response 32 of 90:

Feb 10 23:18 UTC 2001

According to this article in hotwired:

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,41740,00.html?tw=wn20010210

The person who will propose the bill is state rep Bob Brown:

http://www.housedems.com/reps/brown/news.htm

I rthink a friendly call, fax, snail mail, or e-mail from Michigan residents
letting him know your opinion on this issue may do a world of good.

response 34 of 90:

Feb 11 18:22 UTC 2001

( item:coop,231 )

response 36 of 90:

Feb 11 23:20 UTC 2001

Now linked to cyberpunk your conf for social and legal issues in cyberspace.

response 38 of 90:

Feb 13 05:16 UTC 2001

I just sent the following E-mail:

To: bbrown@house.state.mi.us
Subject: Internet Anonymity Legislation
Cc: janc@cyberspace.org

I have recently read reports that you are currently considering the
introduction of a bill to limit anonymous access to the Internet.
I would like to express deep concern about this legislation.  It would
have a profound negative impact on one of the organizations I help run
and the Internet as a whole.

I am a volunteer staff member with Cyberspace Communications, a Michigan
non-profit, tax-exempt corporation that has been providing free public
discussion forums and Internet access for ten years.  Our system, called
"Grex" after the Latin word for "group", is on the net at
http://www.cyberspace.org.  We provide free accounts to all comers,
including basic E-mail, web access, and web sites.  We are funded entirely by
user donations and are staffed entirely by volunteers.  No advertising runs on
our site.  Our annual operating budget is about $9000.  We currently have over
30,000 users, with about 200 new accounts being created every day. Policy is
set democratically by an elected board of directors (I'm not a current board
member - term limits, you know).

Currently our system is accessible either through the Internet, or
through our dial-up modems in Ann Arbor (at 734-761-3000).

Though we do in some ways resemble "free ISPs" like NetZero, our mission
is fundamentally different.  NetZero is a for-profit corporation, aiming
to make profits by selling advertising, and thus looking for customers
with money to spend.  We are a charitable organization, aiming to serve
the broadest possible set of users, including some who are very poor.
This impacts everything we do.  Thus, for example, a 15-year-old computer,
easily obtainable for free, is perfectly adequate to access our service,
but would probably not work with NetZero.

Though we don't consider ourselves an ISP in the usual sense of the term,
we do provide large numbers of people with anonymous access to the Internet.

I'm not entirely sure that we fully understand the proposed legislation,
having only read newspaper reports.  If a draft version of the bill is
available, we would be very interested in seeing a copy.

As we understand it, this law would require that we either (1) allow
access to our dial-up lines only to users for whom we have credit card
information or some similar identifying information, or (2) record
caller-ID information on all our dial-up lines.

This raises both practical and philosophical problems for us.

Practically speaking, it would be difficult for us to comply with this
law.  Collecting credit card data for users is impractical.  First to
do so would require charging a fee.  We are trying to make the Internet
accessible to the widest possible range of people, including poor people,
who often don't even have credit cards, and distrustful people, who
are nervous about giving their credit card numbers to strangers, even
if the fee is nominal.  Clearly, requiring any payment at all for our
dial-up lines would scare away exactly the set of people our charitable
organization is most concerned with serving.  Second, if we asked only a
token fee of a dollar or so to validate our users, the credit card transaction
fees would bankrupt us.  We have never been able to find a credit card
merchant account we could afford and larger number of smaller transactions
would only make it more expensive.  Collecting caller ID information would
obviously be the more appropriate solution, but the equipment required to do
so would also be beyond our reach financially.

Thus, in practice, the only way we would be able to comply with this law
would be to disconnect our dial-up lines, making our system accessible
only through the Internet.  This would be a financial boon for us - the
dial-in lines consume a large portion of our annual budget - but it would
be a major step backward in terms of our mission as a charitable and
educational service, because it would cut us off from the users who most
need what we have to offer.

Quite simply, this legislation would substantially raise the cost bar to
providing Internet access, driving small charitable services like ours out
of the business, leaving it entirely in the hands of large, profit-driven
corporations.  However small a part of the Internet groups like ours may be,
their existence makes the Internet a very different place than it would be
if access to the net were fully controlled by a few large corporations.

Even if the practical difficulties could be surmounted, there remain
serious questions about this legislation from a free speech viewpoint.
People seek ways to speak anonymously because they fear the consequences
if their comments are traced back to them.  But in our experience, the
consequences they fear are not usually legal consequences.  Some people fear
reprisals from their employers if they are seen to make statements not
in that company's interest.  Some people are avoiding on-line stalkers.
People with political ambitions are often reluctant to speak freely in
on-line forums where permanent records of their comments are kept, because
those comments might someday come under media scrutiny.  Some people are
paranoid about government surveillance (we like to think unjustifiably
so - but even paranoids have a right to say their piece).  I believe that
in most people's lives there are times when they would prefer to be able
to speak anonymously.  I believe that without the right to anonymous speech,
there cannot be free speech in the fullest form.

It might be argued that the information about the identity of the
users of our system would be safely held by Cyberspace Communications,
protecting the anonymity of our users from anything short of a legal
search warrant.  This would probably reassure many, if not all, of
those who want anonymity for legitimate reasons, if we could make such
a guarantee.  However, we can not, and neither can any other service
provider.  Our system security is excellent - with several new people
trying to crack it every day it has to be - but perfect security is
unachievable.  We could never exclude the possibility that this information
might be compromised.

In conclusion, I believe that this law would restrict free speech on the
Internet by eliminating the right to speak anonymously and by raising the
cost of providing internet service enough so that only large corporations
could do so.  It would also reduce access to the Internet by economically
disadvantaged classes.  I believe that this broad social costs would out-
weigh the narrow gains in criminal prosecution of pornographers.

When a draft version of this law is available, then we would appreciate a 
chance to see it.  If you or any of your staff would like to observe or
participate in our current discussion of this bill, it can be found at
http://www.cyberspace.org/cgi-bin/backtalk/peek:agora:126.  You'll find
considerable concern and confusion there.  For ten years now we've been
working to build the Internet's best example of a public system run on
principles of democracy, free speech and openness.  This proposed legislation
appears to directly threaten our ability to continue operating.

Thanks,

                        Dr. Jan Wolter
                        staff member, Cyberspace Communications
                        607 Ross St, Ann Arbor, MI
                        (734) 995-6716
                        janc@cyberspace.org

response 40 of 90:

Feb 13 05:42 UTC 2001

I didn't mention the Cyberspace vs. Engler lawsuit in the letter - but my
feeling is that if this law gets passed there will be another Cyberspace vs.
Whomever lawsuit.  The system we've built here is a pretty good example of
a civically and socially responsible free speech system.  Whenever people
try to criminalize free speech on-line, we, simply by existing, pose the
question "why are you trying to criminalize this?"  We're the perfect
plaintiff for a constitutionality challenge against this law, and it would
impact us so directly that we'd have no choice but to go along with playing
that role again.

However, this would be rather different from the previous case.  In
Cyberspace vs. Engler, we had lots of precident on our side.  So many similar
previous laws had already been thrown out that there hardly seemed to be a
serious case at all.  But this one is quite different and likely to be much
harder fought.

But more likely this law will never pass or will pass in a substantially
different form than what we are hearing about now.

response 42 of 90:

Feb 13 07:02 UTC 2001

Great letter Jan, thanks!  I'm in Oregon now, do you think there is any point
in me e-mail Michigan legislators?

response 44 of 90:

Feb 13 16:14 UTC 2001

Hard to judge the weight given to E-mail vs. paper mail.  I presume it
depends on the individual legislator and his staff.

response 46 of 90:

Feb 13 17:25 UTC 2001

My reply:

To: janc@wwnet.net Dist016@house.state.mi.us
Subject: Re: Internet Anonymity Legislation

Thanks for your speedy and thoughtful response.

I understand that the goal of the legislation is to track down internet
pedophiles.  But the effect of such legislation is obviously much broader
than that narrow goal.  Is it really necessary to stop Cyberspace
Communications from offering free net access to the poor in order to
catch Internet pedophiles?  Surely that worthy goal can be pursued with
less collateral damage to the Internet and to free speech rights.

I think it is an grave error to equate Internet service providers with
utilities.  Gas, electric, water and phone service are in some ways natural
monopolies - we couldn't dream of providing phone service to 30,000 people
using only a couple thousand dollars worth of infrastructure and an annual
budget of only $9000.  Yet our tiny non-profit is able to provide basic
internet service on a budget no larger than that.  Internet service is not
a natural monopoly - it doesn't have to be consolidated into the hands of
a few major corporations.  Not unless legislators wanting to treat it just
like any other utility can artificially raise the price of doing business
enough that consolidation becomes necessary.

On-line speech is becoming more and more of an important part of the lives
of all Americans.  My letter and your response are typical.  Compromising
the rights of free speech on line at this point of time, when the Internet
is in its infancy, could ultimately have a profound impact on future of
human freedom in this nation.

Thanks again, and I look forward to seeing a copy of the proposed law when
it becomes available.

                        Dr. Jan Wolter
                        janc@cyberspace.org

response 48 of 90:

Feb 14 02:00 UTC 2001

I don't see how you can "disagree completely" with Peter. I can't figure
out from his message what he believes, or even thinks. He jumps from
situation to situation, all of which must be addressed separately,
but coming to no clear statement about any of them. I can't even tell
if he favors or opposes the proposed legislation - he doesn't say
either way. 

response 50 of 90:

Feb 14 04:58 UTC 2001

I think it's a good example of why email often carries less weight than
paper mail with politicians.  It tends to be less coherent, and since it
requires less effort to compose and send the suggestion is that the
person doesn't care strongly enough to send "real" mail.

response 52 of 90:

Feb 14 06:52 UTC 2001

That's not true. I found a whole bunch of positive, supporting, statements.
For example

The Constitution applies here
I've heard  of worse
a Vandal remains a vandal anywhere
both my parents were Teachers
I admit to some agreement with Jan and with Bob
the user itself is responsible

well, you get the idea. 

response 54 of 90:

Feb 14 17:48 UTC 2001

And I suggest writing simple declarative English, omitting most
metaphors, similes, allusions, hyperbole, and most adjectives. 

response 56 of 90:

Feb 14 21:54 UTC 2001

That assumes that the recipient/s was/were at least as literate as the 
originator.  ;)