Subject: EFF Statement on Proposals Regarding Content Control on the Net

Dec. 5, 1995
 
The Electronic Frontier Foundation maintains its longstanding position
that no new legislation is required to regulate content in cyberspace, and
that the existing federal and state framework provides an adequate legal
basis for the prosecution both of illegal material and of any
victimization of children.
 
Given the Telecom Bill conference committee's insistence that it must pass
new content legislation affecting the Net, however, EFF acknowledges the
value of the efforts of Rep. Rick White (R-Washington). Rep. White, who 
clearly possesses substantial familiarity with Net communications and 
legal issues, is attempting to steer the Telecom Bill toward legislation 
that remains within the bounds of well-understood Constitutional 
principles, that provides protections for providers and users from the 
"chilling effect" of overreaching federal statutes and overbroad risk of
legal liability, and that empowers parents and other users to make their
own content choices in online environments.
 
EFF does not endorse all provisions of the White proposal. We do, however,
endorse the following principles, which Rep. White has attempted to
incorporate in his proposal:
 
1) No crimes based on the vague and undefined notion of online
"indecency."
 
2) Encouragement of open-ended filtering/labelling systems that empower
parents and other users to make their own choices about net content.
 
3) Refusal to impose strict legal liability on providers, system
operators, and others, given that such liability would chill the existence
and growth of free online forums.
 
4) Extension of the same protections to commercial and educational forums.

5) Setting the criminal-intent element of any criminal-law provisions so
that users and providers cannot accidentally become criminally liable.
 
EFF notes that the alternative to the White proposal -- a proposal offered
by Rep. Hyde -- is so deeply repugnant both to parental autonomy and to
the First Amendment's protections for freedom of speech as to constitute a
direct authoritarian assault on the fabric of the Net. The conference
committee is being fiercely lobbied by religious extremists who falsely
represent themselves as speaking for all who care about families,
children, and morality -- these extremists will stop at nothing to enact
legislation that is aimed not at the protection of children, but at the
silencing of everybody whose values do not echo their own.
 
EFF strongly urges the conferees not to take this nation and this new
medium down the path of unthinking, fearful censorship. We ask that the
conferees instead refuse to assume that the only way to protect our
children and ourselves is to turn our backs on the First Amendment.
Americans are a smarter people than that, and we expect our
representatives not to fall for this false choice.  The true choice is
between those who would cut the Constitution to fit their own moral
fashions and those who believe that our citizens can, at the same time, be
trusted both with freedom of speech and with the primary authority to make
choices for their children.
 
 
For further information, contact:
 
Mike Godwin
Staff Counsel
Electronic Frontier Foundation
510-548-3290
godwin@eff.org
 
Regrettably, we do not yet have an online copy of the White proposal - 
yet another reason you should join the hundreds if not thousands of 
citizens who have written to Rep. Gingrich to make good on his months-old 
promise to ensure that the public had immediate online access to *all* 
legislative information, including bill amendments!

When available the text will be at 
http://www.eff.org/pub/Alerts/s652_hr1555_white_amend.draft
ftp.eff.org, /pub/Alerts/s652_hr1555_white_amend.draft
gopher.eff.org, 1/Alerts, s652_hr1555_white_amend.draft

For the time being, CDT has provided analysis of the White amendment and 
competing drafts from more censorious legislators.  See 
http://www.cdt.org/publications/pp311204.html for this analysis.