A few facts about a very sobering future......the former Exon bill
regarding regulating the internet, is now part of a much larger and more
ominous telecommunications bill, which just passed the Senate by a
vote of 84 to 16.  This bill includes the following:
        1. Fines of up to $100,000 and two years minimum imprisonment
          for any person who knowingly transmits ANY indecent
          material over a computer network accessible to people under
           the age of 18 (i.e. Grex among others)

       2. Said computer networks would be required to block ANY "obscene
           lewd, lascivious, filthly or indecent" comment, request or
           suggestion made by individual users or be subject to fines of up
           to $100,000

As noted this bill has already passed the senate by a large enough margin
that it would preclude a presidential veto.  The entire bill is expected
to be approved by a like margin later this week and the House is expected
to act upon it by early next month.
   So write your congressmen and write the president (his email address is
in an earlier item)  Otherwise we can only hope that the courts find this
unconstitutional.

27 responses total.

The main question I have is, would Grex actually be liable?  Wouldn't
it be the providers (i.e., Web publishers) of the information who
would be held liable?  If Grex could be held liable, couldn't AT&T
also be held liable for phone-sex lines?

yeh, sue the estates of Edison and Bell and Marconi - this is the
greatest idiocy on a large scale that Ihtink i have ever seen.
  
Vietnam and Watergate don't even count anymore; if it was
McVeigh, he missed the target.

  I really don't think that this will pass the 1st amendment test and will
later be struck down by the Supreme Court.

   As I understand the situation Marc, we are and we aren't.  Therefore
we are.  As an "internet provider", which we really aren't, but technically
are in a sense, we aren't responsible if someone gets "smut" over the
net.  But, as an "internet content provider" we are liable for something
that is picked up over the net (or not, dialins count, too) and put onto
some other system.

   This means that we're potentially liable for the stuff in the
conferences if it is deemed "obscene".

   At this point however, I'm a lot more disgusted with our government
than I am scared for Grex (or other systems).  This law is so badly
worded that I don't think it will stand the light of a court battle.

   I think we've only seen the first salvo in the battle of control
of the net.  I don't think this is the last law, either.

   I hope not, Jim.  Time will tell.

The only problem with getting it nullified in the Supreme Court is
that it takes a lot of time, and someone willing to expend a lot
of money (and probably end up a martyr), in order to get a 
ruling on it.  It would be a lot nicer if the government could just
avoid passing laws that they know are unconstitutional.

Of course, you really can't expect anything more from Exon, considering
that he offered a prayer during the hearings beseeching God to
guide the senators during their decisions.  What was that about
creating no establishment of religion?

Where does the ACLU stand on this one? They don't usually have a problem
coming up with funding.

The provisions  about obscenity really don't change much in the way 
of current law.

The provisions regarding making indecent material to minors, however,
is a nightmare.  
 
I wouldn't count on any court relief.  The courts have generally upheld
restrictions (albeit less severe ones) on broadcast media for the 
purpose of protecting minors from exposure to indecent material.
 
If this sort of thing is eventually enacted and upheld, I believe 
it spells the end of open access systems.  I think systems will be 
forced to verify the ages of their users and strictly limit the 
material available to minors. 

  I'm wondering, even if Grex did rigidly police the conferences, if a user
put some indecent data in their home account, and it was publicly readable
by minors, would Grex be held liable?  It seems like that would be beyond
making a "good faith effort" to protect minors, but you never know.  Also,
who'd do the prison time if Grex were found guilty?  Since it's a democratic
system, if it comes up, I think we should hold a membership-wide vote to 
pick the scapegoat!  :)

We could elect whoever had been our most recent hacker/cracker.

From what I've read, the House version of the telecommunications bill doesn't
have most of the restrictions on Net content that the Exon bill does, so
something will have to happen to it in a conference committee.

Krj's right about spelling the end of open-access. When we get usenet,
we'll have to decide which groups are inaccessible to minors.
I suppose we'd have to do the same thing for conferences, but I'm
not sure that there are any that warrant that. The biggest problem
is the need to verify users's ages. This is a mess.

Verification would be the biggest problem for Grex.  I'd say calling this "a
mess" is a gross understatemenet.

   We can't do it.  Not really, and keep Grex around.

I saw the story about this bill in the news last night.  The best quote I've
heard on it so far is "How can *one* government control a *global* internet?"
'Nuff said.  =)

  They can jail anyone who provides uncensored *access* to the global Internet
to minors, among other things.  They'll never be 100% effective, the same way
no government can control a global drug trade, but that doesn't mean the gov't
is harmless.

This also reminds me of the ongoing debate about leaving certain matters up to
the States (a/k/a States' Rights).  Before the Turn of the Century, America
had an agriculture-based economy, and long travel was considered either a
luxury or a last resort for continued survival.  Today, one can fly from
New York to Los Angeles in a few hours, and such travel is more routine than
it was 100 years or so ago.

  There IS a way, if things become desperate enough, to get around this mess
and keep grex as it is.  Grex can make like the vietnam draft evaders in
the 60s and head for Canada! If Cyberspace Communications is incorporated
in Canada, then it cannot fall prey to enforcement of the Exon bill. Grex
does not live that far from Canada as it is, and most of the operation
could still probably be kept in Ann Arbor and the equipment could still
be maintained in the dungeon.
   Would just need a grexer who lives in Toronto or someplace willing to
sit on the board and do the paperwork and provide a canadian address.  Grex
would have to have a candian phone #, but the local dialups could be
forwarded automatically to ann arbor. Since grex cant afford huge long
distance bills almost everyone would have to be strongly encouraged to
telnet in.  
  As was pointed out in the nytimes, this new law is largely unenforceable
because in fact its just as easy to telnet outside the country.  I wonder
if one accesses grex through a foriegn gopher, would these laws still
apply.  I know of several international gophers I could use in place of my
normal ones if Im forced to be unpatriotic.

Reminds me of the telephone scam using "800" phone numbers that were **NOT**,
repeat, *******NOT*******, toll free.  It turns out that the operations were
in the "809" area code, which covers a good chunk of the Caribbean area (in
this case, the Dominican Republic -- the same place where Michael Jackson and
Lisa Marie Presley became man and wife without the press breathing down their
necks).

I am not at all sure it is pornography that is the real target by
Exon and his ilk. I do not underestimate him or his supporters - i 
venture they are terrified by a communication system they don't 
really understand, and this is a first step . . . to control. Obscenity
is marketable, almost as marketable as opposition to porn. We all 
need to be involved, informed, and get out and vote - if you value
something  - it takes effort to protect.  This is an excellent
item.

   The real target isn't "pornography" but rather the free and
fast flow of information that the net gives.

Sixteen U.S. Senators voted "no" on the Exon Decency Act.  Of the 16, 14
were Democrats, 2 were Republicans. 

I'm not sure of the exact party numbers in the Senate; something like 57
Republicans and 43 Democrats.  If it's 57-43, then the Republican Senators
favored the decency law 55-2, while the Democrats split 29-14. 

When Robert Dole and Phil Gramm come around looking for your vote next
year -- remember, they voted for this thing.

When Carl Levin runs for re-election next year here in Michigan, remember,
he was one of only 14 senators who were responsible enough to vote "no".

Regardless of where we were incorporated, if our equipment were in AA,
we'd be subject to the laws here. We'd actually have to move the system
to Canada to escape the law. I don't expect that will ever happen.

A *long* press release regarding this bill is in my home directory,
in a file called "decency".  It's scary.

  My feeling is that the Decency Act's target really is obscenity.
I don't agree with it, but I don't think that obscenity is just
a convenient way of stifling political and other discussion among
the masses.
 
  Ironically, I think the primary beneficiaries of the act will
be the porn industry.  As it is, their electronic media ventures
face tremendous competition from free smut on the Internet and on
BBSes around the nation.  If the act goes into effect, verification
and legal fees will increase the cost of providing porn to computer
users, so the commercial ventures will be rid of much of their
cost-free competition.  I'd be surprised if Playboy and Penthouse
weren't secretly pulling for its passage.

This response has been erased.

        So what has been happening with the Exon bill in the last week?

   It's funny that a senator Exon is supporting a bill on filth. It would
seem that the phonetic soundalike Exxon spilled filth all over alaska.
I suppose senator exon will spill the filth of censorship and government
control on the USA parts of the internet.
   I suppose if the wording were skewed enough, "provider" could mean
even the internet backbones or any system relaying data to other systems.
   It's times like these when radical militia ideas about killing off
any and all government employees who stand in the way of freedom tend
not so sound so crazy.

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