OUR
OPPOSITION TO THE COMMUNICATION DECENY AMENDMENTOUR
OPPOSITION TO THE COMMUNICATION DECENY AMENDMENTAt first glance, it seems strange to be against "decency"; it is like being against motherhood or apple pie. But consider what the word "indecency" means.
Our Webster's New World Dictionary defines "indecency" as meaning "not proper and fitting; unseemly; improper; morally offensive; obscene" . We personally find some of the misinformation, hatred and propaganda spread by some Internet religious and counter-cult sites against minority religions (such as Jehovah's Witnesses, the Mormon Church, Wicca, Vodun etc) to be indecent. Those sites probably regard portions of our site which describes all sides of many hot religious topics (like abortion, capital punishment, creation science etc) to be improper and unseemly as well. Both types of sites could be closed down by this law, along with many others.
The Internet is a wide-open facility. WWW sites can be accessed by anyone, regardless of their age. So, anyone who creates a site knows that some people under the age of 18 will probably eventually surf it. If it contains any material that anyone finds unseemly, indecent, improper, or offensive, then the writer and presumably the Internet service provider could be charged, convicted, imprisoned and/or fined. This means that no passionately held belief system could be discussed on the Internet.
We will have to wait to see how the wording is interpreted by the US Supreme Court. Banning material that somebody finds "unseemly" would seem to be a gross violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution - the one which guarantees freedom of speech.
President Clinton signed the law on Feb. 8. The ACLU filed a law suit immediately. There are 27 plaintiffs currently, including the American Library Assoc., American Society of Newspaper Editors, Newspaper Assoc. of America, the Society of Professional Journalists, and the Citizens' Internet Empowerment Coalition. The CIEC represents 40,000 Internet users.
On 1996-JUN-12, the Federal Court in Philadelphia granted a preliminary injunction against the Communications Decency Act, by a vote of 3 to 0. An excerpt from their 175 page decision reads: "As the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed, the Internet deserves the highest protection from government intrusion....Just as the strength of the Internet is chaos, so the strength of our liberty depends upon the chaos and cacophony of the unfettered speech the First Amendment protects."
You may wish to check with: