NetNews Offline 2/NetNews Offline Volume 2.iso/news/comp/sys/amiga/misc-part1/4715

Internet Message Format | 1996-08-05 | 5.4 KB

Path: millenium.texas.net!tweeks
From: [e-mail] (Thomas Weeks)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: Re: Clinton Signs Telecom. Law !
Date: 11 Feb 1996 07:53:50 GMT
Organization: Texas Networking, Inc.
Message-ID: <4fk7ae$[e-mail]>
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
NNTP-Posting-Host: millenium.texas.net
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Hereis what I wrote to the whitehouse.... I recommend everyone doing the
something similar:

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From [e-mail] Feb 10 19:58:32 1996
Date: Sat, 10 Feb 1996 19:57:09 -0600 (CST)
From: Thomas Weeks <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Cc: [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail],
    [e-mail]
Subject: The New Telecom Bill...

I know you probably won't even READ this Mr. Clinton, but I just HAD to
express my feelings on this subject.  I, along with the millions of
others on the net, feel that we have just been dealt a serious
blow with the signing of this new telecommunications bill.

First off, the U.S. Government DOES NOT OWN the Internet, NOR does it
have ANY ADMINISTRATIVE POWER over the Net other than in its' interests
regarding the import/export of classified information via it.

The entire PROBLEM of pornography on the Internet was attacked
incorrectly. Although I DO agree that children should not have access
to  such areas of the net, I DO NOT believe that your "solution" was even
CLOSE to the mark.

Why did you not tackle *IT* like you did TV with the VCHIP?  Put the
administrative/restrictive power in the hands of the parents?  e.g. Approach
the WRITERS of such web browsers as Netscape and have them build a front
end into their program that first asks a series of AGE TESTING questions
that must be answered for the installation of such software. Then
have a generic 'kiddy filter' that will allow children to access a wire
frame-work of web sites with built in "filter-renewal" code that will
continually filter out access to new Web nodes that contain KEY PORN
WORDS in  their content.  Such an approach would not be that difficult and
would do just what you were looking for WITHOUT trampling the rights of every
single American over the age of 18!

Second, there is the problem that you bill creates in which it places
responsibility on the system-administrator if someone on his system (unknown
to him) stores something of pornographic nature on his machine(s).

I am surprised that this one slipped pass Gore.  The implications of this
MAJOR oversight in responsibility are ground shaking!

If I were to, in this very email message, encode a binary image of child
porn, and then it was received on your end and archived or not deleted,
then the WHITE HOUSE would, in accordance with your new 'Law', be
punishable BY your new law!

When dealing with "Cyberspace", as the press loves to call it now, you do
not HAVE such clear cut bounds of territory and jurisdiction!  Are you
going to try to have people from Europe extradited and punished for the
transmission of material that you new masterpiece deems 'naughty'?  What
are you going to DO when parents in the US try to press charges and take
such issues to the supreme court?  This law creates more holes than it
has even come CLOSE to patching.

These points are just the first of many than need to be addressed and
tackled.  I do hope that your "email readers" don't just let this letter
sit and rot, as the concerns that I have expressed above are legitimate
and precedent setting in nature.

I hope you are not just using this new law as a political tool to gain
acceptance in the eyes of Americas' parents; because in the end you are
only damaging the present and future rights of this country and history
will remember you for your actions.

Just to give you an idea of how strongly SOME people feel about your new law,
here is one excerpt from a friend of mines' tag line:

"Due to passage of the most sweeping censorship law in the United States
of America, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution has
been effectively repealed in a manner inconsistent with the United States
Constitution.

President William Jefferson Clinton and the members of Congress whose
affirmative votes brought the bill before him are hereby notified that
they have broken their respective oaths of office "...to support,
protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States..." and are
effectively traitors against the United States of America and its citizens."

This is NOT an over dramatification...


Sincerely,

Thomas Weeks

  _________________________________________________________________________
 / Thomas W. Weeks           |        __  Commodore Amiga 500/030 40MHz    \
|  Authorized C= Technician  |       ///  Hacked Into Black Tower Case,     |
|  Full Time Net Security,   |  __  ///   9M RAM, SyQuest 44M, 700M-o-SCSI  |
|Intrusion Detection, & Sys  |  \\\///    IBM 286 Hardware Emulator,        |
|Admin @ Trident Data Systems|   \XX/     Home Brew Audio A/D, HP48GX       |
|Email h:[e-mail]    |"Amiga, The Computer for the Creative Mind"TM |
|Email w:[e-mail]|"Macintosh, The Computer for the Rest of Us"TM|
 \___________________________|_____________________________________________/

The views expressed here in no way reflect the views of my current employer.

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