Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1999 16:10:27 -0500
To: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com>
From: Ari Schwartz <ari@cdt.org>
Subject: Re: Hey Ari Were You...
Cc: Liza Kessler <lkessler@cdt.org>, david.noack@apbnews.com
Hey Matt,
Great to hear from you. Thanks for writing me on this and letting me clear the record (I hope that you'll pass this on too).
Mandatory guidelines for filtering set up by the federal government are unconstitutional. We actively oppose all of the proposals in front of Congress that would set up such guidelines. Such guidelines would constitute a national standard for speech. In fact, we were recently successful (working closely with the Free Congress Foundation) in getting Rep. Istook to drop his filtering language from the Labor-HHS Appropriations Bill.
That said, software companies do constitutionally have the right to filter or not filter what ever they want as long as the government does not mandate it (as I mentioned in the quote below). You and I, of course, have the right not to buy it.
Ari
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