Sender: Coalition to stop net censorship <•••@••.•••>
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CAMPAIGN TO STOP THE NET CENSORSHIP LEGISLATION IN CONGRESS
(INCLUDING THE COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT AND THE MGRS AMDT)
Short Update: Negotiations continue; we're still in danger.
What You Can Do Now: Call Telecomm conferees at their home offices
over Thanksgiving recess!
CAMPAIGN TO STOP THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL NET CENSORSHIP LEGISLATION
Nov 20, 1995
PLEASE WIDELY REDISTRIBUTE THIS DOCUMENT WITH THIS BANNER INTACT
REDISTRIBUTE ONLY UNTIL December 1, 1995
REPRODUCE THIS ALERT ONLY IN RELEVANT FORUMS
________________________________________________________________________
CONTENTS
The Latest News
What You Can Do Now
Legislative History
List of Participating Organizations
________________________________________________________________________
THE LATEST NEWS
Calls are coming into the offices of Gingrich and Dole at a good clip.
However we believe the conferees are now debating the fate of the net.
As the Conference Committee goes home for Thanksgiving recess, we need
to keep the pressure on.
Call Congress now and tell them that parental empowerment not government
censorship is the only effective means to addressing childrens' access
to objectionable content on the Internet. Don't wait. The stakes here
are too high.
Please look below at the list of legislators and call the home offices
of the legislators in your state. Please do not call legislators at
home. Please do not send email to them (it will not be effective).
________________________________________________________________________
WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW
1. Most of the proposals available to the conference committee will
fundamentally restrict your speech on the Internet and other public
networks. Look at the list below and call the legislators in your
state and ask them not to censor the net. If none of them are in
your state, call Gingrich and Dole at their home offices.
If we cannot convince the conference committee to make the right
choices at this juncture, we will have lost this campaign.
To see which legislator is yours, consult the free ZIPPER service
that matches Zip Codes to Congressional districts with about 85%
accuracy at:
URL:http://www.stardot.com/~lukeseem/zip.html
Or simply look at the list below organized by states.
Home Office
Name, Address, and Party Phone
======================== ==============
Arkansas
Rep. B. Lambert-Lincoln (D-AR) 501-972-4600
Alaska
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) 907-456-0261
Arizona
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) 602-952-2410
California
Rep. Carlos Moorhead (R-CA) 818-247-8445
Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-CA) 805-485-2300
Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) 818-891-0543
Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) 415-323-2984
Colorado
Rep. Pat. Schroeder (D-CO) 303-866-1230
Rep. Daniel Schaefer (R-CO) 303-762-8890
Florida
Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) 904-351-8011
Georgia
Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) 404-429-1776
Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA) 404-565-6398
Hawaii
Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI) 808-541-2542
Illinois
Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL) 312-224-6500
Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) 708-406-1114
Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL) 708-832-5950
Rep. Michael Flanagan (R-IL) 312-276-6000
Indiana
Rep. Steve Buyer (R-IN) 219-583-9819
Kansas
Sen. Bob Dole (R-KS) 913-295-2745
Kentucky
Sen. Wendell Ford (D-KY) 502-685-5158
Massachusetts
Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) 617-396-2900
Michigan
Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) 313-846-1276
Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) 313-961-5670
Mississippi
Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) 601-762-5400
Montana
Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) 406-252-0550
Nebraska
Sen. Jim Exon (D-NE) 402-437-5591
New York
Rep. Bill Paxon (R-NY) 716-634-2324
Rep. Daniel Frisa (R-NY) 516-872-9550
Ohio
Rep. Michael Oxley (R-OH) 419-423-3210
Rep. Martin Hoke (R-OH) 216-356-2010
Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) 216-934-5100
South Carolina
Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-SC) 803-727-4525
South Dakota
Sen. Larry Pressler (R-SD) 605-226-7471
Tennessee
Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN) 615-896-1986
Texas
Rep. Jack Fields (R-TX) 713-540-8000
Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) 817-543-1000
Rep. John Bryant (D-TX) 901-382-5811
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) 713-655-0050
Virginia
Rep. Thomas Bliley (R-VA) 804-771-2809
Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA) 703-628-1145
Rep. Robert Scott (D-VA) 804-380-1000
Rep. Robert Goodlatte (R-VA) 703-857-2672
Washington
Rep. Rick White (R-WA) 206-640-0233
Sen. Slade Gorton (R-WA) 206-553-0350
Wisconsin
Rep. Scott Klug (R-WI) 608-257-9200
West Virginia
Sen. J.D. Rockefeller (D-WV) 303-347-5372
If you're at a loss for words, try one of the following:
Please oppose the unconstitutional proposals in the Telecomm
Deregulation bill that would censor the Internet. The only
effective way to address children's access to objectionable
material on the Internet is through parental control tools
not government censorship outlined by the Cox/White/Wyden
approach.
May I please have an appointment to come and talk with the legislator
or someone on staff about these issues?
or
As a religious person and a parent, I oppose the unconstitutional
Internet censorship language currently attached to the Telecomm
Deregulation bill. I am the best person to monitor my
child's access to the Internet using parental control tools
as outlined in the Cox/White/Wyden approach.
May I please have an appointment to come and talk with the legislator
or someone on staff about these issues?
or
Although there is information on the Internet that I wouldn't
allow my children to see, I don't agree with the proposals
in the Telecomm Deregulation bill that would censor the Internet.
As a parent, I have parental control tools, such as those
encouraged in the Cox/White/Wyden approach available to me that
are far more effective at controlling my children's access to the
Internet than censorship laws will be.
May I please have an appointment to come and talk with the legislator
or someone on staff about these issues?
Send mail to •••@••.••• and let us know how it went.
$ Mail •••@••.•••
Subject: phoned Congressman XXX
They thanked me for my opinion and I'll be meeting with a staff
member on Friday morning, and the legislator may drop in too!
^D
Mail sent!
2. If one of the legislators above is yours, please make an appointment
to see them or one of their staff in the home office as soon as possible
to express your concerns about this legislation.
As background information, you should ensure that you read the
Internet Parental Control FAQ and the Communications Decency Act
FAQ found at URL:http://www.vtw.org/. Also, send mail to
•••@••.••• and a coordinator will phone you before the
meeting to give you some tips on running an effective meeting with
a legislator or staff member.
3. If you run any sort of system that allows a welcome message for all
users, please add the following:
The Religious Right is attempting to shut down the net by passing
legislation that would make services like this one liable
for what you say and read on the Internet. Please call Congress
now; for more info URL:http://www.vtw.org/ or send mail to
•••@••.••• with "send alert" in the subject line. (11/20/95)
If you have a Web page that gets a lot of traffic, please add the
following link:
<a href="http://www.vtw.org/">
Stop the Religious Right from shutting down online free
speech! (11/8/95)</a>
4. Join the online fight by becoming a volunteer for your district!
If your legislator is in the list above, please send mail to
•••@••.••• to volunteer to be a representative for your
district.
5. We can't suggest relaxing at this point. The stakes are too high, and
the risk is too great. Everything now hangs in the balance.
________________________________________________________________________
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY
We are near the end of this year's campaign. Congress has passed four
different bills, all aimed at regulating your communications on the
Internet. They range from deregulation proposals that empower parents
to control their children's access to the net (HR1978 "Cox/Wyden/White")
to overly-regulatory proposals that "dumb down" the level of all Internet
content to that which is acceptable to children. (the HR1555 Managers
Amendment). You can see a synopsis of each of these in VTW's BillWatch
#13 at URL:http://www.vtw.org/billwatch/issue.13.html
Were the conference committee to simply throw this all into the kettle
and pass it all, it would be terrible. However, several groups considered
to be part of the "Religious Right" urged the conference committee to pass
an even more restrictive proposal which would:
-Make internet providers, online services, and libraries criminally liable
for expression online.
-Create a standard for criminalizing "indecency" online, dumbing down
every Web page, newsgroups, discussion forum, and chat system.
-Give the FCC jurisdiction over speech in cyberspace and software that
might be used to filter children's access to the net.
This proposal was signed by representatives from the Christian Coalition,
the Concerned Women of America, the American Family Association, Eagle
Forum, the Traditional Values Coalition, and Morality in Media.
For a full analysis of the Religious Right's proposal, and a copy of their
proposed legislation and their letter to the Conference Committee, see
the alert at URL:http://www.vtw.org/alerts/
Alternatively, representatives from large and small businesses and public
interest organizations recently sent letters to Congress asking them not
censor the Internet. In addition, a collection of conservative groups
that advocate restricting childrens' access to the Internet through
parental control instead of government censorship recently sent a letter
to Congress as well. Here's where to find them:
The letter from large industry businesses can be found at:
URL:http://www.cdt.org/policy/freespeech/1109_iwg_ltr.html
The letter from small businesses can be found at:
URL:http://www.vtw.org/cdaletter/
The letter from the conservative groups can be found at:
URL:http://www.cdt.org/policy/freespeech/cons_110795_ltr.html
The letter from the advocacy organizations can be obtained by
sending mail to •••@••.••• with "organizations opposed
to online censorship" in the subject line of your message.
At this time, the conference committee is still debating the issue.
Advocates of business and free speech are contacting Congress.
________________________________________________________________________
LIST OF PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS
In order to use the net more effectively, several organizations have
joined forces on a single Congressional net campaign to stop the
Communications Decency Act.
American Civil Liberties Union * American Communication Association *
American Council for the Arts * Arts & Technology Society * Association
of Alternative Newsweeklies * biancaTroll productions * Boston
Coalition for Freedom of Expression * Californians Against Censorship
Together * Center For Democracy And Technology * Centre for Democratic
Communications * Center for Public Representation * Citizen's Voice -
New Zealand * Cloud 9 Internet *Computer Communicators Association *
Computel Network Services * Computer Professionals for Social
Responsibility * Cross Connection * Cyber-Rights Campaign * CyberQueer
Lounge * Dutch Digital Citizens' Movement * ECHO Communications Group,
Inc. * Electronic Frontier Canada * Electronic Frontier Foundation *
Electronic Frontier Foundation - Austin * Electronic Frontiers
Australia * Electronic Frontiers Houston * Electronic Frontiers New
Hampshire * Electronic Privacy Information Center * Feminists For Free
Expression * First Amendment Teach-In * Florida Coalition Against
Censorship * FranceCom, Inc. Web Advertising Services * Friendly
Anti-Censorship Taskforce for Students * Hands Off! The Net * Inland
Book Company * Inner Circle Technologies, Inc. * Inst. for Global
Communications * Internet On-Ramp, Inc. * Internet Users Consortium *
Joint Artists' and Music Promotions Political Action Committee * The
Libertarian Party * Marijuana Policy Project * Metropolitan Data
Networks Ltd. * MindVox * MN Grassroots Party * National Bicycle
Greenway * National Campaign for Freedom of Expression * National
Coalition Against Censorship * National Gay and Lesbian Task Force *
National Public Telecomputing Network * National Writers Union * Oregon
Coast RISC * Panix Public Access Internet * People for the American Way
* Republican Liberty Caucus * Rock Out Censorship * Society for
Electronic Access * The Thing International BBS Network * The WELL *
Voters Telecommunications Watch
(Note: All 'Electronic Frontier' organizations are independent entities,
not EFF chapters or divisions.)
________________________________________________________________________
End Alert
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Posted by Andrew Oram - •••@••.••• - Moderator: CYBER-RIGHTS (CPSR)
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