Subject: Rimm: Enraged at Exon!

From: D B McCullagh <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 5 Aug 1995 21:50:32 -0700 (PDT)

For a good time, finger mr6e@andrew and analyst@andrew.

-Declan

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Date: Sat, 11 Feb 1995 15:37:04 -0500 (EST)
From: "CIT Dean's Office" <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Subject: help
Cc: 

I would like to solicit your assistance for the wording of an important
paragraph in the introduction to my study. I need to be objective and
maintain neutrality. However, I need to make it clear from the beginning
what my study does _not_ tell us, and I also would like to subtley hint
at my objection to using this data to censor net traffic. I am enraged
beyond description at Senator Exon's "Decency" Bill, and I am concerned
he will waive my study around congress as "evidence." Here is a draft of
the gist of it: 

"This study does not address the effects of such imagery on consumers.
No data was available which offered insight as to _why_ consumers
download such imagery, e.g. for erotic purposes or out of curiosity, or
what consumers do with them after download. Thus, this study, taken by
itself, may not provide sufficient information concerning legislation of
potentially obscene materials."

I don't like the above but it's just a start. I'd really appreciate your
taking a crack at making some important points about what a study of
consumption habits _cannot_ tell us. I am asking you because you have
thought about pornography a great deal and you obsviously understand
computer networks and statistics.

Please keep our correspondence in confidence.

Martin

Date: Fri, 24 Mar 1995 13:05:42 -0500 (EST)
From: "CIT Dean's Office" <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Subject: hey
Cc: 

I got an offer to study TPP at MIT and have a straight question for you:
take the scenario whereby despite our objections the study has an impact
in curtailing the prevelance of hard-core pornography in a manner that
is antithetical to civil liberties. In other words, I am the messenger,
and the wrong people interpret my message in the work way. Is it not
inevitable that a lot of people will be pissed off at me and blame me
for regulations x,y, and z? Do you think I would be welcome or hated at
MIT?

I enjoyed corresponding with you and if I make it to Cambridge I'd like
to pursue some conversations about this. There is a lot of data that
never made it to print, for fascinating reasons. 

By the way, a major weekly news magazine offered a cover story in
exchange for an exclusive. I'm not Jerry Falwell, but you might have to
pucker up or duck if we are to be friends. 

Date: Sat, 22 Apr 1995 11:10:49 -0400 (EDT)
From: "CIT Dean's Office" <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Subject: riddle me this...
Cc: 

All right, Seth, you're me: you spend thousands of hours gathering and
sorting raw data. You count the number of files, the number fo
downloads. You develop a linguistic parser to classify the pictures with
good accuracy, reliability and validity. You don't do anything fancy
with statistics, you just add up the numbers and report them in your
study.

Let's take it one step further: you like to write. You think academics
write boring prose. You despise most academic journals. So you write in
a popular style, with energy and verve. Some people think your style is
fascinating, others think it is alarming. Like Jerry Falwell and Andrea
Dworkin.

Date: Wed, 10 May 1995 19:03:46 -0400 (EDT)
From: "CIT Dean's Office" <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Subject: busy?
Cc: 

Are you just swamped? I haven't heard from you.

Martin

Date: Sat, 24 Jun 1995 22:37:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: "CIT Dean's Office" <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked] (Seth Finkelstein)
Subject: Re: EFF Analysis of Communications Decency Act as Passed by Senate
Cc: 
In-Reply-To: <[email-masked]>
References: <[email-masked]> 
<[email-masked]> <[email-masked]>
        <[email-masked]>
Distribution: inet

We made the cover of TIME to hit the stands Monday. If you have a
chance, you can watch me on Nightline Monday evening.