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Hi, my name is Marrq Anthony, my E-mail address is
marrq@caibohphobiac.caltech.edu. Or, you can leave me E-mail via my home
page. I'm a student at Caltech, so I don't have as much free time, this
will be brief, but I can make time to write something as important as this.

I just started browsing the Internet about 8 months ago, and really got
into it when I got my eithernet connection here. All kinds of information
can be found on the net. I'm not going to waste time telling about
everything that can be found, most people now that the information is very
broad and it would take a while to even give a light impression. If you are
new to the net and reading this, use a search engine: Lycos, Webcrawler,
whatever makes your heart go pitter patter. But, use it and look up
anything that you want to know more about or are interested in. I think
you'll be pleased. But, continuing on, a lot of what I like on the internet
is the large humor archives available. Humor is very important to myself
and many other people that I know. However, some humor may considered
"indescent" by this new bill that has been past. For one thing, about 99%
of known limerics will be disappearing soon. I've heard it said that 99% of
all known limerics are considered indescent. I've also heard it said that
99% of known limerics are actually funny. I'll let you draw some
conclusions from that. Now, I'm not saying that I need to see some
offensive (to some)language and some rude (to some (again)) references to
laugh, but I'm an adult, 19 for those of you wondering, and I can choose
what I want to view as humor. But, this bill will be deciding, for me, what
I can find. The main reason for this I guess is that some minor (17 maybe?)
might be able to get access to such language. Well, what happens if this
same minor walks into a book store. Go to a large book store sometime and
check out the humor section. A lot of stuff you can find would likely be
considered, "indescent" by the telecomunications act of 1996, but any one
can buy these books, or browse them for free. So, what happens now, are all
book stores going to be closed/censored? I know, let's ban all
books/cartoons that might be "indescent". Maybe we should also do the same
with the news, kids shouldn't be hearding about all the violence, and moral
depravity in this country. If we ever get around to cencoring the news
also, then we will be in the same state of affairs as the USSR was in in
the early 80's, when we would talk about them behind their backs. I remeber
at least 10 times in grade school hearing from teachers that one of the
reaons why we were better than the Russians (hey, this is early 80's) was
that we had free speech and freedom of press. Well, maybe we won't for much
longer.

Another thing blatently wrong with this Act is that it not only coresponds
to public URL's, but any telecommunication. That includes email and
telephone calls now. Cencoring what you can write on Email is the same as
censoring snail mail, it's an intrusion of privacy. If your saying that I
can't say a swear word in a letter to a friend to help explress myself, or
even to quote someone, that is just wrong. If this act of 1996 it not
amended, and indecent Email can be punished, ask yourselves, how long until
Big Brother can monitor your keystrokes at all times, and anything you do
on the computer is known. How long 'till every person must wear a
microphone as they walk down the street to insure that they say nothing
obscene. How long until there are public machines to monitor language as in
_Demolition Man_? Sure, these examples may seem a bit exterme, but two
months ago, if someone had told me that the government might begin to
censor Email, I would have laughed.

Back to the The Domain of Marrq.

Follow this link to the 24 Hours of Democracy Homepage, and write an essay
of your own.

All errors in grammar are courtesy of the US education system, and the fact
that I don't have time to look over this for errors quite yet.