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Declan, I've looked at the floor activity for that day, and searched
the house record [Page: H12100 et seq]. I cannot find any mention of
HR.46, or "encryption", or "wiretapping". I also looked at every
reference to the word "computer", which appears frequently.
Could your sources be more specific as to how this was passed?
Sometimes, it's better to say "Senate" when you mean only the Senate,
and give specific names of supporters (Stevens, Hatch), rather than
tarring the whole "Congress" with bills that are going nowhere.
Yes, there is a certain amount of silliness and mislabelling that was
passed Dec. 15. S.2924 on "false identification" had all the text
on identification removed, and replaced with a relaxation of child
labor restrictions. That kind of thing can catch members unawares.
My understanding is that's on the way to a pocket veto.
``Children's Internet Protection Act'' (CIPA) passed as part of
HR.4577, and read in a certain way, it's pretty bad for civil
liberties, but no restrictions on encryption that I can see.
There's an easy work-around to CIPA that was adopted here in Ann Arbor.
The AA public library _will_ provide a filtering program, when it
becomes commercially available, which can be programmed to reject those
sites that have been determined by a court of law to be obscene, etc.
Only those sites! And, in order for the program to be activated, the
child must be accompanied by a parent. No court decision, no parent,
no need for protection.
I'm a bit more concerned by the so-called ``Neighborhood Children's
Internet Protection Act'' that follows CIPA. As far as I can tell,
it requires every site to continuously review and record all activity
on the 'net, in order to determine "access by minors to inappropriate
matter", "using electronic mail, chat rooms, and other forms of direct
electronic communications", "unauthorized access", "unauthorized
disclosure ... of personal identification information".
The "inappropriate matter" standard seems much broader than "harmful".
Also, it appears to be an attempt to prohibit judicial review of the
local criteria for determination of content. "No agency or
instrumentality of the United States Government" presumably includes
the federal courts.
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