Wired: "In some alternative universe out there, the world is using a very different internet. It's a network without sex and violence, devoid of four-letter words and racy ideas, subject to constant monitoring by censors and harsh punishment to those who cross the line into controversy.
"It's the Taliban internet; the Kansas internet. It's the internet in a world in which the U.S. Supreme Court never overturned the 1996 Communications Decency Act -- the web's first and still most-sweeping U.S. censorship law, struck down after a legal challenge filed by civil liberties groups 10 years ago Wednesday.
"'It was big stuff,' said Marc Rotenberg, head of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, one of the groups that filed the case. 'We were fighting to save the soul of the internet.'
"The Communications Decency Act, or CDA, was passed by Congress as part of the Telecommunications Act and signed into law by President Clinton on Feb. 8, 1996. The law aimed to extend to the internet the same "decency" standard that applies to broadcast TV and radio, and is now most famous for leading to fines for Howard Stern and CBS television for explicit language and a wardrobe malfunction respectively."
Category: 2008 Presidential Election
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