Censorship in Cyberspace

by James M. Ennes, Jr.

A great strength of the Internet, and in the minds of some the greatest danger, is its almost total freedom from censorship. Anyone in the world with access to a computer and a telephone line can publish information, opinions or even pictures, video, sound clips or music, no matter how abhorrent that material may be to some viewers.

One person can publish news reports in a form that can be seen almost instantly by millions. If Binyamin Netanyahu bulldozes an Arab home or if his troops shoot unarmed protestors, the sound and pictures can be on the Wide World Web within minutes. Examples can be found at http://www.birzeit.edu

If Secretary of State Dean Rusk says that the attack on the USS Liberty was no accident, those words in his own voice can be on the Web for anyone to hear. These can be found at http://www.ussliberty.org/jim/ussliberty/ . Dissemination of news no longer depends upon a publisher willing to risk the wrath of the Anti-Defamation League or a myriad of other would-be censors and thought police.

Inherent in the new freedoms, however, are some obvious risks. Bigots, hate groups and Larry Flynt’s Hustler magazine enjoy exactly the same access to the Internet as do the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, the USS Liberty Association and Birzeit University. And there’s the rub. To keep the bigots and pornographers under control, more and more well-meaning people will be manipulated into calling for a gag on everything that does not meet current definitions of political correctness.

Among those already seeking to control speech on the Internet are, for instance, the Simon Weisenthal Center. That group has campaigned to block what it calls “hate speech” on the Internet. Exactly what is “hate speech”? Some argue that opposition to the release of Jonathan Pollard or reports of civil rights abuses in Palestine are “hate speech.” Where does a free society draw this line?

The Communications Decency Act

Unfortunately, would-be censors include our own elected government.

The fear of unwelcome opinions and especially of pornography brought pressure on the Congress early last year to create the “Communications Decency Act” (CDA) as an addition to the then-pending telecommunications deregulation bill. While proponents portray the new law as a simple way to keep kids from seeing pornography, in fact it is much broader and much more dangerous than that.

The CDA goes far beyond simply banning pornographic images. The new law makes it illegal for anyone to “depict or describe” anything “indecent” anywhere on the Internet. Violators risked up to $200,000 in fines and two years in prison. The penalties could be imposed for such simple offenses as using “dirty words” in e-mail or newsgroup postings.

The law makes no exceptions for “redeeming social value” or for literary, scientific, artistic or political merit. Curse in your e-mail and go to jail. Quote from parts of Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye or a “safe sex” pamphlet and risk fine or imprisonment. Internet discussion of birth control, abortion or AIDS could suddenly be criminal.

While the law might well shackle Americans, the drafters seemed unaware that the Internet is an international phenomenon. Congress might cause Americans to be jailed for using four-letter words in cyberspace, but the new law would have absolutely no effect upon users outside the United States. Nor would it have any effect on what material entered the U.S. from abroad. If the goal was to protect children, as the drafters claimed, this objective was missed completely.

Worse, the CDA outlawed language and pictures on the Internet that are perfectly permissible in books, magazines or motion pictures. It made the local community the judge of what was permissible so that any small-town prosecutor could bring charges against material that was quite acceptable elsewhere.

Prosecutions were not necessarily limited to whomever created the offending material. The company providing the Internet service could also be prosecuted for “allowing” the material to be published, a stretch of logic akin to prosecuting the phone company for profanity uttered by one of its subscribers. All this was in the interest of “protecting children.”

While the CDA’s efforts at censorship do not protect children as intended, other less dangerous measures are available to do that job with less assault on our freedoms. For instance, several vendors sell or give away software that automatically blocks access to adult-oriented Web sites, and some browsers offer parents the option of blocking explicit material. These options were available well before the CDA became law, but they did not deter those who appointed themselves protectors of the public morality. The law passed, and President Clinton promptly signed it.

Enter the ACLU

Immediately upon passage of the CDA, the American Civil Liberties Union, joined by a broad spectrum of individuals and groups, challenged the new law in federal court in Philadelphia.

“By imposing a censorship scheme unprecedented in any medium, the CDA would threaten…the never-ending world-wide conversation on the Internet,” an ACLU attorney argued.

The three-judge panel found 409 separate findings of fact in support of the ACLU’s argument that the CDA was unconstitutional.

In so doing, the court agreed that the CDA would have a chilling effect on free speech on the Internet and found that the CDA is “unconstitutionally vague” and raises “serious, substantial, difficult and doubtful questions.”

One judge wrote: “Just as the strength of the Internet is chaos, so the strength of our liberty depends upon the chaos and cacophony of the unfettered speech the First Amendment protects.

“It is no exaggeration to conclude that the Internet has achieved, and continues to achieve, the most participatory marketplace of mass speech that this country—and indeed the world—has yet seen....Indeed, the government’s asserted “failure” of the Internet rests on the implicit premise that too much speech occurs.... This argument is profoundly repugnant to First Amendment principles.”

U.S. Appeal to the Supreme Court

The Justice Department, seeking to reinstate the restrictive provisions of the CDA, has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Written briefs were filed Feb. 20. The ACLU, opposing the CDA, was joined by the National Association of Broadcasters, the American Library Association, and seven other major organizations. More than 500 pages in opposition to the CDA were filed.

Oral arguments scheduled for March 19 are to be followed by a decision in the fall. The decision will have profound implications for the future of the Internet.

On-line Discussion

To join an online discussion about the CDA, send e-mail to listproc@willamette.edu with “SUB CDA96-L” followed by your name in the text.

For the latest about the legal challenge to the CDA, visit the Electronic Frontier Foundation at http://www.eff.org.

The Changing Face of Cyberspace

For links to dozens of human rights, anti-discrimination and freedom of expression sites, visit The University of Nottingham Student Human Rights Law Centre Web site at http://www.ccc.nottingham.ac.uk/~llzweb/hrlc/hrnews/links.htm.

To learn which groups the Simon Weisenthal Center considers in need of watching, visit their Cyber Watch Survey at http://www.wiesenthal.com/watch/wpers.htm.

The Human Rights Action Project at Birzeit University has opened a new site at http://www.birzeit.edu/aff dedicated to the Academic Freedom First Campaign (AFFC). The site includes a “portrait gallery” which allows cybervisitors to meet some Gaza students and read their stories.

From within the AFFC site visitors may send e-mail to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and other Israeli government offices or may join a petition drive being run by the Cambridge University Palestinian Society Committee at http://www.birzeit.edu/aff/cpsp.html .

The very extensive Fertile Crescent Web Site with its great wealth of Middle East links and information has moved to http://leb.net/fchp/.

The “know your enemy” category includes two Web sites committed to the release from prison of Jonathan Pollard: http://www.interlog.com/~abrooke/pollard.htm and http://shamash.org/lists/jpollard/pollard.htm.

A new service at http://www.backweb.com will send free files and information from a number of sources. Among them are The Wall Street Journal, customized weather reports, updates of the McAfee virus fixer files, and an electronic daily version of the Jerusalem Post.

The Iranian-backed Hezbollah’s Islamic Resistance Aid Committee has invited cyber travelers to chat with them via e-mail addressed to mogawama@cyberia.net.lb. “Mogawama” means resistance in Arabic.

A new “Virtual Jerusalem” Web site by the Arutz-7 News Service can be found at http://www.virtual.co.il/news/news/arutz7.

The official FBI Web site at http://www.fbi.gov now has a page assigned to “major investigations.” Among those listed is a report on the Alex Odeh assassination, with a reward of up to $1-million for information leading to the killer of the former ADC director for Southern California.

A “Human Rights, Politics, and Women’s Issues” site maintained by one Jupiter Nicole Windgate at http://members.aol.com/jmwindgate/jmwindgate.html claims to be the largest such site in the world.

B’Tselem is an independent human rights organization in Jerusalem at http://www.btselem.org that monitors human rights violations in the occupied territories and serves as a resource center, advocate, and public education vehicle.

Al-Bushra, the Web site for the Arab-American Roman Catholic Community at http://www.al-bushra.org is a creation of the Rev. Labib Kobti from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Jerusalem. This extensive site explores the heritage, history, traditions, theology and current events of the people of the Middle East.