---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 1 Aug 1997 07:16:14 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> To: fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu Subject: Letter to AOL on "proposed censorship summit with radical right" ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 1 Aug 1997 10:09:12 -0400 (EDT) From: WildcatPrs@aol.com To: declanmccullagh <declan@well.com> Subject: Fwd: Your Proposed Censorship Summit with Radical Right Leaders --------------------- Forwarded message: Subj: Your Proposed Censorship Summit with Radical Right Leaders Date: 97-07-31 11:43:06 EDT From: WildcatPrs To: Steve Case Dear Steve Case, As one of the plaintiffs in the ACLU/ALA case on the CDA, who saw it through all the way to the Supreme Court, I am shocked and dismayed that you would dignify the demands of the Christian Coalition et al by sitting down with them in such a summit. You know and I know that America Online will leave that negotiating table having made major concessions on the subject of Internet censorship -- not only for content on gay and lesbian and AIDS, but also women's issues and many other subjects. The religious right have a very long list of subjects that they would like to censor out of U.S. libraries, schools and media...which you will discover if you take the trouble to read BANNED BOOKS, published each year by the ALA. Get a clue, Mr. Case This battle over "content" is not really about "child pornography." It is a thinly veiled disguise for the radical right's efforts to impose its total belief and its proposed penal system on the people of the United States. It wants to have the United States be like the Colony of Massachusetts before the Revolution. I suggest you read some history, and ponder whether you would have liked living under the religious dictatorship that ran the colony. Between 1962 and 1972, I lived in Spain as a working journalist for the Reader's Digest, working out of its office in Madrid, and I saw in operation just the kind of right-wing censorship system that the Christian Coalition et al would like to impose on this country. Part of its success involved just the kind of "self-censorship" that you are now proposing to slap on your own company. You are no different than the Spanish book publishers who sat down with the Catholic Church and agreed on what could be published. As a result, Spanish culture languished. The Spanish people reached the point where they had lots of jokes about self-censorship and didn't take their own media or culture seriously. It all came to an end in 1975, when Franco died, and the Spanish people were so sick of church and censors that the new government moved to end the hegemony of the Spanish Catholic Church and put an end to censorship. So shame on you for moving to introduce this kind of censorship to the United States of America. I have been a loyal customer of AOL since I got onto the Internet two years ago, and I will take my business elsewhere if you go through with this summit. Sincerely, Patricia Nell Warren Wildcat Press 8306 Wilshire Blvd. Box 8306 Beverly Hills, CA 90211 213/966-2466 213/966-2467 fax