EVENT! Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) holds online town hall meeting April 16!

[Shabbir Safdar <shabbir@democracy.net>]

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                         "Government Without Walls"
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Update No.5              http://www.democracy.net/           April 10 1997
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Table of Contents

 - Join Silicon Valley Internet Policy Leader Anna Eshoo (D-CA) Live April 16.
 - Background on Rep. Eshoo
 - democracy.net statistics
 - About democracy.net
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JOIN SILICON VALLEY INTERNET POLICY LEADER ANNA ESHOO (D-CA) Live ONLINE!

Representative Anna Eshoo (D-CA), walks point for Silicon Valley on
Internet policy issues.  Her career has been marked by outspoken
positive positions on Internet policy, but also for her groundbreaking
work of making the Internet a tool for servicing her constituents
better.

Rep. Eshoo will hold a live online interactive 'town hall meeting'
at democracy.net on Wednesday April 16 at 8:30 pm Eastern (5:30 pm Pacific).

The town hall meeting, moderated by Wired Magazine's Todd Lappin, will be
completely virtual.  The discussion will be cybercast live via RealAudio,
and listeners can join a simultaneous interactive chat discussion and pose
questions to Rep. Eshoo.

This is a unique opportunity for Internet users to discuss current Internet
issues, including how Congress can better communicate with the public
using the Internet, the chances for online speech legislation in the 105th
Congress, Congress' agenda for encryption policy reform, and others.

Details on the event, including instructions on how you can submit questions
in advance, are attached below.

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INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO PARTICIPATE

         * Interactive Town Hall Meeting with Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) *

 DATE:      Wednesday, April 16, 1997
 TIME:      5:30 pm Pacific / 8:30 pm Eastern
 LOCATION:  http://www.democracy.net

In advance of the town hall meeting, please visit http://www.democracy.net
and fill out the form to ask Rep. Eshoo a question.  We will collect the
questions and forward them to the moderator on the day of the event, and
will make every effort to ensure that questions from constituents are asked
first.

1. Attend and ask Rep. Eshoo a question!

   Please mark this date in your calendar: Thursday April 16, 5:30PM Pacific
   at http://democracy.net/

2. Get your friends and co-workers to join the discussion

   Members of Congress love to hear from their constituents. If you have
   friends that live in the district, please forward this invitation and
   encourage them to attend.

3. Make sure you have the right software

   To participate in the chat, you will need two pieces of software besides
   a Web browser.  To listen to the 

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BACKGROUND

  "We need to send a clear, unscrambled message to Washington that our
   nation's encryption policy needs to be reformed, and reformed now."
               -- Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), SAFE Forum, July 1, 1996


Given the 14th District's concentration of high-tech industries, it is
not surprising that Rep. Eshoo serves on the House Committee on
Commerce. Her subcommittee assignments on this committee include the
Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade, and Consumer Protection, as
well as the Subcommittee on Health and the Environment.  The Commerce
Committee has policy making  power over high technology, biotechnology,
public health, and the environment.

Through her seat on the Commerce Committee, Rep. Eshoo is well positioned
to assist high technology interests in her district. She fought hard to
ensure that securities litigation reform and telecommunications reform
were signed into law. Rep. Eshoo has introduced the Online Parental
Control Act to fight government censorship and encourage parents to use
technology to control their children's access to online materials. She
has led the fight to improve the Food and Drug Administration's product
review process and played an instrumental role in securing the $238
million B Factory for the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.

In addition, Rep. Eshoo has pushed to loosen costly export controls on
high technology products, make NASA contractors more liable for the
costs of failing to comply with their contract requirements, and
prevent government laboratories from competing with private industry.
She also played a key role in stopping the Financial Accounting
Standards Board from adopting a rule requiring businesses to charge
stock options against earnings, a move which could have seriously
curtailed the growth of small firms and start-up businesses,
particularly in the high technology industry.

Additional Information can be found at the following locations:

* Rep. Anna Eshoo's Home Page   --   http://www-eshoo.house.gov/
* democracy.net Page            --   http://www.democracy.net/

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DEMOCRACY.NET STATISTICS

In the two weeks following the original Pro-CODE cybercast hearing,
over eight times as many people (804) listened to the RealAudio archive
than could have fit into the room at the hearing itself!

The hearing transcript continues to be extremely popular, with the
testimony of Jim Barksdale (CEO, Netscape) and  Louis Freeh (Director,
FBI) counting as the two most popular hearing witnesses to listen to.
Over a quarter of our visitors to the hearing archives stop to listen
to Barksdale and Freeh's takes on the encryption debate.

Whether you're a concerned citizen who can't get to Washington, a
student researching the topic of privacy, or a reporter just following
the debate, these archives are here for you.  You can experience
Government Without Walls at the March 19th hearing cybercast archive at
http://www.democracy.net/.

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ABOUT DEMOCRACY.NET

The democracy.net is a joint project of the Center for Democracy and
Technology (CDT) and the Voters Telecommunications Watch (VTW) to explore
ways of enhancing citizen participation in the democratic process via
the Internet.

To this end, democracy.net will host live, interactive cybercasts of
Congressional Hearings and online town hall meetings with key policy makers.

democracy.net is made possible through the generous support of WebActive,
Public Access Networks, the Democracy Network, and DIGEX Internet.  More
information about the project and its sponsors can be found at
http://www.democracy.net/about/

To receive democracy.net announcements automatically, please visit our
signup form at http://www.democracy.net/

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End update no.5                                                    04/10/1997
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