Let's discuss what we cn do.

13 responses total.

Plan 1. Assume that it is politics as usual, and the bill will never 
        become law. It's just an exercise to give all these politicians a
        chance to come out against pornography and for family values.
Plan 2. OK, it becomes law, but it loses its teeth before doing so,
        and doesn't really amount to much.
Plan 3. OK it has teeth, but it gets ruled as unconstitutional by the courts.
Plan 4. (It starts to get tricky now)
        Ban all minors from the system. Require ID. 
Plan 5. Censor all the naughty bits.
Plan 6. Combine 4&5 by censoring the naughty bits, only for minors.
Plan 7. Fight back (any ideas?)

I'm not sure what the final form of the bill looks like (or what the
house might pass, for that matter).  But the version I found in
        http://www.cdt.org/policy/322analysis.html#statute
has a lot of language about "commercial" use.  I don't think grex is
commercial (is it?) - so it's not clear to me exactly what impact this
bill might have on grex.

Near the end of the proposed bill, one of the "defenses" listed is if
the provider includes warnings concerning the potential for access to
such communications - does that mean if we include an appropriately
worded communique to this effect somewhere, that we need do nothing
further?

From the person/society standpoint, however, the first provision of the
bill (which covers anyone who makes an "indecent communication") seems
to be the poisonous one.  There aren't any age, commercial, or other
restrictions on that one; it seems to more or less give government the
license to go after anyone who says "fuck you" in cyberspace, and impose
a very expensive ($100K/day) fine on them.

I agree with what srw said elsewhere, that requiring ID from people,
would be a real and negative change to grex.  There have already been
problems with dealing with ID and people, even in the narrow context of
membership & internet access.  From what I've seen, the lopsided
majority of "indecent comments" are made by minors -- I don't see any
way we could keep such comments from being made.

As I said in Item 85 (or rather implied), the kids are light years
ahead of anyone who would try to censor them, either by force of
law or by any technological tool they might dream up. We as adults
are mere cheerleaders here -- the children will take very good care
of themselves in this arena, even if they can't vote. They devote
their very lives to confounding authority and would relish taking on
the Federal Government; done it before (remember, Boomers?), would
LOVE to do it again.

Fire trUCK, SHoe bIT, CUp of miNT
Just letters, Congresspersons, just letters...

See what I mean? (Go, babies!)

BITe a peaCH!  BITe a peaCH loudly to your congresspeople!
Hee, hee, this is fun...

Almost as much fun as our Adventures In Monosyllabification, dear brighn.

Yes, it's a DArn soleMN shame that conversation collapsed.  We shall have to
take it up once more, if the mood fits us soon.

Yes, let's! (First I have to move my household 2700 miles in the biggest
truck I have ever seen, with no money and no prospects. Oh, and then
I have to find my Ernest Hemingway Handbook. In the meantime, brighn,
please continue not using obscenities -- I love how you do that!)

I'm glad you enjoy it, you're one person I wouldn't want to PIck moSS off.

If you look in the new summer agora at article 11, you'll find
an analysis of the bill and its prospects and likely impact on 
community networks.

I see this is the right topic for my above posting.  Someone more
informed about this can post further (Shannon?), but Exon himself
apparently expects defeat now that Newt has thrown his weight against
this stupid bill.

        And thus, Newt expects to get out of pugatory... Well, at least
he went against it..

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