AIDS TREATMENT NEWS Issue #237, December 22, 1995
John S. James

The legislation, an amendment to major legislation on telecommunications deregulation, will basically make it a felony to electronically transmit "indecent" material to anyone under 18, or to a computer where someone under 18 could receive it; computer services may be liable for what others place on their systems. The word "indecent" has not been defined by Congress or the courts, so basically it means whatever a prosecutor and jury anywhere in the U.S. want it to mean; convictions can be reversed on appeal, but that usually takes years and thousands of dollars. ("Obscene" IS legally defined, and publication is already forbidden in electronic or any media; and parents can already block other objectionable material with software which is now available for this purpose, or by subscribing to special Internet services for children.)

Well-publicized compromise legislation, reluctantly accepted by some civil libertarians, was first accepted by a Congressional committee, then rejected by a critical 17 to 16 vote on December 6, due to pressure from the Christian Coalition and other right-wing groups; there is almost no chance for a compromise at this time. A White House veto of the telecommunications bill, which also has other serious problems because it would allow further centralization of control of the entire telecommunications industry, is possible but uncertain. If Clinton does not veto the bill, court challenges are already being prepared by the American Civil Liberties Union and others, but it could take many years to reach a final court decision. (Until recently people had not realized there was a problem, because earlier this year the House had voted 420-4 for an alternative approach, favored by civil libertarians, of encouraging private computer services to control objectionable material by removing legal obstacles to their doing so.)

If the current legislation becomes law, it is likely to be enforced selectively but aggressively, as right-wing groups are expected to use it to generate complaints and prosecutions in conservative regions, against persons throughout the country. This may be a new strategy for their movement: developing a grassroots taste for blood which can massively target individuals for prison.

Nothing published in AIDS TREATMENT NEWS is likely to be illegal under the new law (unlike safe-sex information, which probably will be prosecuted). But the law will still affect us directly:

* Our World Wide Web site will be responsible for anything which others place on our system. It will be a serious risk to allow the public to post messages, unless we completely read everything in advance. Otherwise, a few fanatics anywhere in the world could shut us down, by posting well- crafted messages and arranging for complaints in conservative regions of the U.S., with hand-picked prosecutors and judges.

Even a small organization can easily get thousands of visits to its World Wide Web site per month. We do not have the resources to censor everything users might contribute. No software can screen out messages which might be prosecuted under the "indecency" legal standard. We cannot read everything immediately, and even if we could, we would need to know the thinking of all Federal prosecutors throughout the country, while an enemy would only need to know one. Our choice will be to ban public discussion or risk prosecution. If we cannot sponsor a public forum for discussion of AIDS treatments (or of any other subject), much of the potential usefulness of our system will be lost.

In today's moderated newsgroups, every contribution is checked by moderators before being made available to the public. But usually a glance is enough to show if a submission is relevant or not. When online felonies become easy to commit and hard to defend against, thorough reading and checking will be necessary.

* The central power of the World Wide Web is that each Web site can link to others anywhere in the world. Users "click" on a link -- usually a highlighted word or phrase -- and access the remote site just as if the information were on the local computer. The new law may make us responsible for anything appearing on any site we link to, or anything placed on those sites in the future. This will be especially problematic with foreign sites, since they will not be subject to U.S. censorship, and may include material in languages we cannot monitor. Could we avoid criminal liability by not providing foreign links, but giving the addresses in text, which users could type in on their own? No one knows.

* We would normally purchase computer time for our information service, instead of obtaining our own computer and connecting it to the Internet. But computer service companies will be cautious in interpreting the new law. Recently, for example, America Online deleted user profiles containing the word "breast" -- then apologized and restored the profiles, after protests from breast-cancer activists. To avoid living with ever-changing rules and restrictions, with having to repeatedly change our material or see it deleted, we will need our own computer and high-speed communication line -- an unwanted trouble and expense.

* What about restricting our service to persons over 18, so that we could then allow open public discussion of AIDS treatment information? Aside from the ethical problems with such restriction, it would be unworkable for practical reasons. A separate Internet for adults only -- not for sex, but for free discussion of any topic -- would require some central organization to police the restriction. Either a government agency or a private organization would be problematic. Either one could and probably would impose other restrictions as well.

But without a central policing system, each online service's adult audience will be separate and proprietary. AIDS TREATMENT NEWS and other independents will be locked out of all those audiences, unless we can run separate information systems on some of them and accept whatever terms and conditions -- including exclusivity, and content restrictions -- the owners may choose to impose.

Today the Internet is a worldwide commons, the town square of the global village; it is without central control, open to all, allowing anyone to provide information as well as receive it. The new censorship law will make this open commons unworkable, by limiting all communication to that suitable for children -- ultimately replacing the open forum with a closed, adults-only, proprietary commons. Eventually a single mega-corporation may be able to banish from the general meeting place any message, any topic, or any person, for almost any reason, with no appeal.

* AIDS TREATMENT NEWS expects to have to compete with subsidized sites which will provide treatment information, but mainly exist to push company products or political views. We can compete -- but only if people are allowed to choose what they want to read. The current Internet protects competition by offering universal access. If public discussion is forced into closed adult audiences, we will likely be excluded in favor of promotional systems which have the money to buy exclusive access.

* The audience for online communication may be reduced. Will people feel comfortable using a medium for ordinary conversations with friends, when felonies are only a few keystrokes away -- when every word, written in whatever heat of the moment, becomes immortal and may be selected, now or for years into the future, by a prosecutor anywhere in the country to bring criminal charges? Will parents be reluctant to let their children use computer communication, for fear that an angry or careless child could bring legal problems on the family? Industry has gone to great lengths to establish computers as friendly, creative, educational, and fun -- but other images are not far in the background. If computers become seen as Big Brother, a mechanical boss or cop monitoring you, or overcontrolled and uninteresting, people will use them only when required. Computer communication could go out of style even for entertainment and shopping, costing the U.S. a valuable area of industrial leadership.

These are just some of the ways that our newsletter -- like everyone else who uses computer communication -- will be affected by the new legislation, even though our material is innocuous. Open public discussion by computer on any topic will be strongly discouraged, except within proprietary, adult-only audiences. Most people are not paying attention to this issue, because the media has presented it as a question of pornography; those not involved in pornography think it will not affect them. They are mistaken.

What You Can Do Now

During the holiday Congressional recess, call both your Senators, and your Representative (at their local offices in your city or state, not the Washington offices), and urge them to vote against the telecommunications bill, because of the computer-censorship provisions. And get others to call. (The Congressional recess should start in late December -- the exact date is uncertain due to the budget battle -- and end January 22.) Every member of Congress will vote again on this bill; it does not matter what committees they are on.

Background: As we go to press (December 19), the bill is in Conference Committee, to reconcile Senate and House versions; any compromise there on the censorship issue is now unlikely. The Senate and the House both must vote on the final version of the bill, probably in January or February, with no amendments allowed. The bill has other serious problems as well, and could be defeated in one of those votes. If not, we will need to mobilize calls to the White House to urge Clinton to veto it.

No matter what happens, this is a long-term issue which will come back again and again. The current legislation would impede all public discussion on the Internet, on any subject from AIDS treatment to politics to art to religion; it would be especially disastrous for AIDS prevention information, which usually could be prosecuted. We must inform the public about the importance of this issue, and help organize the support for free speech.

For More Information

Because the status of legislation can change daily, the most current information is on the Internet. Dozens of organizations are opposing the computer censorship legislation; good starting points are the Electronic Frontiers Foundation (http://www.eff.org), the American Civil Liberties Union (ftp://ftp.aclu.org/aclu/), WIRED magazine (http://www.hotwired.com/special/indecent/), or Voters Telecommunications Watch (http://www.vtw.org/).

Also, subscribe to the alerts of the Voters Telecommunications Watch. Send a message to listproc@vtw.org, with the following in the message body: subscribe vtw- announce FIRSTNAME LASTNAME (with your name in place of the capitalized words).

If you only have email, send a message to vtw@vtw.org for more information.

If you do not have a computer, you can call the American Civil Liberties Union, 212/944-9800, ext. 414. That is the press office, which can provide further referrals.

[Freelance writer Bruce Mirken helped with research for this article.]

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