---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1996 20:08:06 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh <declan@eff.org> To: fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu Subject: NSF yanks Iran's Internet connection, from HotWired Attached is my column on the NSF and Iran. After I filed it, I received an unconfirmed note from the NSF saying that they removed the restriction in response to my calls earlier today. I'll verify tomorrow. I have some original documents on the Iran sanctions law and executive order at: http://www.eff.org/~declan/global/ -Declan // declan@eff.org // I do not represent the EFF // declan@well.com // http://www.netizen.com/netizen/96/35/special3a.html HotWired The Netizen Banning Iran by Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com) Washington, DC, 28 August The US government has quietly pulled the plug on Iran's Internet connection. The catch? No one gave it permission. Earlier this month, a National Science Foundation official blocked crucial international links to Iran, apparently in response to an Iran and Libya Sanctions Act that became law on 5 August. The move prevents people in the United States from connecting to Iranian computers by cutting off access to the country's only permanent Net connection - a single, achingly slow 9600 bps modem. The link joins the Internet at Austria's Vienna University, which received a letter from an NSF employee - who the foundation claims acted without authority - asking their network gurus to cease forwarding Iranian data to American networks. The NSF employee, Steve Goldstein, told the university that the United States embargoed such exchanges with Iran. From Austria, packets travel across the Atlantic through links funded in part by US taxpayers, which Goldstein claims gives the NSF control over them. Goldstein works in the agency's Networking and Communications Research and Infrastructure division. The NSF's action, however, tramples on the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has upheld the right of Americans to receive a wide range of information from abroad. An existing executive order explicitly allows the import and export of Iranian informational materials regardless of medium of transmission, according to Solveig Bernstein, a lawyer with the Cato Institute. "Congress intended any sanctions the president took to be directed at money and weapons production, not communications," she said. The NSF isn't accepting responsibility. The agency claims Goldstein acted on his own volition. Although Goldstein declined comment, the agency's lawyers say he was not authorized to block the line. "We were not asked by Dr. Goldstein for any opinions, so I'm not sure on what basis we're doing it," said John Chester, NSF legal counsel. Other NSF officials did not return repeated phone calls. Many Iranians in the United States are outraged at losing access to friends, family, and educational links in Iran. Farhad Shakeri, a software engineer at Stanford University who operates the Iranian Cultural and Information Center, says: "Lots of people in Iran are confused. They can't talk to any university in the world.... We just want the problem fixed." Anoosh Hosseini, a webmaster at the Global Publishing Group, says: "It affects me as a person. I want to visit my cousin's homepage, and my brother's homepage. The University of Texas has a Middle Eastern research center, but now they can't research Iran [on the Net]." ###