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CDA Overturned
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

06/26/1997 10:07 EST Court Nixes Internet Smut Provision WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congress violated free-speech rights when it tried to curb smut on the Internet, the Supreme Court ruled today. In its first venture into cyberspace law, the court invalidated a key provision of the 1996 Communications Decency Act.

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CDA Overturned - AP Write through 9-0
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

9-0 I called it. 06/26/1997 10:16 EST Court Nixes Internet Smut Provision WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congress violated free-speech rights when it tried to curb smut on the Internet, the Supreme Court ruled today. In its first venture into cyberspace law, the court invalidated a key provision of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. Congress' effort to protect children from sexually explicit material goes too far because it also would keep such material from adults who have a right to see it, the justices unanimously said. The law made it a crime to put adult-oriented material online where children can find it. The measure has never taken effect because it was blocked last year by a three-judge court in Philadelphia. ``We agree with the three-judge district court that the statute abridges the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment,'' Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the court. ``The (Communications Decency Act) is a content-based regulation of speech,'' he wrote. ``The vagueness of such a regulation raises special First Amendment concerns because of its obvious chilling effect on free speech.'' ``As a matter of constitutional tradition ... we presume that governmental regulation of the content of speech is more likely to interfere with the free exchange of ideas than to encourage it,'' Stevens wrote. Sexually explicit words and pictures are protected by the Constitution's First Amendment if they are deemed indecent but not obscene.

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NEWS.COM - Rumor Mill
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

No Freeh lunch? http://www.news.com/Rumors/0,29,,00.html At the end of the article... While hackers were getting busy, the crypto honchos were getting dissed in D.C. Apparently, a group of bigwigs, including Louis Freeh of the FBI, William Crowell of NSA, Peter Neumann of SRI, and Ray Ozzie of Lotus, flew all the way out to the nation's capital for a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on cryptography, only to be informed 20 minutes before the meeting that it had been canceled. Grumbling ensued as the various participants stormed back to Dulles airport. The meeting may pick up after the July 4 recess.

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CDA Struck Down
by Dave Banisar 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

P R E S S R E L E A S E FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACT: Thursday, June 26, 1997 David L. Sobel (sobel(a)epic.org) 10:45 a.m., ET 202-544-9240 EPIC HAILS SUPREME COURT INTERNET "INDECENCY" DECISION: OPINION "PRESERVES BOTH FREE SPEECH AND PERSONAL PRIVACY" WASHINGTON, DC -- The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) today hailed the Supreme Court's Internet speech decision as "the first landmark decision of the 21st Century." In its first opinion involving cyberspace, the Court, by a 7-2 vote, struck down the online censorship provisions of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) (Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice O'Connor concurred in part and dissented in part). EPIC participated in the litigation as both plaintiff and co-counsel. "Today's opinion defines the First Amendment for the next century," according to EPIC Legal Counsel David Sobel, who served as co-counsel in Reno v. ACLU. "The Court has written on a clean slate and established the fundamental principles that will govern free speech issues for the electronic age." Sobel said that today's landmark decision "preserves both free speech and personal privacy in this rapidly growing medium." Throughout the litigation of the case, EPIC has stressed that the CDA not only infringed on Americans' free speech rights, but also posed a grave threat to personal privacy. By requiring "speakers" on the Internet to verify the age and identity of all potential recipients of "indecent" material, the law would have destroyed the anonymity that is a hallmark of online communications. EPIC noted that a good deal of sensitive information -- dealing with AIDS prevention, teenage pregnancy, and other critical social issues -- would not be sought out if recipients were required to identify themselves. EPIC joined with the American Civil Liberties Union and 18 other plaintiffs in challenging the law on February 8, 1996, the day it was signed by President Clinton. A three-judge federal court panel in Philadelphia unanimously ruled on June 11, 1996, that the Internet "indecency" provisions violated the First Amendment's free speech protections. That decision was today affirmed by the United States Supreme Court. A copy of the Court's decision is available at: http://www2.epic.org/cda/cda_decision.html EPIC is a non-profit research organization established in 1994 to examine civil liberties and privacy issues arising in new electronic media. - 30 -

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Re: new money systems
by William H. Geiger III 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In <97Jun26.113748edt.32257(a)brickwall.ceddec.com>, on 06/26/97 at 11:37 AM, tzeruch(a)ceddec.com said: >Yes, but each currency would then have to be exchanged (at a discount!) >and that almost every time any transaction occured. Unless you are >willing to exchange any amount of currency without making any profit on >it, not even to cover expenses or fluctuations in value, this won't work >- >it is trivial to convert currency, but it is not without cost. I don't want to get to deep into this curency issue but from my experiance not all exchanges are done at a cost. This is directly related to the stability of the curency being exchanged. If I am exchanging US $ with a low inflation rate (say 4%) for IT lira with a high inflation rate (say 250%) it is to the advantage of the person holding the lira to give me a good rate of exchange for my stable dollars. Also if I may not actually need to make the exchange at all as many Italin merchants would prefer to be paid in US $ rather than IT lira and will discount his services on the simple fact that I am paying him in stable curency. From my travels I have found whole cities where there is an underground economy all in US $ because the local curency is worthless. These areas tend to have a thriving barder system also for the same reasons (a loaf of bread is still worth a loaf of bread regardless what the pinheads in the government do to screw up the economy). Where I see the cost of exchange is when dealing with curencies that are of relativly the same stablilty US $ (4%) Japan Yen (6%). Then there is not the overwhelming advantage to the person holding the Yens to exchange for the US $. There are exceptions to this also. Say you have Widgets Inc (USA) & Cogs LTD. (Japan) who do a large amount of business in each others countries and between each other. It may be to their advantage to accept purchaces in each others currencies as to avoid the cost & hassels of going through exchanges. Just some food for thought. :) PS: the inflation rates were just given as examples I have no ideal what the current inflation rates are in the above mentioned countries. - -- - --------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0 Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html - --------------------------------------------------------------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a Charset: cp850 Comment: Registered_User_E-Secure_v1.1b1_ES000000 iQCVAwUBM7KYyY9Co1n+aLhhAQFLsAQAlZKt47lhcbDbnAjNzN6awy8t25JkYGmz n8TtzJqHX/4soTeiK1OGiz32lBiHz4N2X5odp0/Dm0AW8NTXJqkjRs8T19aZyowi Mz08YyQqR9MSGXySGbXMc+0Jq1J03doZGQzny6VxuUIvopGvsfuXsODLjRCdzpFW 7iwhLLdXQ1E= =1uhw -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Web Site reporting
by Casey Moss 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Something your web site cannot do without. http://www.genesisnetwork.net/report/report.htm Comprehensive web site reporting

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CDA STRUCK DOWN BY SUPREME COURT, from the Netly News
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 09:40:28 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> To: fight-censorship-announce(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: CDA STRUCK DOWN BY SUPREME COURT, from the Netly News [Check out netlynews.com for updates throughout the day. --Declan] --- http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/opinion/0,1042,1110,00.html The Netly News CDA STRUCK DOWN! June 26, 1997, 11:30 am by Declan McCullagh (declan(a)well.com) The U.S. Supreme Court, in a landmark decision that firmly establishes unbridled free speech in cyberspace, struck down the Communications Decency Act. In a 40-page majority opinion opinion handed down this morning, the Justices determined that the act is unconstitutional. The court also resoundingly rejected the argument that broadcast standards should apply to the Internet. The Justices unanimously ruled that the so-called "display provision" -- which would effectively render the Net "child safe" -- was patently unconstitutional. "The interest in encouraging freedom of expression in a democratic society outweighs any theoretical but unproven benefit of censorship," wrote Justice John Paul Stevens. In a 7-to-2 decision, the court also struck down the other half of the CDA, which banned "indecent transmission" to a minor. The minority argued that such a limitation would not interfere "with the First Amendment rights of adults." Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and William Rehnquist were the lone dissenters on that point in a 13-page minority opinion. "This is the landmark decision that many of us anticipated," said David Sobel, staff counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center and co-counsel on the case. Phil Gutis of the American Civil Liberties Union -- the lead plaintiff in Reno v. ACLU -- said the decision left no wriggle room for CDA supporters: "It's going to be very hard for Congress to go back and say the court left us this opening. They didn't." Yet CDA supporters promised to keep up the fight. Against the backdrop of a dozen anti-porn activists, Cathy Cleaver, the director of legal policy for the Family Research Council, proclaimed that, "today we're going to see the floodgates of pornography open on the internet. This is not a good time to be a child. We're not going to give up the fight to protect children online." In spite of such perceived dangers, the court apparently realized the unique nature of the Internet and appreciated the fact that it is a new and developing medium. "Neither before nor after the enactment of the CDA have the vast democratic fora of the Internet been subject to the type of government supervision and regulation that has attended the broadcast industry. Moreover, the Internet is not as 'invasive' as radio or television," the majority wrote. The CDA "threatens to torch a large segment of the Internet community." The chief congressional opponent of the CDA applauded the court's recognition that the Internet is wholly unlike broadcast media. "Giving full force to the first amendment online is a victory for the first amendment, for american technology, and for democracy," said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) in a statement. "The CDA was misguided and unworkable. It reflected a fundamental misunderstanding of the technology of the Internet." ###

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Re: The Grand Compromise is Coming
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Bill Stewart wrote: > > >> This is why I think the "use of a special language or > >> whispering in furtherance of a crime" provisions of SAFE will probably be > >> struck down by the Supremes, unless they, too, have forgotten what the > >> Constitution is all about.) > Back when marijuana was illegal in Oklahoma, during the anti-war years > when everybody was paranoid that their phones were tapped by the FBI, > a friend of mine would occasionally have phone conversations like > "Hey, Steve, I just got some .... Beer. Want to come over?" > "Yeah, Joe, I'd really like some .... Beer. I'll be there > in about an hour. Should I bring some .... Pizza?" The FBI was involved in the war on cryptography during the LBJ administration, according to my guitar player at the time. He was staying at the Lady Bird Ranch and called his roomate to tell him he would be out to pick up his "shit" later in the day. When he got there, the FBI was tearing apart his amp and speakers. They asked him where his "shit" was and he told them they were tearing it apart. I wonder if Timothy McVeigh phoned Bill Stewart to tell him, "I'm going to deliver the...Pizza...to the Federal Building."? (That's an extra five years, right there.) PizzaMonger

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by Studio＠64.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Family Research Council on CDA decision (fwd)
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 13:59:53 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> To: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: Family Research Council on CDA decision FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 26, 1997 CONTACT: Kristin Hansen, (202) 393-2100 COURT REAFFIRMS GOVERNMENT^RS INTEREST IN PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM PORN, BUT STRIKES CDA AS TOO BROAD WASHINGTON, D.C. -- "Today^Rs ruling means that pornographers can open their doors to children on the Internet. But pornographers beware: this will not be the last word on protecting children from your corrupting influence," Family Research Council Legal Policy Director Cathy Cleaver said Thursday. "While Reno v. ACLU said that the specific provisions of the CDA are too broad, the Court also said that more narrowly tailored provisions could be upheld." Cleaver made her comments as the Supreme Court issued its ruling striking down the Communications Decency Act (CDA). Cleaver continued, "Parents still have no legal recourse to protect their children from being sent a Penthouse centerfold. This is not good news for the thousands of families who discover every day that their children have accessed offensive and disgusting material on the internet. "At the same time, the Court has opened the door to new legislation protection children. Americans should urge Congress to take another look at the issue and draft a more narrowly defined statute. "But now, the flood gates remain open to purveyors of smut. With no legal liability for those who pursue children with graphic images and language on the internet, we need to act fast and firmly to ensure that our country does not give pornographers special rights." FOR MORE INFORMATION OR INTERVIEWS, CONTACT THE FRC PRESS OFFICE. - END -

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