> On Mon, 19 Jun 1995 20:12:58 +0200, Eric Thomas wrote:
> >Let me put it this way. If this act passes, the Internet as we know it,
> >and AOL, CompuServe and others, are dead.
>
> Probably not. In the first place, even the current conservative Supreme
> Court is likely to rule it unConstitutional. And even if it gets by the
> Court, how does it survive the fact that other than Justice Stewart's "I
> know it when I see it" no one has succeeded in defining obscene. Beyond
> that, see below...
I agree with this, and want to go a little further (if I may, Eric) :->
"IMMINENT DEATH OF THE NET PREDICTED" is an easy trap to fall into.
No law can kill a network that goes beyond people.
Examples:
Over the past four or five millenia, a few dozen basic
religions and thousands upon thousands of variations
on these religions have sprung up. And as quickly as
religions spring up, "public opinion" or law people
will quell, or outright attempt to destroy these religions.
The Crusades, an entirely misguided effort to "convert"
Jews, Muslims, Witches and others (an utter disaster of
a thankfully rare magnitude), seemed to destroy all
traces of Judaism, Witchcraft, and to a lesser degree,
Muslims.
But it didn't.
An equivalent to the computer networks of the Internet
would be as if police went into each of our homes, and
our businesses, our schools and took away our computers,
kicked in the monitors, jumped up and down on the keyboards,
spilled acid on the keyboards, stuck our fingers in acid so
that we couldn't type, burned out our eyes so that we could
not see a monitor even if we found one, and killed every
system manager, every programmer, every computer
manufacturer, and tortured any little boy or little
girl who possessed anything remotely related to
a terminal, or who had even an inkling of Internet knowledge.
Would this kill the Internet?
No.
Would shutting down electricity kill the Internet?
No.
People, when believing in something strongly enough,
have an amazing resiliancy. Batteries can be bought or
made - they wouldn't even need computers... Terminals
can be made out of pins, ink, paper, and a keyboard
(a la DECterminals). Devices to hook one computer
to another can be divised with wire, first in short
distances, then in long distances - and air waves
cannot be stopped or blocked very well at this point
in technology. Wires can be hidden even from police
diggers, much as the Underground Railroad in the USA
(1840' --> 1860's) moved slaves - people! - from one
part of the USA to another!
So on a lesser note:
Will the Internet as we know it change? Perhaps. But look what
the ratings system in the USA for movies has done to movies. Before
the rating system, there was sex and violence - and some of it pretty
darned nasty. But since the ratings system gained popularity from the
late 1960's until it's dominance over the movie industry today, the
movies have become more graphic than every -
*because now there is an excuse*.
Perhaps it's good that the Internet is evolving. There might just
be too many kids on this playground (all of us) for no parents or
monitors to make sure people don't get hurt (the laws).
I haven't formed an opinion about it all yet. I'd like to see things
stay as they are, and I suspect that this bill will get struck down. Even
if it passes, implimenting law is FAR FAR FAR more difficult than is
passing a law.
So even if things change, they won't change much - outside of seeing
the Internet in a different light than we did before.
--
Kenneth Udut [log in to unmask]
LISTOWNER of [log in to unmask] - Call to Ministry [in-any-system]
LISTOWNER of [log in to unmask] - Rights of Children/Teenagers
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