response 26 of 111:

May 27 20:12 UTC 1999

Let me try and address Mark's question about what being a plaintiff 
entails.  Your primary commitment by participating as a plaintiff would 
be a commitment to lend your name to the lawsuit.  By lending your name 
as a respected organization that serves the community as both a access 
provider to the Internet and as a forum for the free flow of ideas, you 
will help us convince the Court that this kind of censorship is just as 
unconstitutional on the Internet as it has always been in the 
traditional context of print and that it stifles the unique 
democratizing aspects of the Internet.

TIME COMMITMENT:

The commitment to be a plaintiff is also a time commitment -- 
plaintiffs need to be available to provide information for the 
lawsuit.  You might want to designate a member or two of Grex serve as 
a contact for purposes of the suit.

The litigation may be quickly resolved, or may take years to complete.  
Regardless of the duration of the case, you will probably spend no more 
than a week or so providing information for the lawsuit.

Initially, before we file the lawsuit, we will need you to provide us 
with information that will establish your "standing" to sue.  In order 
to establish "standing" to challenge the Michigan law, a plaintiff must 
describe in detail why she, her organization, or her customers are 
personally in danger of injury from the statute.  Thus, a plaintiff 
must provide a few specific examples of content that she communicates 
online (or that her organization or customers communicate online) that 
could be deemed "sexually explicit."  After the lawsuit is filed, we 
may ask you for additional information as it becomes necessary for 
various phases of the case.  Most of this information can be provided 
to us by regular mail, e-mail, or phone, so in-person visits will not 
be necessary.

As part of discovery in the case, the defendants may request answers to 
interrogatories (sets of written questions) or may request to depose 
your organization (reserve a time to ask questions orally).  If the 
defendants do request this sort of discovery, it is unlikely to take 
more than a day or two of your time.

Finally, if the case goes to trial, we may need you to testify in 
court.  This, too, is unlikely to require more than a day or two of 
your time.

COSTS AND FEES:

No financial contribution is required for participation in the 
lawsuit.  We will pay the costs and fees involved in bringing the suit.

If we win the suit, we may apply to the court for reimbursement of 
attorneys fees and costs.  If the court ultimately requires the 
defendants to pay fees and costs, the money will go to reimburse the 
legal organizations rather than to the plaintiffs.

RISKS:

There are very few foreseeable risks to participating in the lawsuit.  
You will receive some publicity from your participation in the lawsuit, 
and may receive calls from the press.  (This can be good or bad, 
depending upon your perspective.)  Supporters of CDA and other 
censorship laws have labeled them "anti-smut" laws and imply in the 
media that anyone who opposes these laws must be in favor of protecting 
smut.  We will, of course, fight an derogatory labeling of our 
plaintiffs with reference to the very legitimate content that they 
provide.  In addition, there is a slight chance that the publicity 
surrounding the lawsuit could potentially increase your exposure to 
criminal liability if the law is upheld as constitutional.  That is, 
your participation in the suit might bring your organization to the 
attention of law enforcement who might investigate your online 
communications.

Finally, there is always the possibility that a court will fine a 
plaintiff for failure to respond to discovery or for misrepresenting 
facts.

I mention these risks for the sake of thoroughness; it is highly 
unlikely that you would actually encounter such problems.

A BROAD ARRAY OF PLAINTIFFS:

In our previous challenges to Internet censorship laws we have been 
joined by a wide range of Internet speakers who have acted as 
plaintiffs.  Plaintiffs have ranged from the American Booksellers 
Foundation for Free Expression and the Internet Content Coalition 
(whose members include CBS New Media, Time, Inc., and the New York 
Times Electronic Media Company) to art and literature web sites such as 
ArtNet and Salon Magazine as well as safe sex web sites.  In our 
challenge to the New York law, we were joined by an ISP called the 
Public Access Networks Corporation ("PANIX") that feared liability 
under the law from both the web sites it hosted and for statements made 
in PANIX chat areas and newsgroups.  In that case we were also joined 
by an ISP called ECHO that feared liability from both web pages it 
hosted and from statements made in the many "conferences" it provided.

In this case, we hope to have a similar broad array of plaintiffs as 
were present in our previous cases.  We have already spoken with 
several Internet content providers that have agreed to join our 
challenge.  For instance, we will be representing web sites that 
provide safer sex and sex education information such as AIDS 
Partnership Michigan and the SexEd.org web site.  We will also be 
representing web sites that provide art and literature over the 
Internet such as Art on the Net, Web Del Sol and Mark Amerika of the 
Alt-X web site.

Because Grex includes conferences on so many subjects and provides free 
access to all, it would be particularly valuable as a plaintiff in 
demonstrating to the court that the Internet truly is a "virtual 
soapbox" where anyone can have their say.  In part, it has been because 
Federal Courts have repeatedly found that the Internet really is a 
"market place of ideas" that they have held that it is entitled to full 
First Amendment protection.

I would also like to address the concern raised by Mark's discussion 
with his stepfather that their are things on the Internet that children 
should not see.  First, as Mark points out, the law makes "sexually 
explicit" matter illegal, but includes within that definition material 
that adults have a constitutional right to read and send to each 
other.  Speech that might be censored by this law includes art that 
includes nudity, literature and poetry, safer sex information as well 
as the speech that is often unpopular such as that of gay and lesbian 
organizations.  When the Supreme Court faced this issue in ACLU v. Reno 
they held that what adults are entitled to see and transmit to one 
another can not be limited to what is appropriate for a child; the 
Court said that such a result would be like "burning down the house to 
roast a pig."  Thus, this law simply sweeps to broadly.

In the lawsuit we will argue that the primary responsibility for 
preventing children from seeing inappropriate material must rest with 
parents and not with the government.  There are alternatives to 
censorship laws for parents who worry about their children accessing 
sexually explicit material on the Internet, such as filtering software 
and ISPs that have accounts just for children, that allow parents 
control what their children see without having the government decide 
what everyone is allowed to see.  Although filters are not perfect, at 
least they allow adults to make their own decisions about what both 
they and their children will see.