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[Prev|Next|Index] Thu, Feb 22, 1996 Dennis Paulson
DEMOCRACY IN CYBERSPACE
By Dennis Paulson
DEMOCRACY IN CYBERSPACE
By Dennis Paulson
│Ah, when to the heart of humanity Was it ever less than a
treason To go with the drift of things, To yield with a grace to
reason, And bow and accept the end Of a love or a season?▓
--Robert Frost, late U.S. Poet Laureate
Throughout our global village, democracy has been, for some, a
lifelong love; for others, merely a season. Here in the U.S.,
most have never traveled to nations suf- fering under the
oppressive boot of dictatorship. Thus, we tend to take our
universally- admired democracy for granted. . .UNTIL our
Constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms are threatened.
This │24 Hours of Democracy▓ celebration in Cyberspace provides
Americans everywhere with a moment of reflection: to think about
our freedoms, our democracy, and what they mean to us. . .perhaps
to even imagine what life would be like if some of them were
taken from us. WOULD we just go with the drift of things? Yield
with a grace to others' reason? Bow and accept the end of a love
or a season?
Many noble Cyberspace pioneers have seen the possibility of
Government censor- ship of our Internet coming for years, and
worked tirelessly to both preclude its neces- sity, as well as
prepare those who would stand up to fight it,if/when it finally
arrived. A concerned parent, Bill Duvall, who 25 years ago wrote
the original software which al- lowed access to the Net, later
created the first product to make access to inappropriate
material a matter of personal choice, creating the first true
alternative to Internet censorship. Many such options now exist,
but BUSINESS WEEK wrote 2.12.96 of Duvall's prod- uct: "SurfWatch
is the easiest to use of all options, and was the only product
that worked flawlessly with the new Windows 95 operating system."
SurfWatch, of course, produces this alternative to Internet
Censorship for all operating systems. Concerned parents may con-
tact them at 1-800-458-6600, or their Website .
Ignoring these technological alternatives, our Congress--under
relentless lob- bying by America's politically-well-organized,
extreme Religious Right--on Feb. 1st ap- proved landmark
legislation dramatically restricting the First Amendment rights
of ALL Internet users. And on Feb. 8th, President Clinton, with
the stroke of his pen, trans- formed the Internet--literally
overnight--from the freest communications medium in our nation,
to the most heavily-regulated.
In massive, spontaneous response, thousands of Websites around
the world went black, in a 48-hour protest organized by Voters
Telecom Watch and the Center for Democracy and Technology .
Simultaneously, the Electronic Frontier Foundation sponsored a
Free Speech Online Blue Ribbon Cam- paign to raise awareness
about Internet free speech. The American Civil Liberties Union ,
of course, immediately accepted the challenge, as did the Nation-
al Writers Guild, et. al.
Essentially, our Congress╣s unusually-swift passage--with no
national debate-- of the Telecommunications Bill and its
Communications Decency Act (CDA), which President Clinton signed
into law two weeks ago, has provided us Americans already in
Cyberspace with our first, serious wake-up call. Why? Because
this Bill's CDA, because of its well- intentioned aim of
protecting our children--and rightfully so--from obscenity and
child- child-pornography, has temporarily lulled the unaware
majority into going along with the drift of things, of yielding
with a grace to this Act╣s seeming reason.
The problem is two-fold. Instead of properly targeting obscenity
and child- pornography--the transmission of which is ALREADY a
violation of criminal law--this Act improperly targets so-called
îindecent╣ speech on our Internet, which is supposedly protected
by our Constitution╣s First Amendment. Concludes U.S. Sen. Russ
Feingold, D-Wis.: │While doing nothing to further protect
children online, the Act compromises the right of every American
to free speech.▓
As this law now stands, use of the excretory term, │piss,▓ if
posted by you on usenet groups or the World Wide Web, qualifies
you for a $250,000 fine and a two-year stint in a Federal prison.
Likewise, the Louvre╣s Venus de Milo sculpture, as well as some
of Michelangelo╣s paintings on the ceiling of Christianity╣s
Sistene Chapel, could not be shown on our Internet. Similary, the
BIBLE, itself, could not be printed in Cyber- space today, as it
contains this dreaded four-letter, character-destroying word,
│piss▓.
President Clinton, quickly backpedaling in this Election year,
has already an- nounced that he will not enforce the Act╣s ban on
abortion information on the Internet. Women, after all, provided
the margin of victory for Clinton in l992. And reproductive
freedom of choice is obviously the Nineties╣ major debate issue,
with opinions and feel- feelings on both sides running deep and
even homicidal.
Our President, however, has apparently left it for the Courts to
decide whether or not American adults will be restricted to the
online equivalent of fitting themselves into the miniature chairs
reserved for children in bookstores and libraries across our
land--locations, by the way, where many of these so-called
indecent works of art and lit- erature are still available to
America╣s children, from Mark Twain╣s HUCKLEBERRY FINN to lyrics
by groups as diverse as the SMASHING PUMPKINS and those favorites
of our Vice Presidential couple, the GRATEFUL DEAD.
Following President Clinton╣s signing of this Bill two weeks ago,
a Federal judge in Philadelphia, on Feb. l5th, issued a partial,
temporary restraining order, pro- hibiting enforcement of the
"indecency" provision of the CD Act, calling the statute "un-
constitutionally vague". His studied apprehension was similarly
voiced by concerned citi- zens in every corner of our land, such
as U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt, who joined ▓this protest by my
fellow Internet users▓ by blackening his official Senate Website
and speak- ing for the hearts of many mainstream citizens in
concluding:
│While I do not condone the transmission of obscene material or
child-pornography on the Net, I believe the solution pro- posed
in the Telecommunications law will do more to harm the use and
growth of the Net, without combating the problem for which it is
intended.▓
Personally, having given this great nation three of the finest
years of my life as a U.S. Paratrooper--including two in Asia--I
have no intention of handing over the Constitutional Freedom of
Speech I was told I dedicated those three years for. Further, as
the parent of two young adults now climbing the academic ladder
in the University of California system, I have a responsibility
to my own children, and by extrapolation, all of our children, to
see that these Constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms are not
abridged (which would also set a VERY dangerous precedent in
blurring what our nation has long maintained as a necessary
separation between Church and State).
Further, having taken my children, a decade ago, across the
dictatorial nation of Communist China, and then spent three more
weeks crossing the tiny, neighboring nation of Tibet--where China
is presently in the 46th year of a now-terminal-stage gen-
ocide-attempt--I KNOW what it looks like in a modern-day
Auschwitz. . .once these precious freedoms are stripped away,
little by little, just as they were in once-free Tibet.
So here on this national day of celebration in our
mightily-expanding Cyber- space Community--also marking the birth
anniversary of our nation╣s first President, George Washington,
who reportedly could not live with lies of any kind--it╣s approp-
riate that we all spend a day reflecting on the long-term
implications of what this Act could do to our precious freedoms.
Read the various opinions of your Cyberspace sisters and
brothers--click the 'Your Essay' link on the '24 HOURS OF
DEMOCRACY' page --and look deeply within your own heart, to see
what all this inspires in you. Only then should you decide
whether or not you╣re just going to go along with the drift of
things, yielding with a grace to so-called reason, bowing and
accepting the end of a love or a season.
Just as I and all conscious parents abhor having our children
exposed to ob- scenity and child-pornography, we similarly abhor
the mindless violence and gratuitous sex our television and movie
industries promulgate today. However, as with the overre- action
of this new Telecom Bill╣s Communications Decency Act--even
though it will, in all probability, be overturned in the lawsuit
filed (before the ink was dry on President Clinton╣s signature)
by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil
Liberties Union, the National Writers╣ Guild, et. al.--we must
also question whe- ther or not we╣ve used the brilliance of our
technology as intelligently as we could, in mandating the use of
the V-chip (so parents can control what their youngsters watch).
Few would disagree with President Clinton╣s objection to the
│hours of mind- less violence▓ our youngsters see on TV. And the
chip, per se, is not the problem, IF it╣s used as a device by
PARENTS to monitor programs. On the other hand, we should all be
concerned what the role of government will be, and whether Wash-
ington now intends to ultimately decide, for us all, what╣s
appropriate?
As things stand now, it seems the Telecom Bill╣s newly-mandated
V-chip, rather than giving parents the control over what their
children watch, could AUTOMATICAL- LY block such │violent▓
programs as SCHLINDLER╣S LIST, or ROOTS, or THE BURN- ING BED,
all of which were nationally-acclaimed for their significant
contributions to public education and understanding regarding
important social issues--the Holocaust, slavery, and domestic
violence.
While in Tibet╣s capital of Lhasa with my (then) l0- and
l2-year-olds in l987, we were rudely awakened each and every
morning by martial music and denunciations of His Holiness the
Dalai Lama--that Buddhist nation╣s equivalent of Catholicism╣s
His Holiness the Pope--blaring from shrieking, Big Brother-style
loudspeakers on every street corner. And yet Tibet had been a
relatively free nation for over a thou- sand years, prior to
Communism╣s slow but persistent encroachment.
What this │24 HOURS OF DEMOCRACY▓ celebration is all about, here
in our exponentially-exploding Cyberspace Community (in 3 to 4
years, it╣s estimated that one-quarter of all U.S. homes will be
accessing the mighty Internet), is: 1) an organ- ized wake-up
call in the face of these very real threats to our vaunted,
American Free- dom of Speech; 2) a nationwide, essay-inviting
teach-in on just what╣s at stake, now that this new Bill╣s
Communications Decency Act provisions are attempting to pro-
scribe all ADULTS freedoms in Cyberspace to those permissble in a
child╣s reading room, and 3) a Washington╣s Birthday celebration
that we, too, will not allow the lie to be given to our
Constitutionally-guaranteed Freedom of Speech. . .at least
without a nationwide debate in which we, the citizens who voted
these politicians into office, have had the opportunity to read,
discuss, and openly debate these critical issues.
Please spend a little time surfing the Net today, reading the
best thinking of your sisters and brothers in our Cyberspace
Community. Once you feel you╣re adequate- ly informed, then
please communicate your feelings, in your OWN heartfelt essay--or
just a simple email message--directly to those who lobbied
hardest for this Bill╣s pas- sage, both in the House and Senate,
as well as at the White House. You can find all necessary contact
information at the VOTERS TELECOMMUNICATIONS WATCH home page ,
clicking on the VTW Congressional Directory Ser- vice button.
Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, 72, is apparently not yet
online, so call him at 202-224-652l, or fax him at 202-228-1245.
House Speaker Newt Gingrich can be emailed at:
georgia6@hr.house.gov. And the man responsible for signing this
Net censorship legislation into law two weeks ago can be emailed
at: Cybercop@whitehouse.gov (I╣m joking, of course; Bill╣s really
at: President@whitehouse.gov).
Over two centuries ago, a fellow Irishman, John Curran, wrote:
│The condition upon which God hath given liberty to humanity is
eternal vigilance, which condition if she/he break, servitude is
at once the consequence of his/her crime and the punish- ment of
her/his guilt.▓ Over a century later, Elmer Davis, in giving the
Phi Beta Kappa Oration at Harvard in l953, concluded: │The
Republic was not established by cowards, and cowards will not
preserve it.▓ The following year, just to emphasize his point, he
wrote in BUT WE WERE BORN FREE:
│With a great price, our ancestors obtained this freedom, but we
were born free. . . .But that freedom can be retained only by the
eternal vigilance which has always been its price.▓
Take courage, my Cyberspace friends, and as you reflect on how
this new Telecom Bill was hurriedly passed behind our nation╣s
back--without most even realizing it had hap- pened until we saw
all those blackened home pages and blue ribbons campaigning to
îKeep Cyberspace Free╣--take a moment, here on the anniversay of
our first President╣s birthday, to ponder these words from his
First Inaugural Address in l789:
│The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny
of the republican model of government, are justly considered as
deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment en- trusted
to the hands of the American people.
Six years earlier, General Washington had addressed the officers
of our Army thusly:
│If men are to be precluded from offering their sentiments on a
matter which may involve the most serious and alarming con-
sequences that can invite the consideration of humankind, reason
is of no use to us; the freedom of speech may be taken away, and
dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the
Just to be sure everyone got the message, he concluded his
Farewell Address in l796 with this warning:
│The basis of our political system is the right of the people to
make, and to alter, their constitution of government.▓
Won╣t you all please speak your own hearts and minds, to whomever
you choose, big and small, during this historic 24 HOURS OF
DEMOCRACY in our U.S. Cybernation?
Respectfully, Dennis Paulson, FastMaster@fasting.com;
http://www.fasting.com; Santa Barbara, CA; Freeware essay, for
posting anywhere in Cyberspace
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[Twenty-Four Hours of Democracy]