The Senate has taken the first step toward banning the electronic love note … We do not need to turn the FBI into the Keystone Kops of cyberspace, stumbling about on the lookout for indecent speech to protect our children … The Exon amendment would make the information superhighway one of the most censored segments of the communications media when logic dictates it should be the least censored … The new communications technologies hold out great promise. They must be allowed to develop free from government interference.
Predictor: Steinhardt, Barry
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for The New York Daily News, Barry Steinhardt, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union, writes: ”The Senate has taken the first step toward banning the electronic love note. Recently the Senate Commerce Committee added the so-called Communications Decency Act of 1995 (popularly known as the Exon amendment, after its principal sponsor, Jim Exon) to the massive telecommunications bill now making its way through Congress … We do not need to turn the FBI into the Keystone Kops of cyberspace, stumbling about on the lookout for indecent speech to protect our children. Interactive technologies already allow users, including concerned parents, to have more control over content than any previous communications medium. Content on the information superhighway is virtually limitless. Sophisticated filtering mechanisms already exist to help the user sort through the unlimited menu of options, and better technology is on the way … The Exon amendment would make the information superhighway one of the most censored segments of the communications media when logic dictates it should be the least censored … The new communications technologies hold out great promise. They must be allowed to develop free from government interference.”
Biography:Barry Steinhardt was director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s technology and liberty program, and he was an active speaker who was quoted often about the Internet in the 1990s. (Advocate/Voice of the People.)
Date of prediction: April 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Controversial Issues
Subtopic: Censorship/Free Speech
Name of publication: New York Daily News
Title, headline, chapter name: none
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 31
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Taylor, Kellen L.