Computers

During the past decade, our society has become based solely on the ability to move

large amounts of information across large distances quickly. Computerization has

influenced everyone's life. The natural evolution of computers and this need for

ultra-fast communications has caused a global network of interconnected computers

to develop. This global net allows a person to send E-mail across the world in mere

fractions of a second, and enables even the common person to access information

world-wide. With advances such as software that allows users with a sound card to

use the Internet as a carrier for long distance voice calls and video conferencing, this

network is key to the future of the knowledge society. At present, this net is the

epitome of the first amendment: free speech. It is a place where people can speak

their mind without being reprimanded for what they say, or how they choose to say it.

The key to the world-wide success of the Internet is its protection of free speech, not

only in America, but in other countries where free speech is not protected by a

constitution. To be found on the Internet is a huge collection of obscene graphics,

Anarchists' cookbooks and countless other things that offend some people. With over

30 million Internet users in the U.S. alone (only 3 million of which surf the net from

home), everything is bound to offend someone. The newest wave of laws floating

through law making bodies around the world threatens to stifle this area of

spontaneity. Recently, Congress has been considering passing laws that will make it

a crime punishable by jail to send "vulgar" language over the net, and to export

encryption software. No matter how small, any attempt at government intervention

in the Internet will stifle the greatest communication innovation of this century. The

government wants to maintain control over this new form of communication, and

they are trying to use the protection of children as a smoke screen to pass laws that

will allow them to regulate and censor the Internet, while banning techniques that

could eliminate the need for regulation. Censorship of the Internet threatens to

destroy its freelance atmosphere, while wide spread encryption could help prevent

the need for government intervention.

The current body of laws existing today in America does not apply well to the

Internet. Is the Internet like a bookstore, where servers cannot be expected to

review every title? Is it like a phone company who must ignore what it carries

because of privacy? Is it like a broadcasting medium, where the government

monitors what is broadcast? The trouble is that the Internet can be all or none of

these things depending on how it's used. The Internet cannot be viewed as one

type of transfer medium under current broadcast definitions.

The Internet differs from broadcasting media in that one cannot just happen upon a

vulgar site without first entering a complicated address, or following a link from

another source. "The Internet is much more like going into a book store and

choosing to look at adult magazines." (Miller 75).

Jim Exon, a democratic senator from Nebraska, wants to pass a decency bill

regulating the Internet. If the bill passes, certain commercial servers that post

pictures of unclad beings, like those run by Penthouse or Playboy, would of course

be shut down immediately or risk prosecution. The same goes for any amateur

web site that features nudity, sex talk, or rough language. Posting any dirty words

in a Usenet discussion group, which occurs routinely, could make one liable for a

$50,000 fine and six months in jail. Even worse, if a magazine that commonly runs

some of those nasty words in its pages, The New Yorker for instance, decided to

post its contents on-line, its leaders would be held responsible for a $100,000 fine

and two years in jail. Why does it suddenly become illegal to post something that

has been legal for years in print? Exon's bill apparently would also "criminalize

private mail," ... "I can call my brother on the phone and say anything--but if I say

it on the Internet, it's illegal" (Levy 53).

Congress, in their pursuit of regulations, seems to have overlooked the fact that the

majority of the adult material on the Internet comes from overseas. Although many

U.S. government sources helped fund Arpanet, the predecessor to the Internet,

they no longer control it. Many of the new Internet technologies, including the

World Wide Web, have come from overseas. There is no clear boundary between

information held in the U.S. and information stored in other countries. Data held in

foreign computers is just as accessible as data in America,