(Copyright © 1997 T Bruce Tober)
However, in an attempt to crack down on the ultimate venue for free speech, the Net, The Metropolitan Police Service's (AKA Scotland Yard) Clubs and Vice Unit now appears set to wield its not inconsiderable power on British ISPs. Section 501 of the 'Telecommunications Act of 1996' is a slightly revised and greatly strengthened version of the loathsome 'Exon Amendment - The Communications Decency Act'. It prohibits "communication that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs..."
What this means, in the simplest of terms, is that heated debate can no longer take place. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) the law will ban "the on-line distribution of the King James Bible, which quite prominently features the word 'piss' (in II Kings) - a word already specifically defined by the Supreme Court to be indecent; the text (or video, for that matter) of a PG (Parental Guidance-rated) movie that any child may attend without parental supervision, not to mention the R-rated content available on any of a number of cable TV stations; a Schindler's List WWW site which could earn an Internet service provider prison time; anything featuring nudity, in any context, including breast cancer information or photos of Michelangelo's Cistine Chapel paintings, which could result in the poster have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, if the material happened to seem 'patently offensive' to an excitable prosecutor."
This makes the Net the most heavily censored communications medium in that country which prides itself on Freedom of Speech.
The Congress, acting in secret, rushed the bill through in 48 hours from the time the final draft was approved in a committee of the House of Representatives and the Senate (each of which had different versions to begin with). Hearings on the bill throughout most of its history were conducted in secrecy and the entire 47,000 word document was provided to the entire Congress only 48 hours prior to the vote on it.
In addition, the majority of the 130-page act is aimed at deregulating the telecommunications industry in the States. This part of the bill was the most heavily and most expensively lobbied for bill in the country's history according to many observers. Lobbyists spent millions of dollars to get it passed.
Why? So the big boys, the multi-millionaire (or in some cases multi- billionaire), multi-national, media moguls could further consolidate their hold on the information and telecommunications industries. They have already begun buying up various news organisations, media organisations, and Internet Service Providers, and through mergers and consortiums you can hardly figure out where one mogul's empire stops and another's begins.
The handful of moguls such as Bill Gates and Rupert Murdoch (who buys citizenship in whichever country best suits his political needs at the moment) will now have in their hands the power to dictate exactly what information is provided to the county's citizens.
They always did have that capability but at least they had great amounts of competition and diversity of opinion due to the competition. But now, that competition will be bought up and that information diversity will be significantly diminished.