To: senator@boxer.senate.gov (Barbara Boxer)
From: mbelmonte@ucsd.edu (Matthew Belmonte)
Subject: oppose the Telecommunications Competition and Deregulation Act

As your constituent I write you to express my strong opposition to the proposed
Telecommunications Competition and Deregulation Act of 1995, which has just
cleared the Commerce Committee.  Senator Jim Exon has got his Telecommunications
Decency Act (originally introduced as SB 314) grafted onto this bill as an
amendment.  The presence of Exon's bill in the Telecommunications Competition
and Deregulation Act renders the Act completely unacceptable.  While Exon's bill
was well-intentioned and might go some way toward fulfilling his goal of
protecting children from indecency, its implications for privacy and freedom of
speech are frightening.  Exon wants to make all telecommunications providers
liable for any 'obscene' content transmitted by individual users.  This is like
allowing someone to sue the construction company that built a street, just
because a drunk driver later used that street to injure someone!  In order to
protect themselves from liability, telecommunications providers would be forced
to monitor transmissions, thus institutionalizing a policy of violation of
privacy.  Many individuals and smaller information providers, who make up the
grassroots of the Internet and are a powerful force for democracy, would be
forced to shut down in order to protect themselves.  This bill is a product of
Exon's lack of understanding of modern communications technology and its social
implications, and it cannot be allowed to become law.