FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 21, 1998

CONTACTS:

Electronic Frontier Foundation, +1 415 436 9333, ask@eff.org

ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION REACTS TO
SENATE PASSAGE OF TWO INTERNET CENSORSHIP BILLS

Statement of Barry Steinhardt
President of the Electronic Frontier Foundation

This afternoon the Senate passed two draconian bills that would ultimately prevent access to a wide array of content on the Internet. The two bills were passed as amendments to an appropriations bill for the Commerce, Justice and State Department. They were brought up without any notice to those members of the Senate who opposed them and without any opportunity for meaningful debate. In effect, free speech on the Internet was the victim of an ambush.

The initial amendment offered by Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Patty Murray (D-WA) would require schools and libraries that receive federal funds for Internet connections to install filtering software to block "inappropriate" material. The second, "the CDA II" bill sponsored by Senator Dan Coats (R-IN) would enact a wide ranging ban on Web posting of material deemed "harmful to minors."

The two bills represent a real and present danger to free speech on the Internet. The McCain/Murray amendment will force libraries and schools to use all-too-frequently crude and overbroad filters that block out a wide array of non-"harmful" speech -- everything from the Quaker home page to the American Association of University Women has been blocked by these programs.

Indeed, you can no more create a computer program to block out one community's view of "indecency" or "obscenity" than you can devise a filtering program to block out misguided proposals by members of Congress. Both may be desirable, but neither are possible.

At first glance, the Coats' CDA II bill appears to be a relatively benign provision that purportedly applies only to commercial pornographers who market to minors. But it is a Trojan horse. Beneath the veneer, it covers any Web site that has a commercial component and which has material that some community will consider "harmful to minors", even if that is not the material for sale. This ranges from the electronic bookseller Amazon.com to EFF's site, which sells books and T-Shirts.

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The Electronic Frontier Foundation is one of the leading civil liberties organizations devoted to ensuring that the Internet remains the world's first truly global vehicle for free speech, and that the privacy and security of all on-line communication is preserved. Founded in 1990 as a nonprofit, public interest organization, EFF is based in San Francisco, California. EFF maintains an extensive archive of information on encryption policy, privacy, and free speech at http://www.eff.org.

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