========================================================================= ________________ _______________ _______________ /_______________/\ /_______________\ /\______________\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/ ||||||||||||||||| / //////////////// \\\\\________/\ |||||________\ / /////______\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\/____ |||||||||||||| / ///////////// \\\\\___________/\ ||||| / //// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/ ||||| \//// ========================================================================= EFFector Online Volume 08 No. 06 May 22, 1995 editors@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In This Issue: Campaign & New Petition to Stop the Communication Decency Act! Calendar of Events Quote of the Week What YOU Can Do * See http://www.eff.org/Alerts/ or ftp.eff.org, /pub/Alerts/ for more information on current EFF activities and online activism alerts! * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Campaign & New Petition to Stop the Communication Decency Act! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- EFF, VTW, CDT and other organizations in the Stop314 Coalition have issued a new immediate action alert. Please read this alert and act quickly! ******** CAMPAIGN TO STOP THE EXON/GORTON COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT Update: -Bill is on the Senate floor -Please act to help Leahy stop the Exon censorship bill PETITION TO HELP SENATOR LEAHY STOP THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT May 19, 1995 PLEASE WIDELY REDISTRIBUTE THIS DOCUMENT WITH THIS BANNER INTACT REDISTRIBUTE ONLY UNTIL June 9, 1995 REPRODUCE THIS ALERT ONLY IN RELEVANT FORUMS Distributed by the Voters Telecommunications Watch (vtw@vtw.org) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENTS The Time Is Now Another Petition? What Is Sen. Leahy Proposing? How To Sign The Petition The Petition Statement Signing the petition from Fidonet or FTN systems For More Information List Of Participating Organizations ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE TIME IS NOW HELP SENATOR LEAHY STOP THE EXON COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT The Senate is expected to on vote the Communications Decency Act (CDA, a.k.a. the Exon Bill) within the next three weeks. The Communications Decency Act, in its current form, would severely restrict your rights to freedom of speech and freedom of expression online, and represents a grave threat to the very nature and existence of the Internet as we know it today. Without your help now, the Communications Decency Act will likely pass and the net may never be the same again. Although the CDA has been revised to limit the liability of online service providers, it would still criminalize the transmission of any content deemed "obscene, lewd, lacivious, filthy, or indecent," including the private communications between consenting adults. Even worse, some conservative pro-censorship groups are working to amend the CDA to make it even more restrictive. Currently, Senator Exon is negotiating with pro-censorship groups and commercial entities that would be affected by the CDA. The voices of Internet users must be heard now. We need to demonstrate that we are a political force to be reckoned with. In an effort to preserve your rights in cyberspace, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has introduced the only legislative alternative to the Communications Decency Act. Senator Leahy is willing to offer his bill as a substitute for the CDA, but needs your support behind his efforts. Senator Leahy's legislation would commission a study to examine the complex issues involved in protecting children from controversial content while preserving the First Amendment, the privacy rights of users, and the free flow of information in cyberspace. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ANOTHER PETITION? Yes. With a strong showing of support from the net.community, Senator Leahy can offer his bill as a substitute for the Communications Decency Act when the Senate votes on the issue later this month. Senator Leahy needs and wants to demonstrate to his colleagues in the Senate that the net.community is behind him in his efforts. We must rise to the task and demonstrate that we will not sit idly by as our rights are threatened. Senator Leahy, a strong civil liberties advocate, has been the Senate's most vocal critic of the Exon/Gorton Communications Decency Act, and has taken a leading role in defending the rights and civil liberties of Internet users. Senator Leahy has taken a great political risk in representing the interests of Internet users on Capitol Hill. The time has come for us to show our appreciation and our support for his efforts. The previous petition against the Communications Decency Act generated over 108,000 signatures, and was instrumental in Senator Leahy's decision to offer his alternative As the Senate moves to vote on the CDA, we must act quickly to ensure that our collective voice continues to be heard. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ WHAT IS LEAHY PROPOSING? Senator Leahy's bill, S. 714, would direct the Department of Justice and the Department of Commerce to commence a 5 month study to examine: * Current law enforcement authority to prosecute the distribution of pornography over computer networks; * Whether any additional law or law enforcement resources are necessary; * The availability of technological capabilities, consistent with the First Amendment and the free flow of information in Cyberspace, to protect children from accessing controversial commercial and non- commercial content; * Ways to promote the development and deployment of such technologies. After conducting the study, the Justice Department must report to Congress on its findings, and, if necessary, recommend changes in current law. Leahy's bill represents the only substantive legislative alternative to the Communications Decency Act, and will buy important time to have a detailed and rational discussion about the issues involved in protecting children from controversial content, and avoid the rush to censorship which is occurring now on the Senate Floor. Without a strong show of support for Leahy's bill, the Communications Decency Act is very likely to pass. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ WHAT CAN I DO? Please Sign the petition in support of Senator Leahy's alternative. There are two ways to sign: 1. World Wide Web: URL:http://www.cdt.org/petition.html Please follow all instructions carefully. Please also put a link to this page on your homepage. 2. email: send email to petition@cdt.org. Please provide the following information EXACTLY AS SHOWN. INCORRECT SUBMISSIONS CANNOT NOT BE COUNTED! Be sure that you make a carriage return at the end of each line Your Name Your email address Are you a US Citizen (yes or no) (** IF NO, skip to last line) Your Street Address (** USE ONLY ONE LINE) Your City Your State Your Zip Code (**VERY IMPORTANT) Country PRIVACY POLICY: Information collected during this campaign will not be used for any purpose other than delivering a list of signers to Congress and compiling counts of signers from particular states and Congressional districts. It will not be reused, sold, rented, loaned, or available for use for any other purpose. All records will be destroyed immediately upon completion of this project. --- sample email submission --- To: petition@cdt.org From: everybody@ubiquitous.net Subject: signed Every Body everybody@ubiqutious.net YES 1111 State Street, Apt. 31 B Any Town CA 94320 USA --- sample email submission --- Multiple signatures will not be counted, so please only sign once. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE PETITION STATEMENT We the undersigned users of the Internet are strongly opposed to the "Communications Decency Act" (Title IV of S. 652), which is currently pending before the Senate. This legislation will severely restrict our rights to freedom of speech and privacy guaranteed under the constitution. Based on our Nation's longstanding history of protecting freedom of speech, we believe that the Federal Government should have no role in regulating the content of constitutionally protected speech on the Internet. We urge the Senate to halt consideration of the Communications Decency Act and consider in its place S. 714, the "Child Protection, User Empowerment, and Free Expression In Interactive Media Study Bill", an alternative approach offered by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT). Signed: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SIGNING THE PETITION FROM FIDONET OR FTN SYSTEMS To sign the petition from FidoNet or other FTN systems, create a netmail message to your local UUCP host. Search the nodelist for the GUUCP flag, and use the address of that system: To: UUCP, [GUUCP system's address here. "To:" name MUST be set to UUCP] From: [you] Subject: signed _________________________________________________________________________ To: petition@cdt.org Every Body everybody@ubiqutious.net YES 1111 State Street, Apt. 31 B Any Town CA 94320 USA [Message starts on 3rd line. The second "To:" line with the internet email address MUST be the first line of the message body, and the blank line following that is REQUIRED. Mail will not be delivered by the gateways without it.] If you are unsure whether your FTN has an Internet gateway, or suspect it may use something other than a GUUCP nodelist flag, ask your network coordinators. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PETITION RATIONALE We oppose the "Communications Decency Act", sponsored by Senators James Exon (D-NE) and Slade Gorton (R-WA), for the following reasons: * It criminalizes the transmission of constitutionally protected speech, including the private communications between consenting individuals; * It would violate privacy rights by protecting system administrators who take steps to ensure that their networks are not being used to transmit prohibited content, even if those steps include reading all messages, in violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). * It fails to account for the unique characteristics of interactive media, including the tremendous control users have over the content they or their children receive. * It would give the Federal Communications Commission jurisdiction over online speech by giving the FCC authority to establish rules governing the distribution of content online; The Internet and other interactive communications technologies offer a unique opportunity for the free exchange of information and ideas, and embody the very essence of our nation's democratic traditions of openness, diversity and freedom of speech. As users of these technologies, we know perhaps better than anyone that there are other, less restrictive ways to protect children from controversial materials while preserving the First Amendment and the free flow of information. Senator Leahy's bill provides an opportunity to address the issues raised by the Communications Decency Act without restricting the free speech and privacy rights of users. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOR MORE INFORMATION Petition updates will be posted to appropriate newsgroups and other forums on a regular basis. To have the latest status report sent to you automatically, send email to: p-update@cdt.org If you have specific questions, or if you are interested in mirroring the petition page, contact Jonah Seiger Other petition related information can be found on the CDT petition page. URL:http://www.cdt.org/petition.html For More information on the Communications Decency Act issue: Web Sites URL:http://www.cdt.org/cda.html URL:http://www.eff.org/pub/Alerts/ URL:http://www.panix.com/vtw/exon/ FTP Archives URL:ftp://ftp.cdt.org/pub/cdt/policy/freespeech/00-INDEX.FREESPEECH URL:ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/Alerts/ Gopher Archives: URL:gopher://gopher.eff.org/11/Alerts URL:gopher://gopher.panix.com/11/vtw/exon Information By auto-reply email: If you don't have www/ftp/gopher access, you can get up-to-date information from the following autobots: General information on the CDA issue cda-info@cdt.org Current status of the CDA issue cda-stat@cdt.org Chronology of events of the CDA issue vtw@vtw.org with the subject "send events" ----------------------------------------------------------------------- LIST OF PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS In order to use the net more effectively, several organizations have joined forces on a single Congressional net campaign to stop the Communications Decency Act. In alphabetical order: Californians Against Censorship Together BobbyLilly@aol.com Center For Democracy And Technology (CDT) info@cdt.org Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) info@eff.org Feminists For Free Expression (FFE) FFE@aol.com Florida Coalition Against Censorship pipking@mail.firn.edu Hands Off! The Net baby-x@phanton.com Inner Circle Technologies, Inc. aka. NovaLink League for Programming Freedom lpf@uunet.uu.net National Libertarian Party 73163.3063@compuserve.com Marijuana Policy Project MPProject@AOL.com MindVox system@phantom.com National Public Telecomputing Network (NPTN) info@nptn.org National Writers Union (UAW Local 1981 AFL-CIO) kip@world.std.com Panix Public Access Internet info@panix.com People for the American Way jlessern@reach.com Society for Electronic Access sea@sea.org The WELL info@well.com Voters Telecommunications Watch (VTW) vtw@vtw.org If you would like to add your organization to this list, contact Shabbir Safdar at VTW ------------------------------ Subject: Calendar of Events --------------------------- This schedule lists EFF events, and those we feel might be of interest to our members. EFF events (those sponsored by us or featuring an EFF speaker) are marked with a "*" instead of a "-" after the date. Simlarly, government events, such as deadlines for comments on reports or testimony submission, are marked with "!" in place of the "-" after the date. If you know of an event of some sort that should be listed here, please send info about it to Stanton McCandlish (mech@eff.org) The latest full version of this calendar, which includes material for later in the year as well as the next couple of months, is available from: ftp: ftp.eff.org, /pub/EFF/calendar.eff gopher: gopher.eff.org, 1/EFF, calendar.eff http://www.eff.org/pub/EFF/calendar.eff Updated: May 15, 1995 1995 ---- May 22- 24 - ErgoCon '95 - Silicon Valley Ergonomics Conference & Exposition; San Jose, Calif. Contact: Abbas Moallem, +1 408 9244132 (voice), +1 408 924 4153 (fax) May 26- 28 - Virtual Futures 1995; U. of Warwick, Coventry, UK. VF'95 "is an interdisciplinary event that examines the role of cybernetic and specifically dissipative or non-linear models in the arts, sciences, and philosophy. The conference explores the relationship between postmodern philosophy and chaos theory, with topics ranging from: information technology, hypertext and multimedia applications...[to] neural nets, and nanotechnology." Speakers include: Kathy Acker, Hakim Bey, Richard Kadrey, Manuel DeLanda, Alan Sondheim and many more. Deadline for proposals: Mar. 1 '95. Contact: +44 0203 523523 x2582 (voice), +44 0203 523019 (fax) Email: virtual-futures@warwick.ac.uk May 31 - Deadline for paper submissions, 11th Ann. Computer Security Applications Conference (see Dec. 11, below). June 4- 6 - Cyber.Xpo.95; Sahara Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada; sponsored by _Sysop_News_. Seminar sessions & tradeshow. Contact: +1 614 452 4541 (voice) June 5- 6 ! 5th Annual "U.S. Copyright Office Speaks" Seminar (West Coast); the Beverly Hilton, Los Angeles, Calif. Topics include: inside look at New Register's agenda, analysis of NII legislation, ACCORD update, & international developments. (See May 1-2 for East Coast event.) Contact: +1 201 894 8260 (voice) June 7- 9 - Third International Conference on Artificial Intelligence Applications on Wall Street; Pace University, New York City, NY. Contact: +1 914 763 8820 (voice), +1 914 763 9324 (fax) Email: satwell@mcimail.com June 8- 10 - Exploring the VideoClass Alternative; Raleigh, N. Carolina. Email: tom_russell@nsu.edu June 11- 14 - Society & the Future of Computing (SFC'95); Tamarron Lodge, Durango, Colorado. Sponsored by the Assoc. for Computing Machinery, LANL, U. of Md., IEEE. Speakers will include Phil Agre (UCSD), Leslie Sandberg (Institute for Telemedicine), Wm. Halverson (PacBell), Don Norman (Apple), Linda Garcia (Congressional Office of Technology Assessment), John Cherniavsky (Natl. Science Found.) and several others. Email: sfc95@lanl.gov WWW: http://www.lanl.gov/LANLNews/Conferences/.sfc95/sfcHome.html/ June 13- 15 - IDT 95 - 12th Congress on Information Markets and Industries; Paris, France. Organized by ADBS (a society of information professionals), ANRT (National Association of Technological Research), and GFII (French association of information industries). Contact: +33 1 43 72 25 25 (voice), +33 1 43 72 30 41 (fax) June 17- 19 - NECC'95: Emerging Technologies and Lifelong Learning: 16th Annual National Educational Computing Conf., sponsored by International Society for Technology in Education; Baltimore, Maryland. VP Gore and Sec'y. of Labor Robert Reich invited as keynote speakers. Other speakers include: John Phillipo (CELT), Frank Knott (MGITB) Contact: +1 503 346 2834 (voice), +1 503 346 5890 (fax) Email: necc95@ccmail.uoregon.edu June 18- 21 - ED-MEDIA'95; Graz, Austria. A world conference on educational multimedia and hypermedia. Sponsor: The Association for the Advancement of Computing. Contact: +1 804 973 3987 (voice) Email: aace@virginia.edu. June 24- 28 - Workshop on Ethical & Professional Issues in Computing; Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Troy, NY. Deadline for submissions: Apr. 15. Contact: +1 518 276 8503 (voice), +1 518 276 2659 (fax) Email: cherkt@rpi.edu June 27- 29 - Women in Technology Conference: Channels for Change; Santa Clara Conv. Ctr., Santa Clara, Calif. Speakers include: Gloria Steinem. Sponsored by Int'l. Network of Women in Technology (WITI). Contact: +1 818 990 1987 (voice), +1 818 906 3299 (fax) Email: witi@crl.com June 28- 30 - INET '95 Internet Society 5th Ann. International Networking Conf.; Honolulu, Hawaii. Sponsored by Internet Society (ISoc). See Jan. 13 for proposal deadline Contact: +1 703 648 9888 (voice) FTP: ftp.isoc.org, /isoc/inet95/ Gopher: gopher.isoc.org, 1/isoc/inet95 WWW: http://www.isoc.org/inet95.html Email: inet95@isoc.org ------------------------------ Subject: Quote of the Week -------------------------- "It is no solution to define words as violence or prejudice as oppression, and then by cracking down on words or thoughts pretend that we are doing something about violence and oppression. No doubt it is easier to pass a speech code or hate-crimes law and proclaim the streets safer than actually to make the streets safer, but the one must never be confused with the other...Indeed, equating "verbal violence" with physical violence is a treacherous, mischievous business." - Jonathon Rauch, in an essay in _Harper's_Magazine_, May 1995 Find yourself wondering if your privacy and freedom of speech are safe when bills to censor the Internet are swimming about in a sea of of surveillance legislation and anti-terrorism hysteria? Worried that in the rush to protect us from ourselves that our government representatives may deprive us of our essential civil liberties? Join EFF! ------------------------------ Subject: What YOU Can Do ------------------------ * The Exon Bill (Communications Decency Act) The Communications Decency Act poses serious threats to freedom of expression online, and to the livelihoods of system operators. The legislation also undermines several crucial privacy protections. Business/industry persons concerned should alert their corporate govt. affairs office and/or legal counsel. Everyone should write to their own Senators and ask them to support Sen. Leahy's replacement bill. Explain, quickly and clearly, why Exon language is dangerous, and urge efforts to remove it from the larger bill it is a part of (S.652) S.652, the Senate telecom deregulation bill, now contains Sen. Exon's "Communications Decency Act" (formerly S.314.) The House version, even more dangerous to system operators (though far less imminent), is H.R.1004. Senator Leahy's replacement bill for the S.314 language in S.652 is the new bill S.714. For more information on what you can do to help stop this and other dangerous legislation, see: ftp.eff.org, /pub/Alerts/ gopher.eff.org, 1/Alerts http://www.eff.org/pub/Alerts/ If you do not have full internet access, send your request for information to ask@eff.org. * ITAR Export Restrictions on Encryption The U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations classify encryption algorithms and products as "munitions" (weapons of war), and the State Department and NSA thereby restrict distribution of encryption technology - technology vital to the networking security and your personal privacy. Companies making encryption products are forced to produce good versions for domestic use and crippled versions for export. Or, more likely, to simply produce a crippled version, since maintaining two versions is often prohibitively expensive. The ITAR export controls are the primary ace in the hole the Administration is using to push key "escrow" schemes such as Clipper. Help EFF defeat the unconstitutional ITAR crypto export restrictions but supporting the EFF Cyberspace Legal Defense Fund, the fund fuelling the Bernstein v. Dept. of State case. For more information, see: http://www.eff.org/pub/Alerts/cyberlegal_fund_eff.announce gopher.eff.org, 1/Alerts, cyberlegal_fund_eff.announce ftp.eff.org, /pub/Alerts/cyberlegal_fund_eff.announce * Find Out Who Your Congresspersons Are Writing letters to, faxing, and phoning your representatives in Congress is one very important strategy of activism, and an essential way of making sure YOUR voice is heard on vital issues. EFF has lists of the Senate and House with contact information, as well as lists of Congressional committees. These lists are available at: ftp.eff.org, /pub/Activism/Congress_cmtes/ gopher.eff.org, 1/EFF/Issues/Activism/Congress_cmtes http://www.eff.org/pub/Activism/Congress_cmtes/ The full Senate and House lists are senate.list and hr.list, respectively. Those not in the U.S. should seek out similar information about their own legislative bodies. EFF will be happy to archive any such information provided. * Join EFF! You *know* privacy, freedom of speech and ability to make your voice heard in government are important. You have probably participated in our online campaigns and forums. Have you become a member of EFF yet? The best way to protect your online rights is to be fully informed and to make your opinions heard. EFF members are informed and are making a difference. Join EFF today! For EFF membership info, send queries to membership@eff.org, or send any message to info@eff.org for basic EFF info, and a membership form. ------------------------------ Administrivia ============= EFFector Online is published by: The Electronic Frontier Foundation 1667 K St. NW, Suite 801 Washington DC 20006-1605 USA +1 202 861 7700 (voice) +1 202 861 1258 (fax) +1 202 861 1223 (BBS - 16.8k ZyXEL) +1 202 861 1224 (BBS - 14.4k V.32bis) Membership & donations: membership@eff.org Legal services: ssteele@eff.org Hardcopy publications: pubs@eff.org General EFF, legal, policy or online resources queries: ask@eff.org Editor: Stanton McCandlish, Online Services Mgr./Activist/Archivist (mech@eff.org) This newsletter printed on 100% recycled electrons. Reproduction of this publication in electronic media is encouraged. Signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of EFF. To reproduce signed articles individually, please contact the authors for their express permission. Press releases and EFF announcements may be reproduced individ- ually at will. To subscribe to EFFector via email, send message body of "subscribe effector-online" (without the "quotes") to listserv@eff.org, which will add you to a subscription list for EFFector. Back issues are available at: ftp.eff.org, /pub/EFF/Newsletters/EFFector/ gopher.eff.org, 1/EFF/Newsletters/EFFector http://www.eff.org/pub/EFF/Newsletters/EFFector/ To get the latest issue, send any message to effector-reflector@eff.org (or er@eff.org), and it will be mailed to you automagically. You can also get the file "current" from the EFFector directory at the above sites at any time for a copy of the current issue. HTML editions available at: http://www.eff.org/pub/EFF/Newsletters/EFFector/HTML/ at EFFweb. ------------------------------ End of EFFector Online v08 #06 Digest ************************************* $$