Letter to Editor on Censorship

[Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>]

Monday 9/28/1998's San Mateo County Times had a really strong,
if slightly naive, editorial in favor of the First Amendment
protections on speech and the press.  Among other things,
it was quite positive about the fact that the Starr Report
was able to be widely published in spite of content that
would have been censored in the past, and that it would be hard to
imagine how we'd explain to future generations 25 or 50 years from now
that we'd covered up this important part of the historical record
just because its content was vulgar.  Heh.  Their heart's in the right place...



To: Editor, San Mateo County Times, 

Thank you for Monday's great editorial supporting freedom of speech.
Unfortunately, it's a right preserved only by hard work, and 
getting recognition for all forms of speech beyond just ink on paper 
is an ongoing struggle.  
Publishing the Starr Report on the Internet would have been illegal if the 
EFF, ACLU, and publishers hadn't challenged the "Communications Decency Act", 
which the Supreme Court threw out 9-0, and unlike Nixon's tapes, 
a few "Expletive Deleted"s can't clean up the Starr Report.

As your editorial says "it would be hard to imagine", but censors are 
still at it - a Congressional committee just passed a reworded version, 
hoping they can get away with "protecting minors" as a loophole. 

Some people contend that the First Amendment doesn't protect rude language, 
only political speech.   But if you oppose campaign finance limits, 
they'll contend that elections are too important to allow 
unregulated political speech on TV or newspapers.  
And Joe Camel?  He's illegal too.

Meanwhile, the range of opinions on TV and radio is quite narrow - 
big corporations and government public broadcasting buy up the few 
TV licenses, while the FCC bans low-power broadcasters who can 
provide a diversity of opinion, and most cities grant monopolies 
on cable TV networks.

And FBI director Louis Freeh, in his push for expanded wiretaps, 
has been using Anti-Communist Cold War restrictions on exporting 
encryption software to keep foreigners and Americans from using 
tools that allow them to talk privately without censorship.

Eternal vigilance is still the price of liberty.

================

				Thanks! 
					Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com
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