enough is Enough! *purports* to be with
what it really is. I have written in earlier messages how Dee Jepsen
(Donna Rice's boss at Enough is Enough!) is affiliated with Pat
Robertson and other right-wing religious fanatics. (Robertson, the
founder of the Christian Coalition, said in 1993 that separation of
church and state is "a lie of the left," and "there is no such thing in
the Constitution.")

As for Marty, he's *not* an anti-porn activist. He loves porn! He was
used by the anti-porn activists to promote their agenda, and he used
them to promote himself. (If you have *any* evidence that he's an
anti-porn activist himself, I need to see it ASAP. His study was
attached to the DoJ's reply brief in our CDA lawsuit.)

> right, and Bill Arms, who is not only not a member of the Christian right,
> but who in additon is a PC academic.

Wrong. Incredibly wrong. Do you *know* who Bill Arms is? Have you ever
spoken with him, met with him, or debated him? I have. Arms is a former
vice president for computing services at CMU and was in *no* way
involved with the "effort to regulate the net." At best, he was a fall
guy for the censorship attempts here at CMU. (He had already been forced
to resign.)

James, to say anything else is a fantasy. Please tell me how exactly
Arms was involved in this telecom legislation's "effort to regulate the
net." Documentation, please.

> While their campaigns received assistance, encouragement, and free labor
> from the Christian right, it was not the Christian right that enabled these
> people to exercise the disproportionate power and influence that they did.

The media's gullibility allowed the religious right to promote their
agenda. Cyberporn scares play better than arguments about free speech.

> It was not the Christian right that obtained totally undeserved publicity 
> for Rimm's spurious findings.

Wrong. Kaplan was an editor at the Georgetown Law Journal and pushed
through the approval of Rimm's study, bypassing normal channels, which
prompted TIME to run the cover. Kaplan is a vice president at the
National Coalition for Children and Families (with McMickle and Taylor),
formerly called the National Coalition Against Pornography. Oh, and the
NCAP/NCCF folks wrote Rimm's footnotes for his study.

> Rimm's study had connections both with the right and the left, but the real
> question is where the big muscle came from.  If the big muscle came from

Wrong. Rimm's study had only minor connections with the left. Catharine
MacKinnon was the only substantial "left" contact Rimm had, and she has
spoken *against* the CDA! If you know more, please share it with us.

> the Christian right they would have let us know by now, because they always
> tend to exaggerate their influence and power.

Wrong. The big muscle did come from the religious right, but it is *not*
in their interests to advertise it since it would invalidate Rimm's
study even more. (Grassley called Rimm's study, on the Senate floor, an
impartial one by a respected university, not by an advocacy group.)
Since Rimm's study still has legs, the religious right has kept their
mouths shut.

> While the effort to regulate the net had *links* to the Christian right, it
> is simply untrue to say that it was composed of the Christian right, or even
> to say that the Christian right played a significant role in the
effort.  Thei
> r
> role is scarcely visible.  They were minor foot soldiers.

Wrong. James, I'm afraid you just don't know what you're talking about.
The religious right orchestrated and organized the effort. Check out:
     http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~declan/rimm/docs/godwin.3

In that article, Mike writes that Bruce Taylor "continues to spearhead
the attempts to pressure Congress into censoring the Internet" and "in
the long run, one thing has become certain -- that the 'problem' of
pornography on the Net is essentially one that was constructed by Rimm
and the antiporn activists, differing in agendas but united in their
tactics." Mike also has an article in an upcoming Penthouse that will
reveal even more.

I've also written at length about the Rimm study at:
     http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~declan/

-Declan