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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!news.sprintlink.net!rockyd!cmcl2!newsserv.cs.sunysb.edu!sayre From: sayre@cs.sunysb.edu (Johannes Sayre) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.osf.misc,comp.unix.sco.misc,comp.security.firewalls,comp.unix.admin,comp.org.usenix,comp.org.uniforum,comp.dcom.net-management,comp.os.ms-windows.networking.tcp-ip,comp.os.netware.misc,comp.os.os2.networking.tcp-ip,alt.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Communications Decency Act may corrupt protocols Date: 13 Apr 1996 03:11:11 GMT Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook (guest) Lines: 32 Message-ID: <4kn60f$9eq@newsserv.cs.sunysb.edu> References: <4ki6d6$ln7@newsserv.cs.sunysb.edu> <4kj36o$2h8@tom.amherst.edu> <4km3jh$1of@cronkite.cisco.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: sbpub4.cs.sunysb.edu Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.protocols.tcp-ip:43763 comp.unix.bsd.misc:716 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:2953 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:17209 comp.unix.osf.misc:3017 comp.unix.sco.misc:16187 comp.security.firewalls:1976 comp.unix.admin:40601 comp.org.usenix:5514 comp.org.uniforum:534 comp.dcom.net-management:2406 comp.os.ms-windows.networking.tcp-ip:21987 comp.os.netware.misc:23988 comp.os.os2.networking.tcp-ip:47779 alt.dcom.telecom:16717 In article <4km3jh$1of@cronkite.cisco.com>, John Ahlstrom <jahlstro@cisco.com> wrote: >At various times the president has prevented the DoJ from supporting >legislation in court. DoJ has said it will not prosecute under CDA while the legal questions are not resolved. It is not clear to me (I only have news traffic to go on) how real DoJ's support for this law is. Before it passed, DoJ issued a formal statement of some kind indicating that it felt the law was unconstitutional. I think it is possible that DoJ's defence of the law against legal challenges is pro forma, but this is purely my own, comparatively uninformed, speculation. Nevertheless, they raised the question of the IP-level flagging during one of these legal proceedings. Even if pro-forma, if the idea is not quashed, it could still do damage or waste time. >Please write to the President (president@whitehouse.gov) asking >that he order the DoJ to oppose rather than support CDA. It might be worth the attempt, but Pres. Clinton was cautiously critical of the CDA before it passed Congress. He signed the larger telecomm bill of which it was a part; vetoing it because of the CDA would have caused him damage from the telecomm industry and not withstood an override. I think it is a possibility that "sensible" politics (in this case I don't use the word with too much distaste) are dictating that the challenge should be allowed to play out in court. But it couldn't hurt to try. This is grassroots in _our_ community, BTW; I'll write, and you (and every other reader so inclined) do the same. There's no one person or group to do it for us. The more professionals who speak out with clarity and evident competence against this obscenity, the better.