RE: FREE SPEECH & SOFTWARE
RE: FREE SPEECH & SOFTWARE
Sent: 6/13/96; 2:44:15 PM
From: Newmedia@aol.com
There never was any serious threat to civil-liberties in the CDA. It was a total set up.
Two liberal Democrats who hate the Christian Coalition and the Radical Right -- Pat Schroeder and John Conyers -- were the ones who made this crazy thing law. They switched their votes at the last minute to move the most clearly unconstitutional language out of telecom bill conference committee so that the courts could do exactly what they just did. In committee the CDA passed 18-17 with them -- without them it would have lost 19-16.
They got together and decided to pass the most outrageous thing possible in order to get it into the courts *and* in order to embarass the Republicans in an election year. Particularly important is the "Silicon Valley" vote which Clinton has been pissing off with his veto of the frivilous lawsuit bill. This is pure politics. And, the Net is being played like a violin.
Gore declared the CDA unconstitutional on the day Clinton signed the telecom bill. The Justice Department didn't really try to defend it. The run up to the Supreme Court is an attempt to establish constitutional guidelines -- before the yahoos in Congress can do any damage. The U.S. government didn't try to censor -- the yahoos did. And, the government (at least the current ruling party) outmanuvered them and defeated the bill in the courts -- just as planned.
Why is this so hard to understand?
Mark Stahlman New Media Associates New York City
|
This page was last built on Thu, Jun 13, 1996 at 11:48:26 AM. The messages in this site are responses to DaveNet essays. |