-----------------------------------------------------------------
       _______   _       _    ____        _ _      _   _
      |__   __| (_)     | |  |  _ \      | | |    | | (_)
         | |_ __ _  __ _| |  | |_) |_   _| | | ___| |_ _ _ __
         | | '__| |/ _` | |  |  _ <| | | | | |/ _ \ __| | '_ \
         | | |  | | (_| | |  | |_) | |_| | | |  __/ |_| | | | |
         |_|_|  |_|\__,_|_|  |____/ \__,_|_|_|\___|\__|_|_| |_|

    Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition Trial Update No. 6
              Afternoon Update -  March 22, 1996 1:00 pm ET
  -----------------------------------------------------------------
                     http://www.cdt.org/ciec/
                        ciec-info@cdt.org
  -----------------------------------------------------------------
   CIEC UPDATES intended for members of the Citizens Internet
   Empowerment Coalition. CIEC Updates are written and edited by the
   Center for Democracy and Technology (http://www.cdt.org). This
   document may be reposted as long as it remains in total.
  ------------------------------------------------------------------

          ** 30,000 Netizens Vs. U.S. Department of Justice. **
                 * The Fight To Save Free Speech Online *
  Contents:

  o Afternoon Update, Day 2 - Overview of This Morning's Testimony
      * Donna Hoffman
      * Robert Croneberger
  o Subscription Information
  o More Information on CIEC and the Center for Democracy and Technology

----------------------------------------------------------------------


Live from the Courtroom in Philadelphia...

MORE ON INTERNET BASICS, ABILITY TO CONTROL CONTENT, AND DIFFICULTIES OF
COMPLYING WITH THE COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT

The Court began the second day of testimony in the hearing on the
constitutionality of the CDA with a presentation from Donna Hoffman of
Vanderbilt University. Hoffman appeared as an expert on the use of the
Internet for marketing and the nature of cyberspace. The Court also heard
from Robert Croneberger, Director of the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh PA.

Hoffman described for the Court the vast amount of information available
online and the difficulty of individual content providers to control who
accesses particular materials. Hoffman also testified that although there
is adult oriented material available on the Internet, the actual amount of
such material as a percentage of what is available on the Net is extremely
small.  In response to a question form Judge Dalzel, Hoffman described the
Internet as the most democratic communications medium in the world, and the
most important communications technology developed since the printing
press.

Throughout their questioning of Hoffman, the Justice Department attorneys
appeared to be arguing that the Internet, more than any other
communications technology, provides children a unique ability to access
sexually explicit materials.  Justice Department attorneys showed an
example of a search conduced on "InfoSeek" (a popular web-directory) for
the book title "Little Women", which they hypothesized a minor might
conduct for a school project.  The DOJ attorney offered into evidence a
list of links generated from a search for "Little Women", which included a
link to a site titled "See Hot Pictures of Naked Women!"

The Justice Department also pointed to a site known as "Bianca's Smut
Shack", which has placed a notice on the site warning minors not to enter
and suggesting ways parents can block access to the site.  The DOJ was
apparently trying to illustrate that the CDA had resulted in the removal of
some adult materials and has led others to take "good faith, reasonable
steps" to prevent minors from accessing the site.

Hoffman emphasized that the only effective means of ensuring that minors do
not access inappropriate material is to rely on end users and parents. In a
response to a question posed by Chris Hansen, an ACLU attorney, Hoffman
noted that all three of the options suggested by the Bianca site each
require individual user control, and that the content provider cannot
ensure that no one under 18 accesses the site. This exchange will be
important in showing that the only effective means of preventing children
from accessing objectionable or inappropriate material online is to rely on
individual users and parents to make content decisions themselves.

LIBRARIAN SAYS COMPLYING WITH CDA IS IMPOSSIBLE

The next witness to testify, called on behalf of the CIEC, was Robert
Croneberger, Director of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.  Croneberger
testified that the Carnegie Library maintains an extensive online card
catalogue with over 2 million entries, as well as online archives
containing he full texts of many magazines and journals.

Croneberger stated that the scope of the indecency standard imposed by the
CDA threatens the ability of Libraries to place a great deal of material
online, including card catalogues and the texts of Shakespeare plays.
Croneberger also stated that it is both technically and economically
impossible for his library to search through their entire catalogue to
identify and label particular entries in order to ensure that they are not
accessible to minors.

For their part, the Justice Department attempted to show that searching the
Carnegie Library's 2 million entry catalogue by keywords such as "sex"
would narrow the search to a manageable level, and would thus be realistic
to accomplish.  Croneberger responded by noting that the word "sex" might
appear in books ranging from a biography of President Lincoln, to biology
texts to travel guides. Croneberger stated that even if it were technically
possible and economically reasonable to label the library's entire online
collection, it would be extremely difficult to do so because the
definitions of "indecent" and "patently offensive" are can be interpreted
so broadly.

Croneberger stated that Libraries should not be responsible for labeling
and blocking access to certain materials.  Such a requirement would be
inconsistent with the mission of a library, Croneberger stated. However,
Croneberger stressed the benefits of empowering parents to control their
children's access to material online, just as parents do in the real world.
During one point of his testimony, Croneberger said, "If we as libraries
are put in a position of making decisions for other people's children, we
would fail miserably."  He then went on to say that he wished his library
could afford to provide copies of SurfWatch and other parental control
applications to loan out to parents.

JUDGES CONTINUE TO EXPRESS A GREAT DEAL OF INTEREST IN THE NET

As they did during yesterday's testimony and Internet demonstration,
the three judges asked a number of questions of both witnesses this
morning.  All three appear extremely interested in the workings of the
Internet, particularly the World Wide Web and the ability to easily jump
from one part of the world to another.  The judges also appear interested
in the questions raised about the definitions of the terms "indecent" and
"patently offensive", although they have given no indication of how they
will come out on this question.

Testimony resumes with Scott Bradner of Harvard and the IETF at 1:30 ET.
Court is expected to adjourn at 3:30 ET today and resume at 9:30 am on
Monday April 1.  Situation permitting we will provide an evening update on
the second part of today's proceedings.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Subscription Information

As CIEC members, you have been invited to join this list in order to
receive news updates and other information relevant to the CIEC challenge
to the Communications Decency Act.

If you ever want to remove yourself from this list, send email to

   ciec-members-request@cdt.org

with 'unsubscribe ciec-members' in the SUBJECT LINE (w/o the 'quotes').
Leave the body of your message blank.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
3. For More Information

For more information on the CIEC challenge, including the text of the
complaint and other relevant materials:

* World Wide Web                      --        http://www.cdt.org/ciec/
* General Information about CIEC      --        ciec-info@cdt.org
* Copy of the Complaint               --        ciec-docs@cdt.org

* Specific Questions Regarding the
  Coalition, incuding Press Inquiries --        ciec@cdt.org

* General information about the
  Center for Democracy and Technology --        info@cdt.org

--
end ciec-update.6
3/22/96