========================================================================= ________________ _______________ _______________ /_______________/\ /_______________\ /\______________\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/ ||||||||||||||||| / //////////////// \\\\\________/\ |||||________\ / /////______\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\/____ |||||||||||||| / ///////////// \\\\\___________/\ ||||| / //// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/ ||||| \//// ========================================================================= EFFector Online Volume 08 No. 14 July 26, 1995 editors@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 IN THIS ISSUE: "Cyberporn" Hearing and Exposure of Flaws in Rimm Study EFF's Mike Godwin Testifies Against Grassley Censorship Bill Calendar of Events Quote of the Day What YOU Can Do Administrivia * See http://www.eff.org/Alerts/ or ftp.eff.org, /pub/Alerts/ for more information on current EFF activities and online activism alerts! * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: "Cyberporn" Hearing and Exposure of Flaws in Rimm Study ---------------------------------------------------------------- A July 24 hearing chaired by Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) on the issues surrounding children's getting access to so-called "indecent" material on the Internet, did not go exactly as planned for the Senator. In the absence of Sen. Grassley's planned star witness -- a self-styled expert on online pornography named Martin Rimm -- ranking minority member Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) effectively controlled the hearing. Grassley's attempt to center his hearing on Rimm's controversial pornography study had backfired. Though the Iowa Senator had termed it the "only comprehensive study dealing with pornography in cyberspace", now, thanks to recent articles discussing the motives and ethics of its undergraduate author, Grassley was forced to disavow it: "Now under criticism, that study is under review as it should be." EFF lawyer Mike Godwin had taken the lead weeks before in coordinating efforts to challenge former CMU student Martin Rimm's "study" of sexually oriented material online and Time magazine's decision to promote it as the basis of a cover story on "cyberporn." Time has been widely criticized for promoting the study without allowing any prior critical review of it by independent experts. Working with EFF interns Beth Noveck and Ben Manevitz, Godwin had arranged for copies of the study to get into the hands of reporters and academics across the country. This in turn had generated press coverage that led both to the discrediting of the Rimm study (which is riddled with methodological flaws and unsupportable conclusions) and to Time magazine's seemingly unprecedented disavowal of its own cover story in a followup article only three weeks later. "The Rimm affair shows the potential of the Net for both political action and academic inquiry," Godwin said. "A decade ago, the study and its author might have been accepted without question for months, continuing to distort public-policy debates about regulation of the Net." Godwin sought evaluations of the Rimm study from professors Donna Hoffman of Vanderbilt and Jim Thomas of Northern Illinois University, as well of from pioneer Internet researcher Brian Reid of DEC. He also helped ensure that the first critique of the Rimm study, from EFF Policy Fellow David Post, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, was quickly and widely circulated. In subsequent weeks, Godwin became a clearinghouse of information about the so'called "CMU study" and its controversial author. It is widely believed that the critical response to the Rimm article is what led to Rimm's removal last week from the witness list for the July 24 hearing sponsored by Sen. Grassley, who is sponsoring legislation purportedly aimed at protecting children from so-called "indecent" content online. At the hearing, Sen. Leahy commented that, "he [Rimm] got disinvited when the study that everyone embraced as gospel was a little bit less than that. I would expect any time now to see _Time_ say that even great media can be conned." In point of fact, _Time_ Senior Editor Philip Elmer-Dewitt has essentially done so, in public forums on the WELL, the online service where much of the dirt on the Rimm study was unearthed and examine. "The voice you didn't hear at that hearing," Godwin later said, "was that of would-be star witness Martin Rimm, who may have hoped his study would establish him as the national expert in online pornography." Once Rimm and his questionable study were discredited, Godwin said, "the hearing lost a lot of drama, but it gained a lot of balance." There was still some drama, however. Two women, one a minor, testified that they had been stalked online, and anti-porn lobbyists demanded legislation to "fix" the online porn problem. Sen. Leahy's questioning, however, revealed that the problems are already covered by local, state and federal law. Leahy concluded, of course, that the problem was one of law enforcement resources, not any imaginary gaping holes in the law itself. Sen. Leahy was also had critical words for the majority of his colleagues: "The Senate went in willy-nilly and passed this legislation [the similar Exon/Gorton Comm. Decency Act]. Most senators who voted wouldn't have the foggiest idea of how to get on the Internet." In his turn, journalist Barry Crimmins noted, for whatever reason, that he was a victim of childhood sexual abuse, and warned that America Online, the popular online service, is a den of iniquity: "I am here to tell the American people that not only are their children unsafe on America Online, their children are unsafe because of it." This may have been just a bit too much for even those Senators ready to believe in Internet horror stories. Grassley himself tried to cut Crimmins off to no avail. These antics do not appear to have been enough, fortunately, to turn this hearing into a media circus, or a censors' feeding frenzy, unlike the recent hearing on "violent" materials on the Internet. By and large, sensible testimony ruled the day. Jerry Berman, representing the Center for Democracy and Technology, and the Interactive Working Group (a coaltion of non-profit and industry organizations, including EFF and many others), delivered solid oral testimony, showing the Grassley anti-porn bill to be an unconstitutional attempt to ban protected speech. EFF Staff Counsel Mike Godwin submitted written testimony, which appears below. Also combatting hysterical testimony from anti-porn group Enough is Enough were Michael Hart of the Project Gutenberg electronic library, AOL's general counsel, and the exec. dir. of the Recreational Software Advisory Council. Several important ideas were aired without serious challenge in the hearing, mostly by Sen. Leahy and Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin): * The Exon and Grassley legislation is inconsistent with the current Congress' and Administration's expressed goal of "keeping government off our backs" * The legislation is unlikely to solve the problems they purport to solve * The right and responsibility to decide what is and is not appropriate for a child lies with that child's parents * Current law already suffiently covers this area * Software tools and special services will enable individuals to "filter" online content for themselves and their children. * These censorship bills fail to distinguish between obscenity, which is illegal (though defined different in different jurisdictions), and indecency, which is constitutionally protected and subject to regulatory control only under specific and very narrowly defined circumstances. * The legislation would chill speech not only directly, in attacking indecency, but indirectly by, in effect, requiring online services such as Netcom, the WELL, AOL or local BBSs, to become full-time censors, and forcing them to censor anything that *might* conceivably be indecent. Otherwise, they would be in grave danger of prosecution. Sen. Exon attempted to rebuff civil libertarians' concerns by claiming that he is being "viciously attacked", and by repeating tired arguments that such legislation will "protect children." However, we think reason finally prevailed in this debate, and that the time is right to push forward. Please see the "What You Can Do" section of this newsletter. [Thanks to Declan McCullagh for comparing his notes from the hearing with ours.] ------------------------------ Subject: EFF's Mike Godwin Testifies Against Grassley Censorship Bill --------------------------------------------------------------------- Testimony of Mike Godwin Staff Counsel of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Regarding The "Protection of Children From Computer Pornography Act of 1995" (S.892) before the Senate Judiciary Committee July 24, 1995 I. The Challenge of a New Medium My name is Mike Godwin, and I am staff counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. I'd like to thank you, Mr. Chairman, on behalf of my organization, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, for allowing EFF to submit testimony concerning the important issues, and significant problems, we believe are raised by S. 892. One of our goals at EFF is to assist policymakers and legislators in developing a framework to understand the legal and social significance of what is, in effect, a wholly new medium -- computer communications. EFF is dedicated to expanding and preserving the democratic potential of this new medium, whose social and political significance may ultimately exceed that of the very first mass medium, the printing press. The issues raised by computer communications transcend partisan politics and require of us all that we stretch our imaginations -- the worst mistake we can make on the threshold of this revolution is to assume that this new medium is, so far as the Constitution and laws of the United States are concerned, essentially the same as broadcasting, or more or less similar to telephony. Computer communications -- and especially those communications that depend on computer networks of national or global reach, raise new problems and questions for lawmakers. At the same time, this medium promises to be the fulfillment of our oldest First Amendment values. But I come here not just as a lawyer who is concerned about the First Amendment. I'm also a father. My little girl will be the first person in my family to have grown up with the Internet. As a parent, I'm deeply concerned with protecting Ariel from bad material and from bad people. And this concern is the other reason for my being here -- I want to help ensure that whatever legislation or policy comes from Congress regarding the Internet will help me as a parent in protecting my little girl, while at the same time ensuring that she's able to benefit fully from access to the Net. While I do want to talk a bit about some of the Constitutional issues raised by S. 892, I don't want to duplicate the thoughtful, thorough analysis submitted to this committee by Jerry Berman of the Center for Democracy and Technology. Instead, I want to focus on giving you a better historical and technical understanding of why computer communications are fundamentally new and different from previous communications media. Now, figuring out the proper legal framework for the Net is tricky. Even if you didn't know anything else about computer communications, you'd know it's tricky from one simple fact: you've got Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich and the ACLU on one side of the issue, and Senators Robert Dole and Dianne Feinstein on the other side. What this tells us, I think, is that one's approach to making policy about computer communications derives less from one's political affiliations than it does from how one sees it in relation to traditional communications media. You see, the more you know about computer networks and the Internet, the clearer it becomes that the these networks are different in several respects from traditional communications media such as print, broadcasting, and the telephone. And these differences, once grasped, entail that top-down, government-centered approaches to protecting children will be ineffective. They also entail that the "least restrictive means" test of First Amendment jurisprudence will lead to different results in this medium from those results we've seen in traditional media, such as telephony. (See, e.g., Sable Communications v. FCC, 1989). We begin with what I promise will be a short history of the Internet. II. The Humble Beginnings In spirit, at least, the Internet--the global "network of networks" that is increasingly the link among commercial online providers, businesses, government, computer bulletin-board systems, and other modes of computer communications -- was conceived 30 years ago by Paul Baran, a RAND Corporation researcher. In a highly theoretical paper, Baran addressed a quintessentially Cold War problem: How could U.S. authorities successfully communicate in the aftermath of a nuclear war? The problem was that traditional communications network designs were vulnerable to strategic attacks. Hubs and main arteries could be destroyed, isolating whole sections of the country. And any central control authority would be a particularly enticing target for a surgical strike. Baran developed a theory of a truly decentralized, "distributed" communications network, with no central authority, and no main hubs or arteries. Any given communication on the network was sliced into what later were called "packets," and each packet was separately addressed, then thrust by the network in the general direction of the communication's destination. Each packet might take a separate route across the network, and some of those routes might involve serious detours (a packet might travel from Chicago to Seattle by way of Texas, for example). If a particular route had been damaged by natural disaster or military attack, a given packet would simply continue trying new routes until it found one that worked. The recipient computer on the far end would collect each packet as it arrived and assemble it in the correct order. This kind of network design probably sounds highly inefficient. That's because it is -- but it is also highly robust, and it turns out to be very difficult to guarantee that you've stopped a given message from reaching its destination. Baran's theoretical design remained just that -- theory -- for several years. Then, in 1969, a group of engineers working for ARPA (the federal government's Advanced Research Projects Agency), actually planted the first seeds of what later became known as the Internet. Although these engineers had never heard of Paul Baran or his paper, they'd brought his theory to fruition anyway. And once the RAND Corporation and other early participants in this network recognized that ARPA had implemented a working version of Baran's concept, they lost no time in playing up the military value of the new network (which turned out to be a plus when seeking appropriations under the constraints of the Mansfield Amendment). At first it was called the ARPAnet -- only later was the term "Internet" coined. The new network grew quickly: in late 1969, there were only four computers on the network, but by 1972 there were 37 sites. By the 1990s, the number of computer sites on the Internet had grown exponentially -- in 1992, Internet sites numbered in the hundreds of thousands; this year they number in the millions. One reason the Internet grew so rapidly is that one doesn't have to construct special wires or conduits to connect to it -- connectivity depend on software standards, and not on hardware. And connecting to the Internet cost the taxpayer little or nothing, since each node was independent, and had to handle its own financing and its own technical requirements. It is no wonder that communications traffic on the Internet has increased 1000 times between January 1988 and October 1994. Also fueling the explosive growth of the Internet was the increasing availability and decreasing price of desktop computers. Any one of the desktop (or even laptop) computers commonly sold today can become part of the Internet. III. Democratic and Economic Opportunities But the cheapness of computing power these days tells only part of the story. The rest lies in the answer to the question of why so many people want to be connected to the Internet. While there are many uses of the Internet -- e-mail, long-distance computing, file transfers, searches of remote databases -- there is no doubt that one of the most compelling reasons people are excited about the Internet is freedom of speech. You see, unlike every other mass medium that has ever existed, the Internet (and similar computer networks) has no central authority. There is no person in charge of the "printing press," no "editor-in-chief," no holder of a broadcast license. Americans have discovered that one can reach a large audience on the Internet without having to assemble a lot of capital or seek the approval of an editor. In this the Internet is similar to the telephone (no one tries to edit your phone conversations while they're happening), but the potential scope of the communications are far greater. While it might take millions of dollars to start on urban newspaper or TV station, it takes only a few hundred dollars to reach large audiences. If, as A.J. Liebling once commented, freedom of the press belongs to those who own one, the Internet suggests that we all may someday own one. In short, the First Amendment's free-press clause, which many citizens still take to be a right reserved to the highly capitalized media establishment, has suddenly become a meaningful right for every individual American. This kind of empowerment of individuals is something new under the sun, and it blurs traditional distinction between "content producers" and "consumers" (everyone on these computer networks can produce "content"). This may blur the line between reporter and reader -- to take only the most recent example: it was an ad-hoc group of individual Internet users who assembled the material that demonstrated the flaws in the Martin Rimm/Carnegie Mellon pornography study that you may have heard about. And while the mainstream media might have taken months to discover the study's flaws, these individuals uncovered them in mere weeks. To touch briefly on some other things that make this medium different: since computer hardware and software are ubiquitous and less expensive all the time, the medium cannot be considered a "scarce" resource in the way the Supreme Court characterized the broadcasting spectrum in Red Lion. And since content is primarily "pulled" by user choices rather than "pushed" by content producers, the medium lacks the "pervasive" character of broadcasting that was central to the Court's decision in the Pacifica case. Finally, the relatively low cost of acquiring access to the Internet means that would-be entrepreneurs face relatively low barriers to entry into this new market. Now that the government no longer plays even a nominal role in administering the Internet, the international network of networks is becoming a playing field for pure capitalism. To start a successful business on the Internet, you don't need to be a millionaire, and you don't need venture capital -- all you need is a good idea. Ill-considered regulation, however, could thwart both the democratic and the economic promise of computer communications. S. 892, with its clear intent to impose new duties and broader legal risks for service providers, would simultaneously chill freedom of speech and distort the market for services by raising barriers to entry. What exacerbates this problem is that a provider's liability for content hinges not on legal obscenity, but on the far broader, far vaguer concept of "indecency," a term imported from the realm of broadcasting regulation whose meaning has never been defined by either Congress or the Supreme Court. And even if the term had been defined, it would be inapplicable to a medium that is neither "scarce" nor "pervasive" in the Constitutional senses of those terms. Our federal government's special role in regulating the content of the broadcast media and of the dial-a-porn services is grounded in particular factual findings about the characteristics of those media. There have been no such findings with regard to computer communications, and, given the nature of the medium as discussed above, it is difficult to see how there could be. Compounding the "chilling effect" this legislation would have on lawful speech is the sheer ineffectiveness of the measure when it comes to willfully illegal communications. Because of the decentralized, "bomb-proof" nature of the Internet, an individual provider's decision to censor certain content may have no effect at all with regard to its general availability. This is especially true when one remembers that an increasing number of Internet sites are operated in foreign countries, and their owners, while theoretically extraditable and prosecutable in the United States, would rarely be meaningfully deterred -- they know that only a very few foreign offenders will ever be pursued by a U.S. attorney. In general, a foreign criminal using computer networks to commit a crime in the United States can dodge both the providers' attempts at monitoring and the law-enforcement agencies' attempts at policing by originating message traffic offshore or by routing illegal information through a chain of intermediate sites that obscures its origin. S. 892 would not even pose a meaningful threat to those who prey on children -- no limit on "indecency" prevents the solicitation of innocent children with nonobscene, nonindecent speech. IV. A Better Approach. As a parent who happens to be a lawyer, I know that federal and state laws already define a framework for the prosecution of those trafficking in obscenity, those who possess or distribute child pornography, and those who prey on children. It is clear that the legal tools are in place, but Senator Grassley's instincts are right when he perceives that there is still a gap in the defense of children that needs to be filled. One thing we know about those who engage in child sexual abuse, for example, is that they are rarely deterred by legal risks -- even in the face of likely prosecution they are driven by their sickness to continue preying on children. And as a parent I can assure you that it is little comfort to me to know that if such an offender harms my child, that person may be caught, prosecuted, and imprisoned at some point -- the damage, which may last a lifetime, has already been done. This is why I believe that the right role for Congress to play is to encourage the development of software filters that prevent my child and others from being harmed in the first place. Recall that the basic technology we're talking about here is the computer -- the most flexible, programmable, "intelligent" technology we build and market. Filtering software enables parents to screen certain language, certain kinds of content, certain people, or certain areas on the networks from their children. Such an approach does no damage to First Amendment values (it does not, for example, put a nonlawyer hobbyist who operates a tiny computer bulletin-board system in the position of having to determine what is "indecent"), yet it does solve the problems (e.g., solicitation through nonindecent communications, or offenders who conceal the origin of their harmful communications) that S. 892 has no hope of addressing. Furthermore, since such tools are designed to be customizable, parents are empowered to set their own standards of what is acceptable for their children, rather than relying on what the nonelected officials at the FCC choose to include under the definition of "indecency." For example, even if the FCC determines that detailed information about safe-sex techniques is not indecent, a parent who believes that her children should receive all their sexual information from her and not from the Internet could customize the family computer's "filters" to block that information. V. Conclusions We already have the laws in place. Federal and state laws prohibit the distribution of obscenity, every state I know of has laws prohibiting the exposure of children to inappropriate or harmful material. Federal and state laws prohibit child porn and child abuse, regardless of the medium used to facilitate it. Speaking as a concerned parent and a lawyer, I believe the question isn't "Do we need more criminal laws?" -- it's "What can we do to supplement the legal framework with policies and tools that empower parents to protect their children and preserve the values of their families?" And answering that question will require the Congress to draft laws and support policies that are grounded not in simplistic analogies to old media, but in a thorough understanding of this new medium and of what makes it different. Members of the committee, you are at a crossroads. Down one road lies a future in which parental rights are supported by a Congress that has abandoned the outdated, big-government approach to solving social problems. Like the parents and children whose letters to you follow my statement here, we hope for a Congress that does not set the First Amendment and welfare of families against eachother, but that instead chooses policies that strengthen both. [end] ******** The letters referred to are available in the archived version of the testimony, at: http://www.eff.org/pub/Alerts/s892_eff_godwin_072495.testimony ftp.eff.org, /pub/Alerts/s892_eff_godwin_072495.testimony gopher.eff.org, 1/Alerts, s892_eff_godwin_072495.testimony ------------------------------ 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: July 26, 1995 * 1995 Aug. 1 - TOOLS '95, Technology of Object-Oriented Languages and Sustems; Santa Barbara, California. Contact: +1 805 685 1006 (voice), +1 805 685 6869 (fax) Email: tools@tools.com Aug. 3- 5 - 4th Annual Conference on Multimedia in Education and Industry; Asheville, North Carolina. Contact: +1 803 737 7440 Email: birdd@ccmail.orst.edu Aug. 4- 6 * DEF CON III; the Tropicana Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada; "a convention for the "underground" elements of the computer culture...the Hackers, Phreaks, Hammies, Virii Coders, Programmers, Crackers, Cyberpunk Wannabees, Civil Liberties Groups, CypherPunks, Futurists, Artists, Etc." Members of the enforcement & security communities are also regularly in attendance. EFF co-founder John Perry Barlow and EFF Online Services Coordinator Selena Sol are featured speakers. Email: dtangent@defcon.org or len@netsys.com - The Digital Dialectic: A Conference on the Convergence of Technology, Media & Theory; Ahmanson Auditorium, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, Calif. Panelists include: Robert Stein, Florian Brody, George Landow, Peter Lunenfeld, Lev Manovich, Erkki Huhtamo, Brenda Laurel, Christian Mueller, William J. Mitchell, N. Katherine Hayles, Michael Heim, Carol Gigliotti. This is a free event, attendance limited to 423. Event scheduled for just before SIGGRAPH. Contact: +1 818 568 4710 (voice), +1 818 795 0819 (fax) Email: peterl@artcenter.edu Aug. 4- 9 - Seminar on Academic Computing '95: Tough Choices, Radical Opportunities; Snowmass Village, Colorado. Email: bridd@ccmail.orst.edu WWW: http://www.princeton.edu/~sac/ Aug. 6- 11 - SIGGRAPH '95 - International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques; Los Angeles, Calif.; sponsored by the Assoc. for Computing Machinery. See also Digital Dialectic, Aug. 4-6. Email: siggraph95@siggraph.org Aug. 8- 9 *! US NII Advisory Council meeting; Seattle, Wash. Open to the public; members of this civilian council include EFF board members Esther Dyson and David Johnson. Contact: +1 212 482 1835 (voice) Aug. 8- 11 - Rural Cellular Association; Las Vegas, Nevada. Contact: +1 800 722 1872 (voice) Aug. 9- 11 - 11th Annual Conferenceon Distance Teaching and Learning; Madison, Wisconsin. Contact: +1 800 462 0876, +1 608 262 2061 http://epd222.engr.wisc.edu/disted/distED.html Aug. 10- 12 - Tenth Annual Conference on Computing and Philosophy (CAP); Pittsburgh, Philadelphia. Contact: +1 412 268 7643 (voice) Email: rc2z@andrew.cmu.edu Aug. 12 - Electronic Frontiers Houston Free Cryptography Workshop: How to Use PGP; South Coast Computing offices, 1811 Bering St., Ste. 100, Houston, Texas. Contact: +1 713 799 1044 Email: efh@efh.org URL: http://www.efh.org/ Aug. 13- 15 - Hot Chips Symposium VII, a Symposium on High-Performace Chips; Stanford University, Stanford, California. Sponsored by IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Microprocessors. http://dice.scu.edu/HotChips or http:/www.hot.org/hotchips Contact: +1 415 941 6699 (voice) Email: r.stewart@hot.org Aug. 13- 16 - Conference on Organizational Computing Systems (COOCS'95); Silicon Valley Sheraton, Milpitas, Calif.; sponsored by the Assoc. of Computing Machinery. Contact: +1 408 456 7667 (voice), +1 408 456 7050 (fax) Email: kswenson@ossi.com Aug. 14- 18 - Computers in Context: Joining Forces in Design; Aarhus, Denmark. Contact: Computers in Context, Aarhus University, Dept. of Computer Science, Bldg. 540, Ny Munkegade 116, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. Aug. 16- 19 - Libraries of the Future - IFLA; Istanbul, Turkey. Email: mkutup-o@servis.net.tr - AI-ED'95: 7th World Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education. Washington, DC. Sponsor: The Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education Contact: +1 804 973 3987 (voice) Email: aace@virginia.edu Aug. 16- 20 - ONE BBSCon '95; Tampa Conv. Ctr., Tampa, Florida Largest BBS sysop/user convention in the world Contact: +1 303 693 5253 (voice) Aug. 18 - Registration deadline for Challenging Marketplace Solutions to Problems in the Economics of Information (see Sep. 18 below). Aug. 18- 20 - National Independent Politics Summit; Pittsburgh, Penn. Aug. 19- 23 - Telecommunities '95, International Community Networking Conference and Annual General Meeting of Telecommunities Canada; University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Contact: +1 604 721 8746 (voice), +1 604 721 8774 (fax) Aug. 21- 23 * Progress and Freedom Foundation Conference; Aspen, Colorado. Speakers include EFF boardmembers Esther Dyson, Steward Brand and John Perry Barlow. Contact: +1 202 484 2312 - WebEdge II, the Second Macintosh World Wide Web Developers' Conference; Austin, TX. Contact: +! 512 326 8307 Email: matt@webedge.com http://www.webedge.com Aug. 21- 24 - 4th International Conference on Image Management and Communication (IMAC 95); Hawaii. Contact: +1 202 687 7955 (voice), +1 202 784 3479 http://www.imac.georgetown.edu go to ISIS Homepage Aug. 21- 24 - 12th International Conference on Computer Communication; Seoul, Korea. Advance registration deadline: July 25 Contact: +82 2 588 9246 (voice), +82 2 521 1352 (fax) Email: icc-reg@krnic.net Aug. 21- 25 - KnowRight '95, International Congress on Intellectual Property Rights for Specialized INformation, Knowledge and New Technoligies; Vienna, Austria. Contact: +43 1 5120235 (voice), +43 1 5120235 9 (fax) Email: ocg@vm.univie.ac.at Aug. 22 - National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisers Annual Meeting; Assistant Sec. of Commerce Larry Irving scheduled to speak. Albuquerqu, NM. Aug. 25 - 9th Congressional District Telecommunications Conference (sponsored by US Congressman Rick Boucher); Roanoke, Virginia. Assistant Sec. of Commerce Larry Irving scheduled to speak. Aug. 28- 29 - 1995 CAUSE/CNI Midwest Regional Conference; Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. Contact: +1 202 296 5098 (voice), +1 202 872 0884 (fax) Email: paul@cni.org http://www.cni.org/CNI.homepage.html Aug. 28- Sep. 1 - ACM SIGCOMM 1995, Conference on Applications, Technologies, Architectures, and Protocols for Computer Communications; Cambridge, Massachusetts. Contact: +1 908 582 3384 (voice), +1 908 582 5857 (fax) Email: keshav@research.att.com URL: http://www.acm.org/sigcomm/sigcomm95/ ------------------------------ Subject: Quote of the Day ------------------------- "Censorship is the strongest drive in human nature; sex is a weak second." - Phil Kerby 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 make us secure from ourselves that our government representatives may deprive us of our essential civil liberties? Concerned that legislative efforts nominally to "protect children" will actually censor all communications down to only content suitable for the playground? Join EFF! Even if you don't live in the U.S., the anti-Internet hysteria will soon be visiting a legislative body near you. If it hasn't already. ------------------------------ Subject: What YOU Can Do ------------------------ * The Communications Decency Act & Other Censorship Legislation The Communications Decency Act and similar legislation pose 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 Representatives and ask them to support Rep. Klink's alternative legislation, already folded into the House telecom reform bill, and ask their legislators to oppose any efforts to remove the Klink language from the bill and replace it with the CDA or similar censorship legislation. Explain, quickly and clearly, why the CDA is dangerous, and urge efforts to prevent its introduction in any form. 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. * The Anti-Electronic Racketeering Act This bill is unlikely to pass in any form, being very poorly drafted, and without much support. However, the CDA is just as bad and passed with flying colors [the jolly roger?] in the Senate. It's better to be safe than sorry. If you have a few moments to spare, writing to, faxing, or calling your Congresspersons to urge opposition to this bill is a good idea. If you only have time to do limited activism, please concentrate on the CDA instead. That legislation is far more imminent that the AERA. * 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. (A House list is included in this issue of EFFector). 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. If you are having difficulty determining who your Representatives are, try contacting your local League of Women Voters, who maintain a great deal of legislative information. * 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. 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