Yes, a somewhat inflammatory title, but in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a clique of elected officials who feel Americans can't be trusted with freedom are making every effort to strip away the protections of the Bill of Rights. Attorney General John Ashcroft, Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, Representative Lamar Smith of Texas and others are all tripping over themselves in a mad rush to prove themselves tough on terrorists by ripping away rights guaranteed to us by the Constitution. Right now, literally dozens of bills designed to do exactly that are making their way through Congress -- bills which expand intolerably the ability of intelligence agencies to surveill law-abiding citizens, to tap their phones, to read their email and track their web usage. Bills which strip away due process, allow the use of illegally-acquired evidence and even explicitly prevent judicial oversight of intelligence agency decisions. Of course, all this is in "the best interest of the country", they assure us.

Do not trust them.

At a time of national tragedy, when the attention of the people is drawn away from Washington, it is sinfully easy for bad laws to be enacted under the claim that they will "improve" the situation. If this is improvement, I don't want it! They may well make it easier to track and apprehend the despicable beasts who perpetrated this criminal attack on our nation, but when that is over and done with, those laws will still remain, and they will be turned on us -- for no good reason except that the agencies and bodies so empowered will want to keep using that power. And with that use will come the loss of our freedoms and rights. Do not let it happen! As Benjamin Franklin said,

A man who gives up some of his liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety.

The world is not a safe place. And handing over all our rights to the government in the name of "protecting ourselves" will not make us safer in the long run -- it will only make us slaves to a suspicious, all-powerful state who will treat everyone within its borders as a potential criminal.

We've been a free people for far too long to let that happen out of simple fear.

On June 26, 1997, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 7-2 that the Communications Decency Act is unconstitutional, with even the dissenting justices agreeing that it had some serious First Amendment problems.

I haven't had a chance to get my hands on a copy of the decision yet, but when I do, I will go through it and extract choice bits, as I did with the decision made on June 12, 1996 by the federal judges in Philadelphia; In particular, the choice quotes from Judge Stewart Dalzell:

"The Government may well be right that sexually explicit content is just a few clicks of a mouse away from the user, but there is an immense legal significance to those few clicks."

"Our Findings of fact -- many of them undisputed -- express our understanding of the Internet. These Findings lead to the conclusion that Congress may not regulate indecency on the Internet at all."

"Cutting through the acronyms and argot that littered the hearing testimony, the Internet may fairly be regarded as a never-ending worldwide conversation. The Government may not, through the CDA, interrupt that conversation. As the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed, the Internet deserves the highest protection from governmental intrusion."

I still say, people, that this doesn't mean we've won the war. There will still be Luddites and censors, and they will try again. So use the links below and above, and on my Links Out page, to connect to and support the cyberrights group of your choice.

And now, back to our regularly-scheduled civil disobedience.

While the CDA is dead, thanks to the Supreme Court, there are sill those who will try to muzzle us, under the guise of supressing "Indecency". So, in the spirit of public protest and civil disobedience, I continue to offer the following -- a brief story of lewdness and indeceny, featuring non-consensual parent-child incest, as an example of the kind of material that should be violently and permanently suppressed by all right-thinking people everywhere:

And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar; and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters. And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth; Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. And they made their father drink wine that night; and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said to the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father; let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. And they made their father drink wine that night also; and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father. -- Genesis 19:30-36 (KJV)

For more licentious, indecent material, see the Holy Bible: Genesis 19:8 (a father offering his virgin daughters to a mob for gang rape) and The Song of Solomon (erotic poetry, including possibly homoerotic passages), among other sections.

For information on what you can do to help fight Net censorship, check out these web pages:

• The Blue Ribbon Campaign
  
• Center for Democracy and Technology
  
• The Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility's Home Page
  
• Cyber Rights Library
  
• Electronic Frontier Foundation Action Alerts
  
• Electronic Privacy Information Center
  
• Voters Telecommunications Watch
  
• Peacefire

At the very least, send disapproving (but polite!) email to the President.

   

Remember: "When you can't say 'fuck,' you can't say 'Fuck the government.'" -- Lenny Bruce

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