Re: NYTimes oped: Federal laws better than censorware

[Mike Godwin <mnemonic@well.com>]

At 12:00 PM -0500 12/4/97, Andrew Shapiro wrote:

>You're wrong or overstating the case.  PICS began as an effort -- rightly
>enough -- to *respond to* and/or *stave off* laws like the CDA.  But did
>the Feds "pressure" anyone to come up with PICS?  No.  I just
>double-checked with someone linked to PICS's founding, who told me: "Nobody
>in the federal government ever came to the 3WC and told them to create
>PICS."

I believe the first version of the Exon Amendment was introduced in late
summer of 1994. I believe PICS postdates this, but I am not certain.

>And even if the Feds had "pressured" someone to do so, that
>wouldn't in anyway justify its speech-inhibiting design features.

Does PICS inhibit speech in e-mail or in Usenet newsgroups or in FTP sites?
Isn't PICS just the Web?
Conversely, doesn't any version of the CDA inhibit speech in, e.g., e-mail,
Usenet newsgroups, and FTP sites?

I cannot conceive of any version of the CDA that does not restrict speech
more broadly, and have a greater chilling effect, than PICS. Note that this
is not a defense of PICS.

>That's irrelevant, Declan.  Day-to-day, speech can be inhibited as much by
>technology as by law.

I don't believe PICS, whatever its other flaws, poses any threat of putting
speakers of unapproved speech in jail.

>That's not what I said.  I'm not in favor of censorship and I oppose any
>attempt to *criminalize* 'indecent' speech.  But criminalize does not =
>regulate.

Perhaps it is a flaw in my legal education, but I was always taught that
criminal laws were a form of regulation.

>>children do
>>not have a of Constitutional right to have
>>censorware-free computers.
>
>Really!  I seem to recall *you* making the argument that kids have first
>amendment rights to access any information, particularly in public
>facilities like libraries.

I cannot speak to what Declan's argument actually was, but I note that
these two positions are not, in fact, logically inconsistent.


---Mike





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We shot a law in _Reno_, just to watch it die.

Mike Godwin, EFF Staff Counsel, is currently on leave from EFF,
participating as a Research Fellow at the Freedom Forum Media Studies
Center in New York City. He can be contacted at 212-317-6552.
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