1.24.2004
www.epic.org/free_speech/CDA/cda.html
www.epic.org/free_speech/CDA/cda.html
1996 brought a number of crucial changes on the Internet. The backbone was privatized, more and more access providers began to police the use of the lines and servers they leased to their customers, and Congress created the Communications Decency Act, also cited as the Telecommunications Act of 1996, to censor obscenity and violence on screen media, including the Internet.
The case brought netizens to the barricades; it seemed to question everything the Internet had come to stand for. The CDA was enacted by the U.S. Congress on February 1, 1996, but struck down by the US Supreme Court who declared it unconstitutional on June 26, 1997; it was considered a violation of the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech. As Judge Stewart Dalzell warned: "Any content-based regulation of the Internet, no matter how benign the purpose, could burn the global village to roast the pig."
In discussing the stucture of the Internet between legal code and Unix code, consider the positions of John Perry Barlow, David Bennahum, and Brian Carpenter.
The case brought netizens to the barricades; it seemed to question everything the Internet had come to stand for. The CDA was enacted by the U.S. Congress on February 1, 1996, but struck down by the US Supreme Court who declared it unconstitutional on June 26, 1997; it was considered a violation of the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech. As Judge Stewart Dalzell warned: "Any content-based regulation of the Internet, no matter how benign the purpose, could burn the global village to roast the pig."
In discussing the stucture of the Internet between legal code and Unix code, consider the positions of John Perry Barlow, David Bennahum, and Brian Carpenter.
