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Date: 1998-06-16

EFF: neustart der blue ribbon campaign


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q/depesche 98.6.16.1

EFF: neustart der blue ribbon campaign

drei jahre nach der bisher erfolgreichsten kampagne in der netzgeschichte starten die Electronic
Frontier Foundation, ACLU & EPIC unter dem blauen banner wieder durch.

primäres ziel: abschuss der zensur/verdächtigen anträge der senatoren Coats (R) und McCain (R)

(ACLU = American Civil Liberties Union, EPIC = Electronic Privacy Information Center)

San Francisco, june 15: The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) announced
today that it is re-launching its Blue Ribbon Campaign for Online Freedom
of Expression in opposition to new Congressional attempts to impose
censorship controls on the Internet. The original campaign, launched in
conjunction with the related "Turn the Web Black" anti-censorship protest
in 1995, raised awareness of and opposition to the Communications Decency
Act (CDA), which was eventually ruled unconstitutional by a unanimous
Supreme Court decision. The Supreme Court decision was announced exactly
one year ago today.

"One year ago today when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the CDA and
declared that speech on the Internet is entitled to the highest
Constitutional protection, we had hoped that the Congress would have given
up on its foolish crusade to restrict protected speech on the Internet,"
said EFF President Barry Steinhardt. "Sadly, we were mistaken and the
struggle isn't over yet. The Blue Ribbon campaign is just as urgent today
as it was a year ago."

Beginning today, the new campaign (http://www.eff.org/blueribbon/)
encourages Internet users to take action to oppose online censorship,
starting with two bills approved by the Senate Commerce Committee in March
that are expected to be taken up by the full Senate in the next three weeks.

The "CDA II" bill (S. 1482) introduced by Sen. Dan Coats (R-IN) would, in
effect, prohibit the "commercial" distribution of a broad category of
constitutionally protected expression that the bill terms "harmful to
minors." Not only would this bill severely undermine the publishing of
content on the Web for adults as well as children, but it would make it a
crime to have the content of the average bookstore or library available on
the Internet.

"The Coats bill is a thinly veiled attempt to re-enact the CDA and to limit
what even adults can say and read on the Web to only that material that is
deemed suitable for children," Steinhardt said. While the bill purports to
apply only to commercial distributors of sexually explicit material,
Steinhardt said that "commercial" and "distributor" are so broadly defined
that "they could include everything from the virtual bookstore Amazon.com,
to a promotional site for a Hollywood movie, to even a non-profit Web site
like EFF's, which sells t-shirts and other materials."

The Internet School Filtering Act (S. 1619) sponsored by Senator John
McCain (R-AZ) would require libraries and schools receiving federal funds
for Internet access to install blocking software to restrict access to
material that is "inappropriate for minors." This creates a new category
of restriction with no legal basis that would be inclusive of material that
is protected by the First Amendment even for minors.

"The McCain filtering bill would rob local libraries, schools, and
ultimately parents of the authority to decide for themselves what are
appropriate uses of the Internet and would force them to install crude
blocking software," Steinhardt said. "All too often, material about topics
ranging from the prevention of sexually-transmitted diseases, to women's
rights, to current news stories about political sex scandals is likely to
be blocked. Even religious groups such as the Society of Friends (Quaker
religion) and mainstream organizations like the American Association of
University Women have been blocked. Last week we learned that even
conservative groups like the American Family Association have been
blacklisted by these imperfect tools, which are already being installed in
libraries and schools today," Steinhardt concluded.

Beginning with the original Blue Ribbon Campaign against the CDA, hundreds
of thousands of World Wide Web sites all over the world have chosen to
display the Blue Ribbon on their pages and link to EFF Web pages containing
information about censorship legislation and free speech on the Internet.
The Blue Ribbon page became the fourth most-linked-to site on the Internet
and has been accessed millions of times - peaking at over a million "hits"
per day when President Clinton signed the ill-fated CDA into law. There
are over 170,000 sites that carry the Blue Ribbon today.

The new Blue Ribbon Campaign will link directly to a Congressional action
site to encourage Internet users to take direct action to defend their free
speech rights on the Internet. This site is currently sponsored by EFF in
conjunction with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the
Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and provides users the ability
to send their legislators a fax or e-mail opposing the two bills.

Steinhardt said that those Web sites that already display the Blue Ribbon
would link directly to the new campaign. The new site contains easy to use
instructions for the thousands of Web participants who would like to add
the Blue Ribbon symbol to their Web site and show their solidarity against
online violations of the fundamental human right of freedom of expression.




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edited by Harkank
published on: 1998-06-16
comments to office@quintessenz.at
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