First of all, I am against obscene material on the internet. However, the Telecommunications Bill, just signed, outlaws "indecent" material, and allows blockage of "objectionable" material by internet access providers. See an early CNN news article and additional links therein. The best legal reference is to the ACLU articles. The new suit is by the Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition, ( CNN story and links) which includes the major internet providers, Apple, Microsoft, the American Library Association, and others. See also the Yahoo page. Here is the text of the bill. Be forewarned, it is 300 kbytes, and while you can link to the section you want, it downloads the entire bill.
The sections dealing with the prohibition on information on abortion has been conceded by the Justice Department as unconstitutional.
While businesses can go back to business as normal in ending this symbolic protest, it still affects us in the University. If there is not an injunction, it could take half a year for court cases to end this restriction on our present freedom of speech on the internet. What the University can do, is to back the bill by Senator Leahy to rescind the excessive restrictions on communication in the Telecommunications Bill.
"Indecent" means the same restrictions that TV works under. This goes far beyond just restricting pornographic material. This is also a greater restriction than what is allowed to minors in print media, in mail, or over the telephone. This means that minors are to be shielded from reading material on a screen which they can legally buy and read in a bookstore or a library. The ACLU brief points out that sufficient blocks exist on internet providers to restrict unsupervised chatrooms from minors, and also other unsuitable sites. It goes far beyond this to restrict all such materials or discussions from adults as well.
In addition to the section being focused on by the ACLU referenced above, there is a more restrictive one on ideas in Section 230. This allows no penalties against internet providers in blocking material for valid reasons, but also adds "or otherwise objectionable" to the provider or to the user. That could mean blocking the material to everyone. Here is the excerpt from the bill:
Section 230 '(2) Civil liability: No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of--
'(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or
History has shown that the material considered most dangerous is not four letter words, but ideas in politics, religion, and science. The major internet providers include one (Microsoft) controlled by a single person. The others rely on businesses and ads, and are subject to pressures from any groups or governments that threaten boycotts or legal action, anywhere in the world. This section clearly gives them the right to censor at will, since the bill does not give any provisions on who will decide, or how "objectionable" material is defined. Some main historical instances of "censorship" involving science ideas: Galileo being made to recount his scientific discovery of the earth revolving around the Sun; the attempts to ban teaching of Darwin's theory of evolution; the recent attacks against environmental theories of the destruction of the ozone layer by industrial chemicals and of global warming. It is in this context that the University should give serious consideration to supporting a bill to repeal the vague and open part of the restrictions on the free communication of ideas, at least within the boundaries of the United States.
What this represents is the loss to the University and intellectual community of the normal standards of free speech, including dissent, that we are used to. This is particularly ironic since the internet was developed by the University and government research communities. If there is any part of our society that has long defended and has as its foundation the right to express thoughts and opinions and select subject matters unfettered, it is the University. Therefore it is appropriate that a member of the University can take some indicative action on this matter. We already rely somewhat on this media, and that reliance will become more intense in the future. In a common view of the internet, just as the printing press allowed everyone to read a book, the internet allows everyone to publish their ideas. Instead of scholars writing works of which only one copy is present in each University library, their works can be made available to everyone. Whereas a bookstore and publisher can only put out a limited number of general and highly popular works, the internet can allow more highly specialized and innovative works. In one of the most mature fields on the internet, high energy physics, over 80% of our papers are now preprinted electronically on the web, and the rest are now being scanned electronically. Such a future awaits other intellectual fields and the publishing of newspapers and books. The thought that all of these will be subject to censorship by arbitrary censors and criteria, is a great loss to the educational and communication possibilities of the internet.
Here is a reasoned statement by Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, one of the five senators to vote against the bill.
The restrictions may even apply to e-mail, including of course the submission of student essays, or discussions on University discussion groups set up for various courses. It reaches very close to home.
These opinions are my own, and not an official statement of the University administration or faculty, who have not yet considered the implications of this bill.
Dennis Silverman