Sign it and be damned!
The Telecommunications Decency Act is approaching the legislative no-man's land of passing both Houses, and will shortly await the President's signature. The mainstream media has all but ignored it in recent weeks, focusing instead on the Budget "crisis" farce. (Which strikes us as like two bald men fighting over a comb.....)
During its passage, the Act underwent some minor semantic modifications, but its essence remains intact.
The Act's intent is to protect young people from material which is "obscene". The Act's sponsors are operating from a position of the highest moral integrity. It is a position with which no mature, responsible adult could disagree. No "child" should be exposed to "obscenity". We agree. No Bosnian child should be exposed to the "obscenity" of war. No Somalian child should be exposed to the "obscenity" of malnutrition. No American child should be exposed to the "obscenity" of homelessness.
Under English law, the test for "obscenity" is "material with a tendency to deprave and corrupt" (my emphasis).
In the absence of a relatively clear definition - which is still open to endless legal and semantic argument - in the USA we are left with the murky "community standards" test. In the context of the Web, such a notion is absurd in the extreme. Which "community"? Whose "standards"? Of course, the arguments against the passage of the Act have been rehearsed and elegantly rehashed endlessly. To little effect.
The fact of the matter is that only one step will be required to make this wrong-headed attempt at regulation a legal fact. And that is the President's signature.
To those of us who believe in unfettered freedom of speech - be it 'obscene', 'subversive', 'racist' or simply vulgar - our natural reaction is to exhort the President to use his power of veto.This is the wrong strategy. Vetoing the Act would put the President in a politically untenable position. Rabid Republicans would be yapping at his heels like a pack of blood-crazed rottweilers. Right of center Democrats likewise (remember, Senator Exon is a Democrat). The left would hail it as a victory, but a modified Act would force (sic) the President to compromise - something to which he is no stranger.
Clinton aims to be a two-term President. The country will give him a second term, because (to borrow a phrase from Margaret Thatcher) "there is no alternative". He will weather the next two years, and in 1998, the mid-term elections will register a swing back toward the center.
In the meantime, the Act presents the administration with a dilemma. Pass it and be damned. Veto it and be damned.
In the long term, I believe it is the best interests of free-speech advocates and politically sophisticated progressives to encourage the President to sign the Act. This would put the tests for free speech and "community standards" within the purview of the courts - where they belong.
A Modest Proposal
I propose to write to the President to request him to sign the Act into law. I urge you to do the same.
I shall dedicate a portion of my site to some erotica, or some sexually graphic material. I urge you to, too.
When the Act becomes law, I shall call the District Attorney's office and ask him to inspect the material. I shall lay myself open to prosecution under the terms of the Act. I urge you all to do likewise.
The courts will be jammed. The ensuing publicity will expose, in no uncertain terms, not only the absurdity, but the fundamentally repressive nature of the Act.
This will take about two years to work through. A newly-elected House and Senate will repeal the Act as one of its first pieces of legislative action.
We will have won.
And I'll even go first.
January 1996
copyright 1996 FeNiX
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