So I'm sitting here on the night shift at CERN - the midnight - 8 am
hope that nothing breaks shift and i'm reading through the senate debate
- really kinda weird and twisted.  So I'm just sorta rant and rave and
spew my commentary as I read it since nobody's online to talk to
via zephyr or anything like that.

It's great though, reading Coats's speech (he's the dude that Exon
teamed up with to blindside Leahy) - the word "children" appears every
other line - i almost want to download it and do a word search for
children to find out.  Exon's speech was also pretty good - as many
loaded words as you can imagine everywhere.  Leahy I've got a lot of
respect for - his speech was trying to convey the point of view we tend
to hold to, and it was clear that when he said he used the internet he
meant it because he had at least a fair clue about the ethos (or do I
mean mythos) that we hold dear.  But of course, it's an incomprehensible
ethos to anybdoy who hasn't gone online.

Interesting quote from Exon "Let's make sure that the pornographers are
not the primary beneficiaries of this new technology" (paraphrased -
referring to the internet).  Later, Coats mentions that he isn't
comfortable with technology and can't even program his VCR.  One wonders
if they even realize that VCR's really took off cuz of the pornography
industry (or so I've heard cited many times).  They do have a point
though - no parent's gonna be able to keep up with their kids if
technical solutions are relied upon - how will the parent who's clueless
about the technology even run it appropriately such that the kids can't
override or get around it?  Low probability of that happening when the
kid's the only one who understands it and can just go re-edit the init
file or whatever :).  But I still think that children just don't need as
much protection as the geezers think - it's THEY who can't deal with
such images/issues comfortably and forthrightly - children are much more
flexible and able to deal in general.  *goes back to reading some more*

Sen. Feingold from Wisconsin is up to bat now - taking the chilling
restraint of speech angle, and the constitutional aspect of it (Leahy
went with the straightforward "look it's the parent's job to do this not
the gov't" and also "hey, the internet WORKS!  it's about the only thing
the gov't has done that WORKS cuz it wasn't micromanaged - let's not
screw it up now").  
- second point is indecency and community standards
and how the heck the two correlate on the net...
- third point is the illegalizing of socially useful forums - i.e.
boards discussing medical conditions, sexual abuse support groups, etc.
- 4th point is "different standards for the same material" the "if I
gave you a book with this, it'd be legal, if i scan it, and send it to
you as e-mail, it's not" argument.  
- 5th point - internet's a new media - but we're trying to use old
models to regulate it.   
- 6th point - supreme court has given print media wider reign on the
obscenity/indecency question cuz it's pretty easy to avoid print that
you don't like - and lesser reign to broadcast mediums since there's a
scarcity of bandwidth so you don't have the range of choices.  internet
it's EXTREMELY easy to avoid what you don'tlike - in fact, you have to
actively go search for it in general.  ergo, print should apply at least
- 7th point - supreme court looks for "compelling government interest"
and the "least restrictive means" before allowing restricting speech.
Compelling gov't interest is granted cuz of the children, but not the
least restrictive means in this case.
(feingold has used up his 20 minutes by this point, leahy tosses him
another 5 minutes to finish up).
he includes a wall street journal article about surfwatch into the
record as an example of what's already possible and less restrictive
than the exon bill.  
Goes on to note that hey, obscenity is already prosecutable and has
happened - this is redundant for that purpose and has many bad side
effects to boot.

Ooh baby, Exon comes back to bat and asks that two other senators (byrd
and heflin) get added as original co-sponsors - he also complains that
he's thought about the issues, and that leahy/feingold are spinning his
amendment the wrong way.
Exon lists the organizations he got letters from supporting him.
(nice numbers on these - 1.6 million from the christian coalition alone
beats the hell out of 35,000 from the online petition leahy had)

y'know all of these keep complaining how easy it is for a child to
access this stuff "only a few clicks away".  I really really wish
somebody had felt like pulling a stunt and wheeled in a workstation
hooked up to the internet and said - okay, senator - you do it - right
here - or are you telling me that you're less competent than a child.
make sure to do it while c-span or cnn is watching - insta-press :)  
wouldn'ta worked and prolly not becoming to the standards of congress
but damn it woulda been cool.  I only point this out cuz you have to do
some work to get to these things - as i was telling rose earlier, i went
looking for some just to see how "easy" it was, and spent a few hours
searching the web with no success (course i kept on getting distracted
by more important things but y'knw).  and i'd like to think i'm more
skilled at this stuff than your standard senator so i'd love to see one
of them try it :).

(nother 215,000 supporters via the chamber of commerce of the us)
(somehow trying to argue that the LACK of this bill will have a "broad
and potent disincentive" to small businesses trying to use the internet
since they wouldn't be certain about liabilities whereas the bill takes
the burden off of businesses - clearly poltiical and not written by the
techno-geeks who run their systems :) )

(family research council and national coaliotion for the protection of
children & families also chime in - no number counts there)

also several reports in this debate talking about people being "addicted
to pornography" -i'm reallllly skeptical about this one (one was exon i
think talking about getting kids addicted to pornography at a young and
vulnerbale age)  - i'd be a heck of a lot more worried about kids
getting addicted to alcohol/tobacco/drugs and the like than addicted to
porn geez.

National law center for children and familes gets into the act with a
letter scripted by their lawyer talking about why exon/coats amendment
satisfies the constitutional requirements and is the "least restrictive
means" *cough* and allows "good faith" defenses where providers can say
"well we tried".  It then notes that while some might argue that the
"good faith" defense is a copout and too weak, that without it, it's
definitively unconstitutional (referring to the dial-a-porn decisions).  

Gak this letter is way out of control.  complains that the dial-porn
statues are too weak since the provider isn't guilty of anything until
the user labels his lines as porn - with the exon bill, we can nail the
provider soon as they can be shown to "know" it's obscene.  One wonders
how this would go over with newspapers offering off-color personal ads.

Basically, it's in the rouse up the troops mode - and saying that we've
gotta strike fast, strike hard, strike now etc etc can't wait another
minute.  "The efforts to kill all effective action, such as the
pornography protection and delay the bill of Sen Leahy..." *vomit*

whew - finally through the included letters - it was getting a bit thick
there for a while

Exon starts whining that it's time to act now, that we can't punt on the
issue any longer, the situtation is serious and we have to move forward
now.  Then he whines about being called a barbarian in one of the e-mail
petition requests (as in "With the introduction of Sen. Exon's
Communications Decency Act, the barbarians are really at the gate")

Exon quotes a (what sounds to me like a totally pulled out of one's
butt) statistic that 75 % of home-owners with computers don't want to
join the internet cuz of fears of pornography/obscenity - this sounds to
me like a poll of Christian Coalition types or some other restricted
sample set.  he also claims that the amendment will not chill speech,
it's intended to "make the Internet system...safer better and make it
more frequently used."  *barf*  as if he'd know considering he's never
touched it himself.

*boggle*  Where does he GET this stuff?!
"  I simply say, Mr. President, that those who know what is going on
with the Internet today--those who have seen it firsthand, those who
are concerned about making the Internet the greatest thing that has
ever happened as far as communications exchange is concerned--are the
ones that are supporting the Exon-Coats amendment."  I'd like to find
out who the hell he's talking about cuz most of the people _I_ can think
of who've had anything to do with the internet would disagree.

then he goes back to whining that all 25,000 people who signed the
petition are calling him a barbarian and that they're so selfish that
they don't want to give up anything - damn straight - certainly not when
it's not necessary and certainly not for a goal as useless as this one.

"let me review how the internet works"  then goes on to say that
pornography has infiltrated the internet as a whole such that you don't
have to work to get to ti, it's everywhere.  Gag.  "this is not a time
to punt; this is a time to act"  then goes back to referring lots to his
"blue book" where pictures of all sorts of obscene stuff as examples of
stuff that is "freely" "readily" available on the internet for his
fellow senators.  and dammit, we're gonna do something about it.

leahy jumps back into the fray now of course to respond. leahy starts
pointing out some severe problems with the bill as stated - basically
talking about several cases where actions are criminalized that are
clearly ludicrous (exchanging "one of the seven dirty words" via private
e-mail if one participant decides to get offended, downloading an
obscene file even if you don't know it's obscene, or in fact, even
RECEIVING an obscene file even if it's not solicited or even LOOKED at).
So the only out (by the exon/coats amendment) is to meet "FCC determined
standards" that show you're making a "good effort" to avoid receiving
obscene indecent material.  i.e. you could be forced to go buy gov't
approved software to do so (can we say clipper chip, boys and girls?  I
knew we could).  

ooh low blow - "If this amendment had been the law, when my good
friend from Nebraska collected the materials in his blue notebook, he
would have committed a felony."

(paraphrase) if this goes through, every time we go online, we'll have
to talk like we're in sunday school.in this country, but not with a
government sanction and possible prison sentence when someone uses an
expletive." 

exon points to existing laws to protect children and to prosecute
obscenity.  then explains why he's asking for a study - consulting the
experts and avoiding quick fixes before examining the consequences.  

heh, the bonhomie can be cut with a knife as the senators keep referring
to each other as "my good friend from Nebraska" (leahy referring to
exon)

What's this?  is this good news I hadn't heard of?
"  I note that the House Commerce Committee adopted basically the Leahy
study in its markup of the House telecommunications legislation. This
was Republicans and Democrats, across the political spectrum, trying to
find the best way to handle this. They did what I have recommended
here."

Leahy cites a Dept of Justice letter stating that it'd criminalize
indecent speech between consenting adults, that a study is needed, and
that ironically, the exon amendment might provide MORE cover to porn
distributors than they have now with its exceptions.  Wow - letter's
included and it's doing a total slam job on exon's wording -
(paraphrased) we've ALREADY prosecuted cases - this could cut our legs
out from under us, by trying to make it constitutional, you're giving
them loopholes to hide from us.  we've already GOT laws that cover this.

goes on to note that 10 years of litigation was required to establish
legality of dial-pporn statutes that the exon/coats amendment is based
on and that computers are a different technology entirely - the "least
restrictive means" available for 1-900 numbers are NOT least restrictive
for computer networks.  goes on to note that "knowingly" gives
distributors a grand loophole to hide under - essentially same idea as
the la macchia case - hey, you can't prove i knew about it i'm just the
sysop here etc.  in particular, the current case law on it states you
have to only have a "general idea" of what is being distributed - the
phrasing of the amendment would indicate that you'd have to have a
specific idea on each piece distributed which of course doesn't happen.
Also, the amendment states you have to have "editorial control" of the
material and if not, you're free - so somebody whojust re-distributed
porn would be home free.

then it gets into specifics on how each part of the amendment slam dunks
their current methods.  wow - this is like power slamming here.  from
the DoJ no less, the people that'd be enforcing the rules.  you'd think
that somebody would listen to them.  but guess not. 

so anyway, back to Leahy
"  If the Government had been in charge of figuring out how to expand
the Internet or make it more available and so on, I guarantee it would
not be one-tenth the success it is today."

Exon includes a note from the Nebraska football coach (he's been big on
the football analogies all through this - at one point, he said, when
it's 4th and 10, in your own territory, you punt, just like Leahy and
Feingold want to.  But if it's 4th and 10, in your own territory, late
in the game, and you're behind, and the situation is desperate, then you
must act, and you must go for it, you can't afford to punt - knute
rockne all the way :) )

oh whoops - he does admit he's totally incompetent with a computer :)
"I expect that any child orgrandchild with basic computer skills can
outperform anymember of this body when it comes to operating a computer."
then he ends his speech with "We should not throw our hands up and allow
every child's computer to become a branch office of Pornography
Incorporated."   gee, let's not exaggerate or anything here 

woo hoo - now coats/exon do a question/answer session of their own
(between them) so that they can clarify what they mean.  aha - so
they want to avoid the prodigy problem - i.e. the case where prodigy got
nailed cuz they exerted some "editorial control" and then didn't want
liability associated with it - amendment is saying, hey if you try, we
appreciate you trying and won't nail you.  

Sen Biden jumps in with a statement supporting Leahy and opposing Exon -
notes the least restrictive means requirement "Or put another way by
Justice Frankfurter, you can't ``burn the house to roast
the pig''--which is exactly what I believe the Exon-Coats provision
would do."  
-notes that, hey, yeah you're taking action, but it's gonna
take forever for the constitutionality to be worked out, the appeals,
the re-working of it, and all that time, it ain't gonna be doing nothing
to protect the children - points to the 10 years it took to get the
dial-porn statutes right with multiple re-drafting of regulations by the
FCC, 4 trips to court of appeals etc.  

Goes on to note that the Leahy amendment gives us a chance to get it
right the FIRST time rather than spending 10 years in constitutional
battles.  Notes that Leahy amendment would require legislation to be
drafted up - but by the depts of justice/commerce who'll actually
enforce it - and then fast-tracked through - so legislation that'll
stand up in court will be in place in months not years.

Notes Leahy amendment by looking at technological solutions can deal
with the international aspect of the net.  and that it addresses
violence (i.e. bomb-making info) as well.  

Mr. levin speaks in favor of the leahy amendmeny (no idea who levin is)

roll is called, 84-16 end of debate