🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <311648ec.224704252@news.fastlane.net>, hattan@fastlane.net (John Hattan) writes:
>robertb@fohnix.metronet.com (Robert B.) wrote:
>
>>Feb  1, '96	The House and Senate pass the Telecomm Bill (S652/HR1555)
>>		414-16 and 91-5.
>
>Does anybody have the names of the folks who voted for this?  I need to
>know who to vote out of office!

Unfortunately, there was a great deal of reform in this bill, and most of it
was probably good and necessary (deregulation, the V-chip or whatever it is,
general telecom reform, etc). The Internet censoring was a rather small part of
it and probably got ignored by a large portion of the House & Senate.

On the up side, CNN Headline News reported this morning (2/6/96) that while Clinton
would sign the bill on Thursday, Gore was worried about the constitionality of
legislation in the bill regarding porn on the Internet.

I personally hope that this part of the bill will be ruled unconstitutional when
the first case goes to court. Unfortunately, it's likely that the litmus test will
be against some small provider and not against AOL, Compuserve, Netcom, etc. A
small provider is less likely to contest or be able to otherwise fight such a
court case without the aid of some big guns (ACLU, EFF, etc).

IMHO, trying to hold the ISP's responsible for the content is akin to holding AT&T
responsible for the drug trafficing that goes on over interstate lines. ISPs should
be considered common carriers, and virtually all of them fulfill the obligations
for CC status (Prodigy, AOL, and CIS do not - they perform some regulation of
traffic).