Gore opposes unwarranted'' Internet censorship

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

Excerpts from internet.cypherpunks: 9-Jun-96 Gore opposes unwarranted''
.. by Joseph M. R. Jr.@MIT.EDU 
>         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?

Heh. It's rhetoric, but it's also a sign of the shift in political tides
in DC. Now it's possible for politicos to claim the CDA went a bit too
far -- but they waited for a broad, corporate, mainstream challenge to
the CDA and a negative reaction to the DoJ's arguments from the judges
before they felt comfy taking this position.

Jack Fields, chair of House telecom subcom, made similar mouthings last
month in a speech I reported on in this month's (or was it last month's)
Internet World.

Also check out my f-c dispatch #13 for background on Gore's stand.

-Declan

Joseph M. Reagle Jr. wrote:
> 
> 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?

Good cop, bad cop.

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