To: president@whitehouse.gov (Bill Clinton)
From: mkb4@Cornell.edu (Matthew Belmonte)
Subject: veto the Communications Decency Act

The recently passed telecommunications reform bill incorporates the
Communications Decency Act, which would severely curtail freedom of expression
on the Internet, a medium that has up to this point functioned quite well under
self-regulation.  The Act ignores the potential of emerging technologies for
parental control of what minors see on the Internet.  Its benefits to children
aren't worth its costs in terms of abridgement of First Amendment rights.

As the administrator of the World Wide Web site of the Autism and Brain
Development Laboratory of San Diego Children's Hospital
<URL:http://nodulus.extern.ucsd.edu/>, I'm planning to turn my laboratory's Web
pages black as an act of protest for forty-eight hours following your signature
of this bill.