P-list Lawyer [ WARNING! Contains adult material! =:-0 ]

Tue Mar 18 09:00:53 CST 1997

Great stuff! Thanks.

On 18 Mar 97 at 5:58, Alan Westrope wrote:

> Thanks to Jimmy for the cogent post.
> 
> Thought I'd pass this along, since the CIEC case against the CDA will
> be argued before the Supremes tomorrow, March 19th.  The "BACKGROUND
> ON THE CDA" section may be of interest to some here.  I'm a plaintiff
> in the case; I joined 56,000 other concerned folks and signed on at the
> CIEC web site, using the URL below.
> 
> My feelings about Senator Jamf^Hes Exon's CDA, and about freedom of
> speech on the Net in general, were succinctly expressed by Internet
> Engineering Task Force member Perry Metzger in a post which said, in
> part, "Fuck Senator Exon in the ass with a chain mail condom and no
> lubricant."  'Nuff said...
> 
> --
> Alan Westrope     PGP public key:  http://www.crl.com/~awestrop
> <awestrop at crl.com>
> <awestrop at nyx.net>
> PGP 0xB8359639:   D6 89 74 03 77 C8 2D 43   7C CA 6D 57 29 25 69 23
> ==============================================================================
>   ____ ___ _____ ____      _    _           _
>  / ___|_ _| ____/ ___|    / \  | | ___ _ __| |_   Join CIEC lead attorney
> | |    | ||  _|| |       / _ \ | |/ _ \ '__| __|  Bruce Ennis LIVE ONLINE
> | |___ | || |__| |___   / ___ \| |  __/ |  | |_   after he argues the case
>  \____|___|_____\____| /_/   \_\_|\___|_|   \__|  before the Supreme Court!
> ______________________________________________________________________________
>      The Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition --  http://www.ciec.org
> ______________________________________________________________________________
> 
>                        ** SPECIAL EVENT ANNOUNCEMNT **
> 
>   JOIN BRUCE ENNIS - FRESH FROM FIGHTING THE CDA AT THE SUPREME COURT - LIVE
>         ONLINE WEDNESDAY MARCH 19TH 1997 AT 6:00 PM EST (3:00 PM PACIFIC)
> 
>                                March 17, 1997
> 
>    Please distribute widely with this banner intact. Please post only in
>        appropriate forums.  Do not distribute after March 19, 1997
> _______________________________________________________________________________
> 
> SPECIAL EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT
> 
> On March 19th, the United States Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in
> the legal challenge to the Communications Decency Act -- a law which
> imposes broad content regulations on the Internet.  The outcome of this
> case will have a profound impact on the future of the Internet and the fate
> of the First Amendment in the Information Age.  A decision is expected in
> June.
> 
> Curious how the Supreme Court justices reacted to the arguments? Have
> questions abut the case and its implications? Join Bruce Ennis, lead
> attorney for the Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition (CIEC), who will
> have just finished arguing the case before the Court on behalf of both the
> ACLU and CIEC plaintiffs, for a special online debriefing and discussion.
> 
> DETAILS ON HOW TO PARTICIPATE:
> 
> This special event is presented by the Citizens Internet Empowerment
> Coalition, HotWired, and Progressive Networks. It will combine a live
> interview with Bruce Ennis, cybercast via RealAudio, with a simultaneous
> interactive chat forum where participants can ask questions and discuss the
> case.
> 
> DATE:  Wednesday March 19, 1997
> TIME:  6:00 pm Eastern time, 3:00 pm Pacific
> 
> Audio feeds and links to the chat discussion will be available from the
> following sites:
> 
> * Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition   -  http://www.ciec.org/
> * HotWired                                  -  http://www.hotwired.com/
> * Progressive Networks's WebActive          -  http://www.webactive.com/
> 
> You will need a RealAudio (available free at http://www.realaudio.com/), a
> Java enabled browser, or a telnet application on your computer in order to
> particpate.  Please visit the URL's above for more details.
> 
> BACKGROUND ON THE CDA AND THE LAW SUIT
> 
> The Communications Decency Act was signed into law as part of the
> Telecommunications Reform Act on February 8th 1996.  The law makes it a
> crime to "display" "indecent" or "patently offensive" material in a public
> forum on the Internet.  Opponents argue that the law is overly restrictive
> and threatens to severely restrict the free flow of information on the
> Internet, and that individual users and parents, not the federal
> government, are the best judges of material is appropriate for themselves
> and their children.
> 
> Two lawsuits were filed to challenge the constitutionality of the CDA in a
> Philadelphia federal court in February 1996.
> 
> The cases have been brought, respectively, by The Citizens Internet
> Empowerment Coalition (CIEC), comprised of the American Library
> Association. civil liberties groups, Internet Service Providers, Commercial
> Online Service Providers, Newspaper, Magazine and Book Publishers, and over
> 56,000 individual Internet users. The ACLU, along with a coalition of civil
> liberties groups, advocacy groups, online content providers, and others
> filed the initial case on the day the CDA was signed into law.
> 
> The ACLU and CIEC cases will be argued together before the Supreme Court on
> March 19, 1997 by CIEC lead attorney Bruce Ennis.  A decision is expected
> in June.
> 
> Detailed information on the legal challenges, as well as information about
> the CDA, is available at the following web sites:
> 
> *  Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition    -  http://www.ciec.org/
> *  The ACLU                                   -  http://www.aclu.org/
> 
> The outcome of this legal battle will have far reaching implications.  At
> stake is nothing less than the future of the First Amendment in the
> information age.
> 
> 

AsB4,
Henry Musikar

Keep cool, but care. -- TRP
Moderation in moderation. -- Husky Mariner