Subject: S.314 RED ALERT THIS MEANS YOU
From: WWW Consultation <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 4 Mar 95 07:02:28 -0800

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    CAMPAIGN TO STOP THE US COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT (S. 314/H.R. 1004)

      PLEASE WIDELY REDISTRIBUTE THIS DOCUMENT WITH THIS BANNER INTACT
		     DO NOT REDISTRIBUTE AFTER MAY 1, 1995
				Feb. 22, 1995
             [updated Mar. 3 to include House version's bill number]

      Distributed by the Voters Telecommunications Watch ([email-masked])
          and the Electronic Frontier Foundation ([email-masked])
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[In order to use the net more effectively, the following organizations have
 joined forces on a single Congressional net campaign to stop the
 Communications Decency Act, S. 314 & H.R. 1004 (in alphabetical order):

	the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU),
	the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT),
	the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF),
	the Electronic Frontier Foundation-Austin (EFF-Austin),
	(Note that EFF-Austin is not a chapter of the DC-based EFF)
	the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC),
	the Hands Off! the Net petition drive,
	the People for the American Way (PFAW),
	the Society for Electronic Access (SEA), and
	the Voters Telecommunications Watch (VTW)

 These organizations are using the Voters Telecommunications Watch (VTW)
 as a conduit for legislative feedback.  When you contact Congress about the
 Communications Decency Act and send your feedback to [email-masked], that
 information is being fed back to all participating organizations.

 If your organization would like to signon to this campaign and receive
 legislative feedback, contact [email-masked].

 -Shabbir]

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CONTENTS
	Introduction
	What you can do
	Contact Information
	Background
	Current status of S. 314
	Where can I learn more about the bill? (URL included)
	Where will I learn about updates to this alert?
	Current list of participating organizations

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INTRODUCTION

Dear Net Citizens:

Legislation has been introduced before the Senate which would severely
restrict your freedom of speech, halt the free flow of information on
the net, and require all telecommunications carriers to censor your
public and private communications.

The "Communications Decency Act of 1995" (S. 314), introduced in early
February by Senators Exon (D-NE) and Gorton (R-WA), would place
substantial criminal liability on telecommunications carriers (including
traditional telephone networks, Internet service providers, commercial
online services such as America Online and Compuserve, and independent
BBS's) whenever their networks are used to transmit any material
which is deemed indecent or harassing.  In order to avoid these penalties,
carriers would be forced to restrict the activities of their subscribers
and censor all public and private communications.

We must act quickly to stop the progress of S. 314.  The bill may soon
be incorporated into Senate telecommunications reform legislation, which
is currently being drafted by the Senate Commerce Committee.  The
telecommunications reform bill may be introduced as early as mid March,
and is expected to be considered on a fast track.  If S. 314 is included
in this bill, it will be extremely difficult to change or remove and
could pass quickly.

We are asking you to join us in urging key members of the Senate to
prevent S. 314 from being included in Senate telecommunications reform
measures and to hold open, public hearings on the issue.

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WHAT YOU CAN DO (IN ONLY FIVE MINUTES)

1. Contact Sen. Larry Pressler (R-SD, Commerce Committee Chairman),
   Sen. Bob Packwood (R-OR) and Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-SC, ranking
   member) and urge them to keep S.314 from being incorporated into
   telecommunications reform legislation.  You'll find their addresses,
   phone numbers, and fax numbers below.

   Also, if you live in:

	AK AZ HI KY LA MA ME MO MS MT ND NE NV OR SC SD TX WA WV

   you should also contact your own Senator from the Commerce committee.
   Remember, the best and most effective means of influencing a member of
   Congress is to write a letter in your own words.

2. Write/Fax/Email them a letter or make a phone call.  Try to mention
   as as many of the points below (marked with a *) as you can fit
   politely into communication.

3. DON'T FORGET TO DROP A NOTE TO [email-masked] to tell us who you contacted.
   We'll tally the results and feed them back to all participating
   organizations.  It's crucial we have this feedback, even if you just
   got a form letter, or a "thank you" to your phone call.

4. Feel good about yourself.  You've just participated in democracy
   without leaving your seat.

5. (Extra bonus activism) Reproduce this alert with the expiration date
   and contact information intact to other non-Usenet places.  Fax it
   to your friends, post a copy to your local bulletin board.  Please don't
   spam it to places like rec.pets.cats, but place it in places where people
   who don't read a lot of Usenet might see it.  Non-net connected BBSs are
   great, as are physical bulletin boards.  Please don't post it to email
   lists or newsgroups not related to politics, as this will annoy people.

   Most especially, try to reach people in the larger online services,
   such as America OnLine and Compuserve and the large PC networks, such
   as Fidonet.

When writing a letter or making a phone call, try to include the following
points in your message:

*       S. 314 must not be incorporated into the Senate telecommunications
        reform bill.

*       The bill would force communications service providers to limit or
        remove my access to file archives, discussion forums, and
        electronic mail.

*       S. 314 would dramatically restrict the free flow of information
        through out the online world and limit the free speech and privacy
        rights of individual users.

*       Placing criminal liability on communications service providers
        will force providers to censor the activities of their
        subscribers.

*       As a user of interactive communications technologies, I am capable
        of deciding for myself and for my children what content I wish to
        receive.  The government should not be involved in deciding what
        kinds of content I may access.

*       Public hearings must be held to consider possible technological
        means and policy alternatives to government content restrictions
        in interactive media.

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CONTACT INFORMATION

Here are the Commerce committee members.  Please contact Sen. Larry
Pressler (the Committee Chairman) and Sen. Ernest Hollings at a minimum.
If you see your state listed below, contact your own senator as well.

All addresses are Washington, D.C. 20510

      P ST Name and Address           Phone           Fax
      = == ========================   ==============  ==============
      R SD Pressler, Larry            1-202-224-5842  1-202-224-1259*
            243 RSOB                    [email-masked]

	    *Note this is the Commerce Committee's fax number

      D SC Hollings, Ernest F.        1-202-224-6121  1-202-224-4293
            125 RSOB

      R OR Packwood, Robert           1-202-224-5244  1-202-228-3576
            259 RSOB

      D HI Inouye, Daniel K.          1-202-224-3934  1-202-224-6747
            722 HSOB

      R AK Stevens, Ted               1-202-224-3004  1-202-224-1044
            522 HSOB

      D KY Ford, Wendell H.           1-202-224-4343  1-202-224-0046
            173A RSOB                   [email-masked]

      R AZ McCain, John               1-202-224-2235  1-202-228-2862
            111 RSOB

      D NE Exon, J. J.                1-202-224-4224  1-202-224-5213
            528 HSOB

      R MT Burns, Conrad R.           1-202-224-2644  1-202-224-8594
            183 DSOB

      D WV Rockefeller, John D.       1-202-224-6472  1-202-224-1689
            109 HSOB

      R WA Gorton, Slade              1-202-224-3441  1-202-224-9393
            730 HSOB                    [email-masked]

      D MA Kerry, John F.             1-202-224-2742  1-202-224-8525
            421 RSOB

      R MS Lott, Trent                1-202-224-6253  1-202-224-2262
            487 RSOB

      D LA Breaux, John B.            1-202-224-4623  1-202-224-2435
            516 HSOB

      R TX Hutchison, Kay Bailey      1-202-224-5922  1-202-224-0776
            703 HSOB                    [email-masked]

      D NV Bryan, Richard H.          1-202-224-6244  1-202-224-1867
            364 RSOB

      R ME Snowe, Olympia             1-202-224-5344  1-202-224-6853
            176 RSOB

      D ND Dorgan, Byron L.           1-202-224-2551  1-202-224-1193
            713 HSOB

      R MO Ashcroft, John             1-202-224-6154  1-202-224-7615
            170 RSOB

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CURRENT STATUS OF S. 314

The bill was introduced on February 1, 1995 by Senators Exon (D-NE) and
Gorton (R-WA).  It is currently pending before the Senate Commerce
Committee (chaired by Senator Pressler (R-SD)).

No committee action has been scheduled as of February 21, 1995.

It may be included in the Senate telecommunications reform legislation,
expected to be introduced by mid-March.

A House of Representatives version of the bill has also been introduced
with almost identical text, as H.R. 1004.

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BACKGROUND

S. 314 would expand current law restricting indecency and harassment on
telephone services to all telecommunications providers and expand
criminal liability to all content carried by all forms of
telecommunications networks.  The bill would amend Section 223 of the
Communications Act (47 U.S.C. 223), which requires carriers to take
steps to prevent minors from gaining access to indecent audiotext and
criminalizes harassment accomplished over interstate telephone lines.

If enacted, S. 314 would compel service providers to severely restrict
your online activities.  Your access to email, discussion lists, usenet,
the world wide web, gopher, and ftp archives would be substantially
reduced or cut off entirely. The bill would also force providers to
closely monitor and pre-screen your electronic mail, and refuse to
transmit any message or other content which may be considered to be
indecent.

This bill poses a significant threat to freedom of speech and the free
flow of information in cyberspace. The bill also raises fundamental
questions about the right of government to control content on
communications networks, as well as the locus of liability for content
carried in these new communications media.

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WHERE CAN I LEARN MORE ABOUT THE BILL? (URL INCLUDED)

The Voters Telecommunications Watch has set up a gopher page where
you can get a copy of the bill (including analyses by the American
Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the
Electronic Messaging Association, and others).  Here's the URL:

	WWW URL: gopher://gopher.panix.com/11/vtw/exon
	Gopher command : gopher -p 1/vtw/exon gopher.panix.com

If you have difficulty getting to this gopher page, or if you don't
have access to Mosaic/gopher, drop a note to:

	[email-masked]

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WHERE WILL I LEARN ABOUT UPDATES TO THIS ALERT?

We will post updates to this alert in three places:

	-On the account [email-masked] (finger [email-masked])
	-On Usenet (comp.org.eff.talk, comp.org.cpsr.talk, and alt.privacy)
	-Through our announcements mailing list, [email-masked].

	To subscribe, simply send a message to [email-masked] with the
	following in the message body:

		subscribe vtw-announce Firstname Lastname

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CURRENT LIST OF PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS

At this time, the following organizations have signed onto this
campaign and are receiving the legislative feedback that VTW is compiling:

 American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), [email-masked]
 Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), [email-masked]
 Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), [email-masked]
 Electronic Frontier Foundation-Austin (EFF-Austin), [email-masked]
 (Note that EFF-Austin is not a chapter of the DC-based EFF)
 Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), [email-masked]
 Hands Off! the Net petition drive, [email-masked]
 People for the American Way (PFAW), [email-masked]
 Society for Electronic Access (SEA), [email-masked]
 Voters Telecommunications Watch (VTW), [email-masked]
	
Note that the Voters Telecommunications Watch does not speak for these
organizations.  Any opinions contained herein are those of the author,
and not necessarily endorsed by participating organizations.
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