Telecom bill [cr-95/8/6]
Cyber Rights
Internet! The U.S. House and Senate will soon meet in committee to
work out disagreements between their two bills. Because the issue is
the most serious and directly-related one to occupy the Cyber Rights
group since we were formed, I will post a complete alert from Voters
Telecommunications Watch when they make it available. Think about
local media you could contact, and friends or Net-pals who might be
sympathetic.
Meanwhile, a new article on the troubles that the House
Telecommunications bill spells for consumers and long-term competition
is now in our ftp site, in the directory Re-Legislation, as a file
named Valovic-re-Telecommunications-Bill.
Later this week, I am going to remove the text of the old Senate bill
(now in our library as S-652-TEXT-Pressler) and an old commentary that
focusses on a narrow question within the CDA (Weinberg-re-S-652).
Andy
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Subject: Re: Telecom bill [cr-95/8/6]
Sender: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fi...@access.digex.net>
On Tue, 8 Aug 1995, Cyber Rights wrote:
> Sender: Bill W Smith Jr <bi...@srisoft.com>
> Last night's NightLine was on the topic of "Astroturfing", the practice of
> lobbyists of sending 1000's of telegrams or mailgrams, making it appear that
> there is grassroots support for or against some bill. It has even gotten to
> the point of voting the headstones (using the names of dead people) and one
> congressman on the show was promising an investigation and legislation to
> outlaw astroturfing. With the ease of falsifying headers in email, is there
> any wonder that Congress does not give email much weight?
When the Net was a venture without profit pressure undertaken with
modest public support by research, non-profit groups, schools and
libraries, etc. the values driving the developmental process produced a
cooperative spirit that was one of the great marvels of the industrial
age.
Now this system is in the process of being taken over by private
industry, financial scavengers, and other such initiatives guided by
the ethic of the marketplace. If we do not preserve a value-directed
infrastucture, the worst propensity of the market system can be
expected to prevail over the Net, driven by the goal of profit
maximization, just as the television model has produced a "wasteland"
in that medium.
The so-called "astroturfing" hasn't even touched the surface of
communication corruption. The broadcast model is predicated upon
exploitive sex, gratuitous violence, and manipulative infotainment
that can most effectively respond to profit pressures and the business
war incited by the same. In the environment of the Net, much worse
results can be expected if governed by a primitive morality: false
messages, destruction of messages, data theft and destruction,
invasion of privacy, property theft and destruction, corruption of
data, double speak, group think, and the whole range of harmful and
abusive traffic brought to pervasive, intensive, and intrusive usage,
etc.
People who think the technological genius of cyberspace needs to be
nurtured in a domain free from profit pressure should be prepared to
join together for that purpose clearly stated.
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Sender: Bill W Smith Jr <bi...@srisoft.com>
Subject: Sen. Leahy is a Dead Head!
I am not sure what the relevance is to this list, but I saw Sen. Leahy on
NightLine last night announce to the world that he is a Dead Head!
Don Henly never even dreamed this one when he wrote:
Drivin' down the road today I saw a Dead Head sticker on a cadillac.
A little voice inside my head said "Don't look back, you can never look back."
Now I like Sen. Leahy even more! :)
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Bill W Smith Jr <bi...@srisoft.com> (Compuserve) 76460,1443
Senior Programmer Around Utah, past Phoenix,
Sunland Resources, Inc. over San Antonio, through Orlando...
(713) 955-2800 (Voice) Nothin' but net!
(713) 955-7564 (Fax) Houston Rockets - 1994 & 1995 NBA World Champions!
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Sender: ma...@ix.netcom.com (Off the edge )
Subject: Re: Free Online Access To Congressional Documents [cr-95/8/10]
Several of us in Cyber Rights would like the whole group to
>collectively sign the letter below. Send your comments.
>Congressional Reform Briefings August 4, 1995
I vote we sign.
> Speaker Gingrich's promise has not yet been fulfilled.
>Congress has not made the following materials available online on
>the Internet:
>
>* Committee prints of bills
>* Voting records of members of Congress
>* Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports
>* Committee reports
>* Amendments
>* Congressional Research Service reports
>* Verbatim transcripts (both corrected and uncorrected)
>* Testimonies filed electronically
>* Discharge Petitions
>
A great requirement for office holding. "Say there, aspiring career
politician, what is your view on making all government holdings of information
available to the cyberspace community?"
BTW, for those of you in the government monitoring this list, how about
finding it in your heart to bypass the need for these petitions, learning to use
PGP and an anonymous remailer, and uploading some of these files? Yeah, right...
--
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Posted by -- Andrew Oram -- an...@ora.com -- Cambridge, Mass., USA
Moderator: CYBER-RIGHTS (CPSR)
World Wide Web:
http://jasper.ora.com/andyo/cyber-rights/cyber-rights.html
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~hwh6k/public/cyber-rights.html
FTP:
ftp://jasper.ora.com/pub/andyo/cyber-rights
You are encouraged to forward and cross-post messages and online materials,
pursuant to any contained copyright & redistribution restrictions.
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Cyber Rights
Folks:
Vigdor's post about "primitive morality" was quite moving -- but sadly out-
of-date. The concerns he has about "vaster wastelands" are understandable
and there should be no doubt that every kind of sleeze will be thrown at us
in cyberspace. However, the only possible answer to those who wish to
manipulate you is not to construct a non-profit cyber-world (i.e. keep the
sleezoids out) -- it's to refuse to be manipulated.
The essential character of New Media is anti-propaganda. Contrast the TIME
approach to to cyber-porn and the WELL approach. TIME is a propaganda
organ; the WELL is an anti-propaganda community.
Following WW II "communications science" and "social engineering" (the
peace-time versions of wartime psychological warfare) effectively took over
mass media worldwide. Propaganda -- the use of a medium to shape opinion
by selective coverage -- became the principle technique of broadcasters,
publishers and advertisers. Much of the impetus for the application of
propaganda came from "official" circles and to simply identify it with
"profit" is quite naive. Its purpose was the "regulation" of society.
TV's non-profit Public Service Announcements are among the most
manipulative messages carried over the airwaves. No, the problem isn't
profits; it's the fact that we buy this stuff.
Two-way (the only truly New) media provides the antidote. Talk back.
Don't put up with being told what to think/feel. The combination of a
remarkably media skilled population and the declining quality of mass media
are providing the basis for a rebellion of significant proportions. We are
not "victims" of mass media feeds; we are, as McLuhan would say, the
content of these media. Don't like it? Don't watch. Bothered by what you
hear? Throw it back in their faces. Scrape those failed ideologies which
seek to protect people from themselves. Put the power where it belongs --
with you and me.
Mark Stahlman
New Media Associates
New York City
stah...@radiomail.net
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Sender: dlto...@aa.net (Douglas Tooley)
A random thought:
Should the internet be an adults only medium?
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Douglas Tooley Know any good lawyer jokes?
dlto...@citizen.net
Seattle, Washington
USA