The Communications Decency Act

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Term Paper Title	The Communications Decency Act
# of Words	1671
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	6.68

The Communications Decency Act

The Communications Decency Act

The U.S. Government should not attempt to place restrictions on the internet.
The Internet does not belong to the United States and it is not our
responsibility to save the world, so why are we attempting to regulate something
that belongs to the world?  The Telecommunications Reform Act has done exactly
that, put regulations on the Internet.

Edward Cavazos quotes William Gibson says, "As described in Neuromancer,
Cyberspace was a consensual hallucination that felt and looked like a physical
space but actually was a computer-generated construct representing abstract
data." (1)  When Gibson coined that phrase he had no idea that it would become
the household word that it is today.  "Cyberspace now represents a vast array of
computer systems accessible from remote physical locations." (Cavazos 2)

The Internet has grown explosively over the last few years.  "The Internet's
growth since its beginnings in 1981.  At that time, the number of host systems
was 213 machines.  At the time of this writing, twelve years later, the number
has jumped to 1,313,000 systems connecting directly to the Internet." (Cavazos
10)

"Privacy plays a unique role in American law." (Cavazos 13)  Privacy is not
explicitly provided for in the Constitution, yet most of the Internet users
remain anonymous.  Cavazos says, "Computers and digital communication
technologies present a serious challenge to legislators and judges who try to
meet the demands of economic and social change while protecting this most basic
and fundamental personal freedom."  Networks and the Internet make it easy for
anyone with the proper equipment to look at information based around the world
instantly and remain anonymous. "The right to conduct at least some forms of
speech activity anonymously has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court." (Cavazos
15)  In cyberspace it is extremely uncommon for someone to use their given name
to conduct themselves, but rather they use pseudonyms or "Handles". (Cavazos 14)
Not only is it not illegal to use handles on most systems, but the sysop (System
Operator) does not have to allow anyone access to his data files on who is the
person behind the handle.  Some sysops make the information public, or give the
option to the user, or don't collect the information at all.

The Internet brings forth many new concerns regarding crime and computers.  With
movies like Wargames, and more recently Hackers, becoming popular, co...

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