roundtable: ALERT:Conference Cmte. about to vote on net censorship
roundtable: ALERT:Conference Cmte. about to vote on net censorship
ALERT:Conference Cmte. about to vote on net censorship
Shabbir J. Safdar (shabbir@vtw.org)
Tue, 5 Dec 1995 00:06:51 -0500 (EST)
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 1995 00:06:51 -0500 (EST)
From: "Shabbir J. Safdar" <shabbir@vtw.org>
Message-Id: <199512050506.AAA23084@panix3.panix.com>
To: roundtable@cni.org
Subject: ALERT:Conference Cmte. about to vote on net censorship
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CAMPAIGN TO STOP THE NET CENSORSHIP LEGISLATION IN CONGRESS
(INCLUDING THE COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT AND THE HYDE AMDT)
Short Update: The Conference Committee will vote this week!
What You Can Do Now: Call the conference committee and tell
them to oppose Rep. Hyde's proposal
to censor the Internet.
Time is running out.
CAMPAIGN TO STOP THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL NET CENSORSHIP LEGISLATION
Dec 4, 1995
PLEASE WIDELY REDISTRIBUTE THIS DOCUMENT WITH THIS BANNER INTACT
REDISTRIBUTE ONLY UNTIL December 20, 1995
REPRODUCE THIS ALERT ONLY IN RELEVANT FORUMS
________________________________________________________________________
CONTENTS
The Latest News
What You Can Do Now
Legislative History
List of Participating Organizations (changed)
________________________________________________________________________
THE LATEST NEWS
The fate of the Internet as we know it today and the future of freedom
of speech in interactive media will come down to a vote of the
telecommunications reform bill conferees, scheduled for Wednesday
December 6. A bad outcome will criminalize content currently provided
by millions of people on the Internet as illegal and subject to jail
time and large fines.
Call the conference committee now and tell them that parental control
not government censorship is the only effective means of 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 yours, and if
yours is not on the conference committee, call House Speaker Gingrich
or Senate Leader Dole.
Because of the slow speed with which staffers read legislators' email,
email to them 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 to oppose Rep. Hyde's efforts to censor the net.
If none of them are in your state, call Gingrich and Dole.
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.
If you're at a loss for words, try one of the following:
Please oppose the Internet censorship amendments for the
Telecomm bill being put forth by Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL).
The only effective way to address children's access to
objectionable material on the Internet is through parental
control.
or
As a religious person and a parent, I oppose the Internet
censorship language for the Telecomm bill currently proposed
by Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL). I, the parent, am the best person
to monitor my child's access to the Internet.
or
Although there is information on the Internet that I wouldn't
allow my children to see, I don't agree with the proposals
from the Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL) and others that would censor the
the Internet. As a parent, I have parental control tools that
are far more effective at controlling my children's access to the
Internet.
House members of the Conference Committee
Dist ST Name, Address, and Party Phone Fax
==== == ======================== ============== ==============
6 GA Gingrich, Newt (R) 1-202-225-4501 1-202-225-4656
14 CA Eshoo, Anna G. (D) 1-202-225-8104 1-202-225-8890
6 TN Gordon, Bart (D) 1-202-225-4231 1-202-225-6887
27 NY Paxon, Bill 1-202-225-5265 1-202-225-5910
7 GA Barr, Bob (R) 1-202-225-2931 n.a.
1 IL Rush, Bobby L. (D) 1-202-225-4372 1-202-226-0333
27 CA Moorhead, Carlos J. (R) 1-202-225-4176 1-202-226-1279
6 FL Stearns, Clifford B. (R) 1-202-225-5744 1-202-225-3973
4 NY Frisa, Daniel (R) 1-202-225-5516 1-202-225-4672
6 CO Schaefer, Daniel (R) 1-202-225-7882 1-202-225-7885
14 IL Hastert, J. D. (R) 1-202-225-2976 1-202-225-0697
7 MA Markey, Edward J. (D) 1-202-225-2836 1-202-225-8689
23 CA Gallegly, Elton (R) 1-202-225-5811 1-202-225-1100
6 IL Hyde, Henry J. (R) 1-202-225-4561 1-202-226-1240
26 CA Berman, Howard L. (D) 1-202-225-4695 1-202-225-5279
8 TX Fields, Jack (R) 1-202-225-4901 1-202-225-2772
6 TX Barton, Joseph (R) 1-202-225-2002 1-202-225-3052
5 TX Bryant, John (D) 1-202-225-2231 1-202-225-9721
14 MI Conyers Jr., John (D) 1-202-225-5126 1-202-225-0072
16 MI Dingell, John D. (D) 1-202-225-4071 1-202-225-7426
1 AR Lambert-Lincoln, Blanche (D) 1-202-225-4076 1-202-225-4654
10 OH Hoke, Martin R. (R) 1-202-225-5871 1-202-226-0994
5 IL Flanagan, Michael (R) 1-202-225-4061 n.a.
4 OH Oxley, Michael G. (R) 1-202-225-2676 1-202-226-1160
1 CO Schroeder, Patricia (D) 1-202-225-4431 1-202-225-5842
9 VA Boucher, Rick (D) 1-202-225-3861 1-202-225-0442
1 WA White, Rick (R) 1-202-225-6311 1-202-225-2286
6 VA Goodlatte, Robert W. (R) 1-202-225-5431 1-202-225-9681
3 VA Scott, Robert C. (D) 1-202-225-8351 1-202-225-8354
2 WI Klug, Scott (R) 1-202-225-2906 1-202-225-6942
18 TX Jackson-Lee, Sheila (D) 1-202-225-3816 n.a.
13 OH Brown, Sherrod (D) 1-202-225-3401 1-202-225-2266
5 IN Buyer, Steve (D) 1-202-225-5037 n.a.
7 VA Bliley Jr., Thomas J. (R) 1-202-225-2815 1-202-225-0011
Senate members of the Conference Committee
P ST Name and Address Phone Fax
= == ======================== ============== ==============
R MT Burns, Conrad R. 1-202-224-2644 1-202-224-8594
D HI Inouye, Daniel K. 1-202-224-3934 1-202-224-6747
D SC Hollings, Ernest F. 1-202-224-6121 1-202-224-4293
D WV Rockefeller, John D. 1-202-224-6472 n.a.
D NE Exon, J. J. 1-202-224-4224 1-202-224-5213
R AZ McCain, John 1-202-224-2235 1-602-952-8702
R SD Pressler, Larry 1-202-224-5842 1-202-224-1259
R WA Gorton, Slade 1-202-224-3441 1-202-224-9393
R AK Stevens, Ted 1-202-224-3004 1-202-224-1044
R MS Lott, Trent 1-202-224-6253 1-202-224-2262
D KY Ford, Wendell H. 1-202-224-4343 1-202-224-0046
R KS Dole, Robert 1-202-224-6521 1-202-228-1245
2. Send mail to vtw@vtw.org and let us know how it went.
$ Mail vtw@vtw.org
Subject: phoned Congress-person XXX
They thanked me for my opinion and said they had received many
calls speaking out against net censorship.
^D
Mail sent!
3. If you run any sort of system that allows a welcome message for all
users, please add the following:
Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL) and others are lobbying for broad
infringements on free speech net by passing legislation that "dumb
down" Internet content to that which is acceptable to children. In
addition, services like this one might become liable for what their
users say and read on the Internet. Please call Congress now; for
more info URL:http://www.vtw.org/ or send mail to files@vtw.org with
"send alert" in the subject line. (12/4/95)
If you have a Web page that gets a lot of traffic, please add the
following link:
<a href="http://www.vtw.org/">
Stop Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL) from dumbing down online speech!
(12/4/95)</a>
4. This is a very tense week. A very very bad bill could be passed.
________________________________________________________________________
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY
We are near the end of this year's campaign. Each chamber of Congress
has passed several different bills, all aimed at regulating your
communications on the Internet. They range from proposals that
criminalize "indecency" and make service providers liable for the
statements of their users (such as Sen. Exon's and Rep. Hyde's, put
forth by the Christian Coalition), to proposals that encourage parental
control and attempt to draft very narrow criminal statutes for those
that provide "harmful" material to minors. (such as Rep. White's)
You can see a synopsis of each of these in VTW's BillWatch #26 at
URL:http://www.vtw.org/billwatch/issue.26.html
The conference committee is voting this week on which proposal to adopt.
________________________________________________________________________
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 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 * 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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