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CPSR letter
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Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 05:47:38 -0800
From: "Audrie Krause"
Open Letter to President Clinton & Congress
CPSR will forward the attached letter to President Clinton and Congress on Tuesday, reflecting the position of CPSR's Board of Directors regarding the censorship provisions in the telecommunications deregulation legislation now pending before Congress.
Please share the letter freely as long as this notice is not removed and CPSR is identified as the originator.
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December 12, 1995
President Clinton and Members of Congress,
On behalf of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR), I am writing to urge an immediate halt to Congress's attempt to censor the Internet. The legislation you are considering adopting is the cyberspace equivalent of padlocking the doors to public libraries, burning books and shutting down printing presses. Congress must not enact, and President Clinton must not sign, a law that censors free speech on the Internet.
CPSR is a public interest alliance of computer professionals and computer users concerned about the impact of computer technology on society. We work to influence decisions regarding the development and use of computers because those decisions have far-reaching consequences and reflect our basic values and priorities.
As technical experts, CPSR members provide the public and policymakers with realistic assessments of the power, promise, and limitations of computer technology. As concerned citizens, we direct public attention to critical choices regarding applications of computer technology, and how those choices affect society.
As American citizens, our right to free speech is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. We have the same right to free speech in cyberspace as we have with other forms of the printed word.
Most Americans consider free speech the cornerstone of a free society. But many members of Congress -- incredibly -- support language in the sweeping telecommunications deregulation bill now pending before a joint Senate-House conference committee that would criminalize a broad range of information under the claim that it is harmful to children. These clauses of the bill, while supposedly aimed at pornography, have such vague language that they could be used to censor literary classics and public health information.
Given the open nature of networks such as the Internet, restrictions on sending material that children might look at ends up keeping everyone from speaking freely. The fear of being caught in the law's net will force many networks to shut down. Thus, t he free flow of views we now have on the information highway could be replaced by a controlled set of ideas dished out by corporate broadcasters and monitored by prosecutors all over the country. One example of the impact of the proposed legislation:
CPSR's Seattle Chapter sponsored the Seattle Community Network, a free, public-access computer system for the public's benefit. SCN has over 6,500 users. Under the legislation proposed by Congress, if an individual member of the SCN posted a message on an SCN forum or from SCN that was later deemed to be "indecent," SCN could be fined $100,000, and SCN's Board of Directors and staff could face two-year prison sentences. Without community networks like SCN, the Internet will be out of reach of millions of citizens.
CPSR does not dismiss the concerns of parents who want to shield their children from inappropriate material. The whole point is that each parent defines what is "inappropriate" differently. There are more flexible and effective ways to screen what children see, than to have the government impose censorship on everybody.
The issue before you is not about whether or not our children are exposed to materials that some may find offensive or obscene. It's not about whether or not parents should control what their children are exposed to on the Internet.
It's about freedom of speech, which is a fundamental principle in our society. It's a principle with widespread support. The vast majority of American citizens, no matter what their political leanings, support free speech. Those who oppose free speech are a small, shrill minority, and they appear to want to tyrannize the rest of us in order to get their way.
President Clinton and Members of Congress, it is up to you to protect our rights. That's why we elected you. Today, CPSR's 1,600 members are joining with hundreds of thousands of other Americans in speaking out against this attempt to censor free discourse in cyberspace. Many of you in Congress ignored an earlier petition signed by 107,000 Internet users. Please don't ignore us today. We are the People, and today we're exercising one of our most important rights.
Sincerely,
Audrie Krause Executive Director CPSR Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility P.O. Box 717 Palo Alto CA * 94302 Phone: (415) 322-3778 * Fax: (415) 322-4748 Send E-mail to: akrause@cpsr.org ```
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