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     CAMPAIGN TO STOP THE NET CENSORSHIP LEGISLATION IN CONGRESS

	    SENATE CONFEREES COULD STILL VOTE THIS WEEK
	RALLIES HAPPENING IN AUSTIN, NEW YORK, SF, & SEATTLE

      PLEASE WIDELY REDISTRIBUTE THIS DOCUMENT WITH THIS BANNER INTACT
                REDISTRIBUTE ONLY UNTIL December 25, 1995
________________________________________________________________________

RECAP: INTERNET DAY OF PROTEST:  TUESDAY DECEMBER 12, 1995

The net came into its own as a political force on Tuesday.  The
press release has more details.  If you haven't taken a moment to
call, fax, or email, do so now.  We're still keeping track and only
need a few more to break 20,000.

VTW had someone onhand in DC monitoring the response at the
Congressional
offices.  The feedback was amazing; Congress got the message.  We need
to
sustain that by continuing to tell them we're not happy with the
options
being offered to us at this time.  

Directions for calling Congress can still be found at
http://www.vtw.org/
and the many other sites listed at the end of this message.  Take a
moment
to call!  Don't forget to mail us a note at protest@vtw.org to let us
know you took part in the Day Of Protest (and Day 2, and Day 3, and
Day 4).


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                             December 13, 1995  
                                            Contact:  Steven Cherry
                                                     (718) 596-2851
                                                        stc@vtw.org
                                                     Shabbir Safdar
                                                     (718) 596-2851
                                                    shabbir@vtw.org  
                                                                     
New York, NY                                                         
                                                                     
Are 20,000 phone calls a lot? 30,000? 50,000? They are if you're one
of a
handful of Congressional staffers trying to field them. Tuesday,
December
12th was the Internet's Day of Protest. A variety of net-activists and
telecommunications-related services exhorted the on-line community to
call
a selected group of Senators and Representatives to declare their
opposition to the threat of Internet censorship. And call they did. 

As the Senate members of the Telecommunications Reform conference
committee contemplated portions of legislation that would censor
"indecent" material on-line, their staffers were being overwhelmed
with
phone calls. Senator Inouye's office said they were "getting lots and
lots
of calls and faxes." Senator Lott's said they were "flooded with
calls." 
At Senator Stevens' office there were so many calls they couldn't keep
a complete tally.

At Senator Exon's office, the fax machine was "backed up."  And at one
point, activists couldn't even get through to Senator Gorton's office
to
ask. Exon is the Senator whose Communications Decency Act started the
nearly year-long struggle between those who would create special
regulations to restrict speech on-line (even, in certain instances,
private email between two individuals) to a greater extent than even
traditional broadcast media; regulations that, according to the ACLU
and
many other civil liberties groups, will certainly be proven to be
unconstitutional if passed into law. 

"We've never seen anything like it," said Stanton McCandish of the
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The EFF is one member of the
on-line
coalition that has been fighting an array of censorship legislation
since
this spring, when Senator Exon introduced his Communications Decency
Act. 

"We may have almost overwhelmed our provider," said Shabbir Safdar,
head
of Voter's Telecommunications Watch (VTW). VTW is the organization
that
organized the on-line coalition. Their on-line connectivity is
provided by
Panix.com, a New York-area Internet service provider. "Panix has been
doing some maintenance work today, so it's hard to tell," Safdar
continued. "But we think it's actually made a dent in their connection

to the rest of the Net." 

How many calls were actually made? No one can tell. For Leslie Miller,
a
reporter for USA Today, it took much of the afternoon to get some
counts
from Congressional staffers, and she couldn't get any report from the
Senate's Sergeant-At-Arms, the office nominally responsible for the
Senate's telephone system. VTW may be the only organization that can
really make an educated guess. 

"In our Alerts we ask that people drop us an email note after they
call,"
explained VTW board member Steven Cherry. "The message count peaked in
the
late afternoon at over 70 per minute. Many of those were from people
who
called several offices. By 7:30 P.M. (EST) we had gotten 14,000
messages.
By Wednesday morning the count was over 18,000. And of course there
are
the people who called but didn't send us email. So all told, our very
rough guess is there were well over 50,000 phone calls and faxes made
on
the one day." 

"The Net is coming of age, politically," said Jerry Berman, Director
of
the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), another member of the
on-line coalition. Safdar, of VTW, concurred, saying, "I think
Washington
got the message today that there's a new grass-roots interest group
around, and we're going to be a big part of the 1996 elections."
(VTW's
initial election activities can be found at
http://www.vtw.org/pledge.)

In addition to the Day of Protest, rallies are scheduled on Thursday,
December 14th, in San Francisco and Seattle, and a protest will be
held
that day at 2:00 in New York City. 

The New York rally will be at the Cyber-Cafe, 273A Lafayette St from
2-3pm
on Thursday, Dec 14th.  Contact Steven Cherry or Shabbir J. Safdar for
details.

The Austin rally is planned for Tue. Dec 19th.  No more information is
available at this time.

Information about the San Francisco rally can be obtained from
http://www.hotwired.com/staff/digaman/.

Information about the Seattle rally can be obtained from
http://www.wnia.org/WNIA/hap/rally.html.

Voters Telecommunications Watch is a volunteer organization,
concentrating
on legislation as it relates to telecommunications and civil
liberties. 
VTW publishes a weekly BillWatch that tracks relevant legislation as
it
progresses through Congress. It publishes periodic Alerts to inform
the
about immediate action it can take to protect its on-line civil
liberties
and privacy.

More information about VTW can be found on-line at

  gopher -p 1/vtw gopher.panix.com
  www: http://www.vtw.org

or by writing to vtw@vtw.org. The press can call (718) 596-2851 or
contact:

   Shabbir Safdar         Steven Cherry
   shabbir@vtw.org        stc@vtw.org

________________________________________________________________________
WHERE CAN I LEARN MORE?

At this moment, there are several organizations with WWW sites that
now
have, or will have, information about the net censorship legislation
and
the National Day Of Protest:

American Civil Liberties Union (ftp://ftp.aclu.org/aclu/)
Center for Democracy and Technology (http://www.cdt.org/)
Electronic Frontier Foundation (http://www.eff.org/)
Electronic Privacy Information Center (http://www.epic.org/)
Wired Magazine (http://www.hotwired.com/special/indecent/)
Voters Telecommunications Watch (http://www.vtw.org/ or finger
vtw@panix.com)


E-Mail your letter of protest to :
 everett@hr.house.gov, budmail@hr.house.gov, sbachus@hr.house.gov,
        jdickey@hr.house.gov, edpastor@hr.house.gov,
jimkolbe@hr.house.gov,
        repriggs@hr.house.gov, dcaucus@hr.house.gov,
woolsey@hr.house.gov,
        gmiller@hr.house.gov, sfnancy@hr.house.gov,
talk2tom@hr.house.gov,
        petemail@hr.house.gov, annagram@hr.house.gov,
tellnorm@hr.house.gov,
        zoegram@hr.house.gov, samfarr@hr.house.gov,
george@hr.house.gov,
        andrea22@hr.house.gov, tellbuck@hr.house.gov,
jharman@hr.house.gov,
        tucker96@hr.house.gov, housesst@hr.house.gov,
rpackard@hr.house.gov,
        skaggs@hr.house.gov, schaefer@hr.house.gov,
bozrah@hr.house.gov,
        cshays@hr.house.gov, delaware@hr.house.gov,
kthurman@hr.house.gov,
        cstearns@hr.house.gov, canady@hr.house.gov,
fla15@hr.house.gov,
        pdeutsch@hr.house.gov, hastings@hr.house.gov,
jlinder@hr.house.gov,
        georgia6@hr.house.gov, saxby@hr.house.gov, ga10@hr.house.gov,
        guamtodc@hr.house.gov, brush@hr.house.gov, luisg@hr.house.gov,
        jfcil12@hr.house.gov, hfawell@hr.house.gov,
dhastert@hr.house.gov,
        durbin@hr.house.gov, mcintosh@hr.house.gov,
troemer@hr.house.gov,
        johnhost@hr.house.gov, hamilton@hr.house.gov,
emailpat@hr.house.gov,
        brownbak@hr.house.gov, edky01@hr.house.gov,
mward2@hr.house.gov,
        bunning4@hr.house.gov, torkma06@hr.house.gov,
jmoakley@hr.house.gov,
        rallen@lattanze.loyola.edu, cardin@hr.house.gov,
tellhoek@hr.house.gov,
        congehlr@hr.house.gov, davecamp@hr.house.gov,
repsmith@hr.house.gov,
        chrysler@hr.house.gov, lrivers@hr.house.gov,
jconyers@hr.house.gov,
        gil@hr.house.gov, dminge@hr.house.gov, mn03@hr.house.gov,
        tellbill@hr.house.gov, tocollin@hr.house.gov,
oberstar@hr.house.gov,
        talentmo@hr.house.gov, gephardt@hr.house.gov,
bemerson@hr.house.gov,
        ms2nd@hr.house.gov, funnc02@hr.house.gov,
thechief@hr.house.gov,
        mail2nc5@hr.house.gov, crose@hr.house.gov,
myrick@hr.house.gov,
        cassmail@hr.house.gov, chtaylor@hr.house.gov,
melmail@hr.house.gov,
        epomeroy@hr.house.gov, zeliff@hr.house.gov,
cbass@hr.house.gov,
        randrews@hr.house.gov, franksnj@hr.house.gov,
dzimmer@hr.house.gov,
        billnm03@hr.house.gov, mpforbes@hr.house.gov,
lazio@hr.house.gov,
        tmanton@hr.house.gov, molinari@hr.house.gov,
rangel@hr.house.gov,
        jserrano@hr.house.gov, engeline@hr.house.gov,
dearsue@hr.house.gov,
        boehlert@hr.house.gov, bpaxon@hr.house.gov,
portmail@hr.house.gov,
        oxley@hr.house.gov, hokemail@hr.house.gov,
istook@hr.house.gov,
        furseor1@hr.house.gov, pdefazio@hr.house.gov,
curtpa7@hr.house.gov,
        kanjo@hr.house.gov, murtha@hr.house.gov, jonfox@hr.house.gov,
        mchale@hr.house.gov, pa16@hr.house.gov, sanford@hr.house.gov,
        jspratt@hr.house.gov, clement@hr.house.gov,
hford@hr.house.gov,
        jchapman@hr.house.gov, cwilson@hr.house.gov,
samtx03@hr.house.gov,
        barton06@hr.house.gov, doggett@hr.house.gov,
frost@hr.house.gov,
        ggreen@hr.house.gov, enidutah@hr.house.gov,
ortonut3@hr.house.gov,
        opickett@hr.house.gov, talk2bob@hr.house.gov,
ninthnet@hr.house.gov,
        tomdavis@hr.house.gov, bsanders@igc.apc.org,
repwhite@hr.house.gov,
        asklinda@hr.house.gov, dunnwa08@hr.house.gov,
rtate@hr.house.gov,
        mneumann@hr.house.gov, badger02@hr.house.gov,
roth08@hr.house.gov

________________________________________________________________________
        End Alert
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