From: Steve Hoey <hoeyst@hugse2.harvard.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.journalism.criticism,alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.d,alt.censorship,alt.eff-talk,alt.journalism
Subject: Bos Globe VoxBox: CENSOR INTERNET!
Date: 26 Jun 1995 20:10:13 GMT
Organization: No, but thanks for asking
Lines: 77
Message-ID: <3sn475$bal@netope.harvard.edu>


Below is a letter I emailed to the "VoxBox" column in the Boston Globe.
Today's column (Jun 26 '95) details the VoxBox editor's fear and horror
of his 5-year-old son being coerced by the evil WWW into viewing
pornography against his will.  Oh, the horror of Lincoln Millstein's article.

PLEASE FOLLOW-UP TO ALT.JOURNALSIM.CRITICISM, or via e-mail.  Thank you.

[begin included letter]

Dear Voxbox:

I don't know how to break it to Mr. Millstein, but the problem of "the
salacious renderings of the information vigilantes who are destroying our
on-line communities" is far, far worse than he seems to imagine.  Rightly, he
expresses his approval that "someone in Washington has begun the public
discourse to protect my son's right to a future on-line."  However, what of the
public discourse to protect Master Millstein's right to a future off-line?

I refer Mr. Millstein specifically to that terrifyingly dense, intricate,
loosely-controlled "information nightmare," the Boston Public Library.

What a terrible thing it is that young Master Millstein might be able, one day
soon, to simply walk into that building unsupervised, and randomly begin
wandering aisles, picking off books willy-nilly.  Why, he could "take the wrong
turn and be faced with hard-core pornography!"

I wonder if Mr. Millstein realizes the extent to which the pornographers have
taken over our public libraries.  Why, at the Boston library alone, Master
Millstein can be assaulted by any number of lewd and lascivious pictures,
drawings, and renderings of utterly naked adults AND CHILDREN in all manner of
compromising, and downright filthy, positions.  Never mind the TEXT he might
read, were the younger Millstein so inclined.  And all of this without so much
as a parental advisory label mandated by Congress.  Mr. Millstein is right:
this IS an information nightmare!

While I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Millstein's abject fear of a pornographic
universe, and I echo his call for "someone in Washington" to do something about
it, I must ask him to reconsider one of his opening statements.  He writes:

        Free-speech rhetoric has dominated newsgroup conversations...  But the
        First Amendment also suggests that I should be able to exercise my
        freedom to surf without being coerced to view materials obnoxious to
        my basic values.

Does the first Amendment really say that, Mr. Millstein?  Does it  truly
suggest that you should be free from viewing and hearing speech which you find
objectionable?

        Amendment I:
        Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
        prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
        speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
        assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Perhaps Mr. Millstein might be willing, with his 5 year-old son, to brave the
treacherous netscape of the World Wide Web one last time, and pay a visit to
this URL:

        http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.overview.html

There, he and his son might find the root cause of the information anarchy that
threatens to destroy the global Internet network for all of us.  This thing
goes by the name, "The Constitution of the United States of America."

Thank you for your concern, Mr. Millstein.  May we one day live in a world
where no information is permitted to publicly exist that is not appropriate
for your five-year-old son.


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Steve Hoey                                  Internet: hoeyst@hugse2.harvard.edu
Instructional Computer Support Specialist, Harvard Graduate School of Education
  *The opinions herein are my own, and do not necessarily reflect those of my*
  *supervisors, employers, or of the President and Fellows of Harvard College*
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-