Subject: Re: House Passes Telecom Conference Report From: xerxes@clark.net (xerxes) Date: Fri, 9 Feb 1996 17:01:45 -0500 (EST)

Nonsense Chris:

There has been a great deal of scare-mongering going on as regards how the
new act might be administered.  All kinds of folks have implied, without
direct evidence to support them, that all manner of literary or educational
sites will be declared in violation.  This is grotesque hyperbole.  No one
is going to administer the law in such a way that there would be hundreds
of thousands of prosecutions, and that should be obvious.  MOST ONLINE NEWS
PARTICIPANTS ARE PROBABLY SAFE.   This is not a reach, or an exaggeration,
or an excuse, or a dodge...it is just a statement of probable courses of
action.  The future will prove it right or wrong.  The list has 1400 known
readers....lets see how many find themselves under indictment.

And while you are criticizing our amendments to the FCC act, how do you
explain the official secrets act?  Many US citizens might find that act to
be "oppressive", whereas a measure to reduce prurient content is not.  One
man's ceiling is another man's floor; one culture's "oppressive" is
another's decency.

The only people in danger of immediate prosecution would be egregious
violators....what does this mean? Go look at the alt.binaries for a clue.


At 9:29 AM 2/9/96, Christian Darkin wrote:
>In your message dated Tuesday 6, February 1996 you wrote :
>> On Tue, 6 Feb 1996, Chip Bayers wrote:
>>
>> To say that most online-news folks are "pretty safe"
>> because they are small potatoes or because their speech is "everyday" is not
>> reassuring at all.
>>
>
>Too right.  Surely, nobody can argue that it's OK to pass oppressive laws as
>long as you promise you're not going to misuse them.

Many people have argued, are arguing, and will contnue to argue that
oppressive laws were not passed.  Do you recall the margin of these laws
passage in the legislative bodies?  They were overwhelmingly supported.  It
does not mean that everyone agrees with ever aspect of the new amendments,
it just means that "oppressive" is  an axe grinding apellation, overly
glib, highly simplistic, distortion of the measures' means, motives, their
antecedents, and their prospects for implementation in  a manner acceptable
to the majority of the electorate.

Let's just observe how the judiciary deals with the issues, shall we?  The
gears of justice are turning....their final disposition, still unknown.






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