From: “Joseph M. Reagle Jr.” <reagle@MIT.EDU>
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Message Hash: f6d90534ff375c49a574582e1ee8c4eaffad0a421b3bdc6b30eaa025a498e7e0
Message ID: <9606100105.AA23760@rpcp.mit.edu>
Reply To: N/A
UTC Datetime: 1996-06-10 05:06:20 UTC
Raw Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 13:06:20 +0800
From: "Joseph M. Reagle Jr." <reagle@MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 13:06:20 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Gore opposes unwarranted'' Internet censorship
Message-ID: <9606100105.AA23760@rpcp.mit.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
Sounds good but I had to laugh when I heard it... is he at odds with
other members of the administration, or is this rhetoric?
> CAMBRIDGE, Mass (Reuter) - Vice President Al Gore said
>Friday society should not resort to ``unwarranted censorship''
>on the Internet as an overreaction to protect children from
>objectionable material in cyperspace.
> In a commencement address at the Massachusetts Institute of
>Technology, Gore said government had to assist parents in
>protecting their children from exposure to such material.
> ``But let me also state my clear and unequivocal view that a
>fear of chaos cannot justify unwarranted censorship of free
>speech, whether that speech occurs in newspapers, on the
>broadcast airwaves -- or over the Internet.''
> ``Our best reaction to the speech we loathe is to speak out,
>to reject, to respond, even with emotion and fervor, but to
>censor -- no. That has not been our way for 200 years, and it
>must not become our way now,'' he said.
> In February, President Clinton signed the Communications
>Decency Act, which bans making indecent material available to
>minors over computer networks.
> The American Civil Liberties Union and the American Library
>Association have filed suit in a Philadelphia court challenging
>the law as unconstitutional, saying it would stifle a broad
>range of speech.
> In his address at the MIT, Gore stressed the gulf separating
>society and science, a theme students had suggested in e-mail
>messages to the vice president. He said new technologies
>initially break down stable patterns and ``then new ones emerge
>at a higher degree of complexity.
> ``Societies are vulnerable to misinterpreting the first
>stage as a descent into chaos and then overreacting with the
>imposition of a rigid, stagnating order,'' Gore told the 2,000
>graduates in an outdoor ceremony.
>
>
>
_______________________
Regards, Real generosity toward the future lies in giving
all to the present. - Albert Camus
Joseph Reagle http://farnsworth.mit.edu/~reagle/home.html
reagle@mit.edu E0 D5 B2 05 B6 12 DA 65 BE 4D E3 C1 6A 66 25 4E
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