Fight-each-other

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 19:29:48 -0700 (PDT)
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
To: "James S. Tyre" <j.s.tyre@worldnet.att.net>
Cc: fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Fight-each-other

Some random thoughts:

It's no surprise that pro-CDA folks are on f-c. Paul Cardin from OCAF
subscribed about a year ago. Bruce Taylor and lawyers for Enough is Enough
and the Family Research Council have been known to frequent the list,
along with a variety of Hill staffers.

They do a better job of keeping their disagreements under wraps, though if
you ask the right questions you'll learn about some of the riffs that
split their community over CDA I. We're not as organized -- nor should we
be. Netizens, by their very nature, can't march in lockstep together. 
Sure, the pro-CDA I forces will hear our squabbles, smell our dirty
laundry. But this debate won't continue forever, and perhaps some common
ground will emerge.

Maybe it was naive to think that the anti-CDA coalition would hang
together after the Supreme Court decision. After all, the current fault
lines are split along some of the same divisions that existed for a year
and a half in two lawsuits: the one organized by the ACLU and the one
organized by CIEC. I've heard some say that the current dispute was
inevitable. 

Or, think of it this way: when privacy groups ally with the religious
right on database legislation, they don't expect their alliance to last
forever. Or when librarians join with Sony, Bell Atlantic, and Sun on
copyright lobbying. Or when the ACLU joins the Eagle Forum on crypto. Or
when the Cato Institute joins Ralph Nader on opposing the CDA.

These are issue-by-issue alliances, and everyone involved understands that
from the start. Perhaps we should have thought of the CDA alliance the
same way? Or perhaps the conflict arises because all groups would like to
claim the mantle of "representing the interests of the Net" -- which
brings with it some political currency here in Washington. And some might
say the tussle comes from long-standing personality conflicts.

Again, these are stream-of-consciousness thoughts, typed in while watching
that excerable new TV show "Roar." I haven't thought this through as much
as I'd like.

-Declan


On Mon, 21 Jul 1997, James S. Tyre wrote:

> The note below was sent to me privately earlier today.  I will respect
> the author's privacy by not revealing who s/he is, but y'all might take
> heed of what the author says.
> 
> I am familiar with the author from elsewhere, and many on f-c might well
> agree with the self-characterization (which, in this context, has
> nothing to do with Libertarianism, pro or con).