EFFector       Vol. 11, No. 9       June 15, 1998       [email protected]
  A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation     ISSN 1062-9424

 IN THIS ISSUE

    * EFF URGES INTERNET USERS TO JOIN A NEW BLUE RIBBON CAMPAIGN TO
      OPPOSE CURRENT ATTEMPTS TO CENSOR THE NET
        1. Placing the Blue Ribbon on Your Site
        2. The Struggle Isn't Over Yet
        3. About the Electronic Frontier Foundation
    * ADMINISTRIVIA

  See http://www.eff.org for more information on EFF activities &
  alerts!
    _________________________________________________________________

EFF URGES INTERNET USERS TO JOIN A NEW BLUE RIBBON CAMPAIGN TO OPPOSE CURRENT
ATTEMPTS TO CENSOR THE NET

  Please distribute widely to appropriate forums

  June 15, 1998

  The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is re-launching its Blue
  Ribbon Campaign for Online Freedom of Expression today (June 15, 1998)
  in opposition to renewed Congressional attempts to impose censorship
  controls on the Internet in the U.S. The original campaign, launched
  in conjunction with the related "Turn the Web Black" anti-censorship
  protest in 1995, raised awareness of and opposition to the
  Communications Decency Act (CDA), which was eventually ruled
  unconstitutional by a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision one year
  ago this month.

  All Web users are strongly encouraged to place a Blue Ribbon Campaign
  icon on their servers and Web pages.

    _________________________________________________________________

 Placing the Blue Ribbon on Your Site

  Beginning with the original Blue Ribbon Campaign against the CDA,
  hundreds of thousands of World Wide Web sites all over the world have
  chosen to display the Blue Ribbon on their pages and link to EFF Web
  pages containing information about censorship legislation and free
  speech on the Internet. The Blue Ribbon page became the fourth
  most-linked-to site on the Internet and has been accessed millions of
  times - peaking at over a million hits per day when President Clinton
  signed the ill-fated CDA into law. There are at least 170,000 sites
  that carry the Blue Ribbon today.

  The new Blue Ribbon Campaign will link directly to a Congressional
  action site to encourage Internet users to contact their legislators
  to defend their free speech rights on the Internet. This site is
  currently sponsored by EFF in conjunction with the American Civil
  Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Privacy Information Center
  (EPIC) and provides users the ability to send their legislators a FAX
  or e-mail opposing the two bills.

  All Web users are strongly encouraged to place a Blue Ribbon Campaign
  icon (below) on their servers and Web pages. Just copy and paste this
  text into your HTML Web page where you want the Blue Ribbon icon to
  appear:

  <BR><DIV ALIGN="CENTER"><A HREF="http://www.eff.org/blueribbon.html"><IMG
  SRC="http://br.eff.org/br.gif" ALT="[Blue Ribbon Campaign icon]"
  HEIGHT="76" WIDTH="112" BORDER="0" ALIGN="MIDDLE"><BR>
  Join the Blue Ribbon Online Free Speech Campaign!</A></DIV><BR>


  NOTE: If your site has traffic topping 30,000 hits a day, we request
  that you copy the Blue Ribbon icon to your server and link to it
  locally. The EFF server will not be able to handle that amount of
  extra traffic from multiple sites. The typical participant will want
  to link to our copy, which automatically changes to an "ALERT!"
  version during times of danger to online free speech.

  Non-U.S. Activists: You may wish to seek out others in your area to
  form a (formal or informal) group to track censorship legislation,
  Internet regulation, and Net-related free speech legal cases in your
  jurisdiction. We will be happy to link to new Blue Ribbon pages in
  other parts of the world. We are also aware that in some areas the
  blue ribbon symbol may stand for other causes already; in such places,
  an alternate symbol will be needed (perhaps a blue torch?).

    _________________________________________________________________

 The Struggle Isn't Over Yet

  Though the Communications Decency Act (CDA) was unanimously struck
  down by a strongly pro-freedom US Supreme Court decision (Reno v.
  ACLU) in 1997, US Senator Dan Coats (R-IN) has advanced a new unnamed
  "Son of CDA" Internet censorship bill, S. 1492. The bill would
  constitute a ban on web posting of material deemed "harmful to
  minors." This censorship bill would make it a crime to have the
  content of the average bookstore or library available from a web site!

  Additionally, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is pushing another "sequel" to
  the CDA. His "Internet School Filtering Act," S. 1619, would force
  federally funded libraries (and schools) to use software filters to
  censor adult and child access on their Internet connections in the
  name of "protecting children from pornography." Such filtering
  software does not actually perform as advertised. Not only is such
  software physically incapable of blocking material that fits a
  particular legal definition such as "obscene," but it has also been
  demonstrated to block numerous sites with no "obscene" or "indecent"
  content whatsoever, including a wealth of material that is perfectly
  suitable for children.

  Action on both bills appeared to be waning, since both were considered
  "too controversial" to make it onto the Senate's "Tech Week" fast
  track bill consideration and passage schedule in mid-May. This means
  our activism is paying off. However, both bills are expected to arise
  for legislative debate and vote before Congress in the next three
  weeks, so this is no time for complacency. All Senators need to
  receive even more constituent letters and faxes opposing these bills,
  or they might well pass at the last minute.

  More information on the bills is available on the EFF Web site. See
  http://www.eff.org/pub/Censorship/Internet_censorship_bills/1998_bills/

 About the Electronic Frontier Foundation

  The Electronic Frontier Foundation is one of the leading civil
  liberties organizations devoted to ensuring that the Internet remains
  the world's first truly global vehicle for free speech, and that the
  privacy and security of all on-line communication is preserved.
  Founded in 1990 as a nonprofit, public interest organization, EFF is
  based in San Francisco, California. EFF maintains an extensive archive
  of information on encryption policy, privacy, and free speech at
  http://www.eff.org .

    _________________________________________________________________

ADMINISTRIVIA

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