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Re: The Real Plan: Making the Net Safe for Censorship
well, the "presumption" has a somewhat stalinist aroma
to it, but as for the rest of this laughable proposal,
I can't count a mind boggling number of constitutional
problems. But I think we've had this talk before, on
another list.:)
MacN
On Wed, 16 Jul 1997, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 14:16:47 -0500
> From: Marc Rotenberg <[email protected]>
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: The Real Plan: Making the Net Safe for Censorship
>
>
> Here is an example of a proposal being presented
> at the White House today.
>
> The minds boggles at the number of unconstitutional
> provisions contained in such a brief text.
>
> Never has a freedom won in a Supreme Court decision
> been given up so quickly.
>
> Marc Rotenberg
> EPIC.
>
> ----------
>
> http://www.safesurf.com/online.htm
>
> The Online Cooperative Publishing Act
> (SafeSurf's Proposal for a Safe
> Internet Without Censorship)
>
>
> Any law that seeks to regulate the Internet must first recognize the
> uniqueness of the medium. The Internet is not the print media or the
> broadcast industry. It is also not another form of phone
> conversation or a 900 number calling system. Instead, the Internet is the
> manifestation of humankind's quest for limitless two-way interaction
> with thought. The hyper-text layout allows us to change topics on
> a whim, travel to distance places, or gather world opinion on a
> subject in a matter of minutes.
>
> This distinctive nature of the Internet must be protected and even
> promoted by any legislation that claims to be fair to this medium. The
> interaction between the one receiving data and the one publishing it
> are where the core of the law should focus. Both sides have rights,
> the publisher has the First Amendment and the receiver has the right
> to be secure from harm in his home. Proper Internet law should
> encourage a cooperative transfer of ideas in the form of data. (It
> should be noted that it was the universal acceptance of basic rules of
> cooperation, rather than anarchy, that built the Internet. )
>
> Any law that attempts to give one side or the other is given an
> unreasonable burden in conducting the transfer of data is doomed to
> failure. The CDA was too burdensome on the publisher. Its goal was
> to stop the flow of data, rather than to regulate it for the benefit
> of all parties.
>
> On the other hand, without a proper law, parents can purchase and
> activate measures to protect their children from adult material and still
> not feel secure in their homes from unwanted material. This is
> because negligent publishing of data eventually allows material that can
> harm the child to enter the home. Once this material is experienced
> by the child, its damage is done. There is no "oops" factor, no way
> to undo the unwanted intrusion into a child's innocence.
>
> Most importantly, any Internet law must not censor thought. It may
> regulate the labeling on the packaging but never the content.
>
> With the goal of achieving a greater spirit of cooperation between
> the publisher and the receiver of online data, we propose the Online
> Cooperative Publishing Act.
>
> It shall contain the following provisions:
>
> 1. The right to be able to identify the adult rating of online
> content before it enters one's home shall be established. This shall be a
> civil right giving the violated person or family the presumption in
> a suit against negligent publishers.
>
> 2. Negligent publishing of data shall be defined as placing
> adult oriented material on the Internet in such a way or in such a location
> that it prevents its rating from being known.
>
> 3. A rating shall be defined as a PICS compatible label that
> identifies degrees of adult content in a way that can be understood by
> computer filtering systems and is issued by a ratings service that
> has a minimum of 5,000 documented individuals using its system to
> mark their data.
>
> 4. A publisher is defined as anyone who places computer data
> where it can be accessed by the general public without the use of a
> credit card or other secure verified ID or password given out only
> to adults. Content that can be only be accessed by the use credit cards
> or other secure verified IDs is not subject to this law.
>
> 5. The code used to surround content published on the Internet
> shall be defined as packaging. All government identification
> requirements shall be limited to the code of the packaging. Nothing
> in this law shall be construed to require any altering or censorship
> of the content.
>
> 6. Three types of online publishing shall be defined:
>
> a) Publishers who accurately identify their data with a
> recognized labeling system.
>
> These publishers shall be considered to have satisfied the
> labeling requirement of the law. The right to publish shall be
> completely protected for those who accurately label their
> material. They shall be protected from all civil suits that argue
> negligent posting of data. Only grossly mislabeled material
> can be prosecuted. (Note: This is not a protection for
> obscene material. This law will offer no protection for
> obscene material.)
>
> b) Publishers who mislabel their data to the degree that it
> enables a minor using a label filtering
> system to gain access to harmful material.
>
> Data shall be considered to be mislabeled if it is posted in a
> newsgroup, directory or other joint area that has been labeled
> as free from material harmful to minors. Tampering with
> another's label shall be crime.
>
> These publishers may be criminally prosecuted for subverting a
> rating system to entice children to harmful material. The
> mislabeling must be to the extent that it is completely
> unreasonable to accept it as accurate. Only ratings that are too
> lenient can be prosecuted.
>
> Posting unlabeled adult material to an area that has declared
> itself safe for children or tampering with another's label shall
> be a severe criminal assault on the rights of the receiver.
>
> Sending unsolicited email to a minor that contains
> pornographic material or an invitation to a pornographic Web Site, shall
> be considered negligent enticement and may be criminally
> prosecuted. A bulk email service sending pornographic email
> must show that it took reasonable measures to insure that
> every recipient was an adult. (Example: The addresses used
> were from the membership list of Adult Check or other such
> adult verification services.)
>
> c) Publishers who do not label their data at all.
>
> Negligence in the absence of damages shall not be a criminal
> offense (but it may be a civil violation of the rights of the
> receivers of that data) unless the data is deemed to be
> harmful to minors. Then the publisher will be prosecuted for
> negligence.
>
> These publishers may be sued in civil court by any parent who
> feels their children were harmed by the data negligently
> presented. The parents shall be given presumption in all
> cases and do not have to prove the data actually produced harm
> to their child only that the material reasonably could be
> considered to have needed a label warning to protect children.
>
>
>
> 7. Internet Service Providers are considered publishers of
> only that material of which they directly control or gain revenue via a
> percentage of sales. Web Site designers may be held liable if
> they fail to attach ratings to Web sites, containing material harmful to
> minors, they design for a fee. They may, by written agreement,
> assign the task of rating to another legally responsible party.
>
> 8. Not every document is required to be labeled, only the
> default or index document of each directory. In the case of an entire web
> domain being of one rating, only its default top level document
> needs to be labeled with instructions to apply it to the entire site.
>
>
>
>
>