". . . The face of net-activism is changing. I'm writing this from a science fiction writers' and editors' party in upstate New York, where we've been talking about net-politics and on-line communities.
The fronts we face now are three: national, state, and international. We've fought the national fight in the CDA, Clipper, and recent crypto and terrorist debates. It's been where most of our efforts have focused.
State politics lags behind that of Capitol Hill. State legislators are starting to try to ram through bills similar to the CDA -- and, worse yet, ones that are substantially different . . . .
The ACLU is the only cyber-liberties group tracking them. . .
I walked across Bryant Park to the headquarters of Human Rights Watch, an international civil rights group. They don't have a substantial on-line presence now, but they did publish a fabulous global net-restrictions report ("Silencing the Net") this spring -- and they have what the Net needs right now: expertise in dealing with international groups like G-7 and an extensive network of affiliates around the world. They seemed interested in doing more on-line work, which is wonderful . . . .
Anyone who threatens to have me arrested for interviewing government witnesses is a splendid example of a censorhappy Fed bureaucrat. . . .
We need all the help and international expertise we can get -- as we've seen recently at the Paris summit, governments have this annoying, persistent habit of working backroom deals. . . . "
End of his communique. Three or four months ago, I had a long chat with
this smart young man on the phone. I would call him a liberal - perhaps
a libertarian. We discussed censorship. He told me that he didn't think
that we were "dangerous". I told him, for my part, that there
was lots of danger out there - not us! - that it was deep, and dark. and
evil to the core.
That this whole thing called censorship was NOT about pornography. He might
have half-believed me.
One of the items we discussed was that the Fundamental Right was part of
our mutual problem because it said: "Out with the smut!" He agreed,
but for different reasons. My argument was that oblivious Christians were
being drawn into the battle systematically as "useful idiots"
to help the masses see the bugaboo. He listened, but I could tell he didn't
buy it. I am not sure that he has bought it yet.
But I think he is now reaching for his change. Why do I say that? Because
more and more people realize what some of us out of the trenches of the
Last Great War know in the marrow of our bones: The enemy will always look
for Useful Idiots to do their dirty work for them.
The enemy of freedom on the Net is now, ostensibly, the Right. Some joke
that is! They don't want smut - so we are told. Well, it so happens we don't
like it either.
Here is a recent letter to the editor of the San Jose Mercury in response
to an article that ran June 25, 1996 entitled "Internet Freedom brings
with it responsibilities":
"Real censorship in America is coming from left-wing groups like the PA Human Relations Commission and the B'nai-Brith's Anti-Defamation League (ADL) using legal threats and media slander.
Those who question officially-sanctioned WW2 history (particularly the Holocaust doctrine), or defend European nationalism, or oppose Third-World immigration, or challenge American foreign policy in the Middle East can lose their jobs and their civil rights.
Examples abound.
Where was The Mercury when David Irving's biography of Joseph Goebbels was stopped after threats against its publisher - St. Martins Press?
What about when 40,000 copies of John Sack's "An Eye for an Eye" that were destroyed after threats from Jewish groups?
The Mercury was silent when Dr. Christina Jeffrey was fired after Charles Schumer (D-NY) hinted she was a "neo-Nazi."
Likewise the firing of journalists Sam Francis and Joseph Sobran.
Alan Dershowitz was hailed as a champion of free speech for trying to get Penthouse magazine into the Harvard library; but the media was silent about his successful effort to keep the Journal of the Institute for Historical Review out of Harvard's library.
The newspaper I write for (The Jubilee) is banned so often we don't even fight it anymore.
Michael Fumuento's "The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS" was banned by retail bookstores afraid of vandalism.
Anti-immigration groups have been threatened by the US Civil Rights Commission and homeowners groups sued by the Department of Justice for trying to organize.
Two months ago a conference of Christians and Muslims at Villanova was canceled after organizers were threatened by the ADL. . .
Censorship is not little old ladies complaining about dirty pictures on the Internet. Censorship is very powerful people stopping political, historical, and religious speech they don't like.
Pornography is a straw man set up to hide the most deadly censorship in American history under the guise of stopping "hate speech." The Mercury should look behind the smoke-screen it's own editorial is helping to create. . . ."
How right that letter-writer is! I know that my young friend - if I may
call him friend, for fear that I might rub some of the Zundel-taint on him
- now sees a broader picture. I can't foretell if he will ever join our
outlook - my guess is that it will not happen, simply because it costs a
lot, and not in coin alone.
I think he knows, however, and he respects, by now, that I am helping him
as well - and that it's not a one-way street, as it may have appeared in
January when first he put me on his list of cyber journalists.
Ingrid
Thought for the Day:
"There is a very simple test. Try to find the word Holocaust in the memoirs of either Churchill or Eisenhower.
Try to find it in the Encyclopedias of the 1950s or 1960s."
(Source unknown)