s free speech would prevent some controversial topics from being discussed on the Internet. These would also turn the Internet into more of a place that is run by large commercial interests. Of course, the ACLU is completely against any and all of these bills or restrictions being discussed. Others on the topic, however, such as Joshua Quittner of Time, show the darker side of this argument. They show sides where racists and other such hate groups use the Internet as away of almost recruiting o voicing their opinions to the public. For example, a group called the Carolinian Lords of the Caucasus recently voiced some of their opinions in various popular Usenet groups. The CLOC has successfully emptied many groups that used to be quite popular. The CLOC may sound a little absurd and somewhat childish, but it is a growing problem for people that use the web and Usenet on a day-to-day basis. That is why Quittner feels there should be some sort of a code of ethics so to speak for the Internet (69).Freedom of speech, however, has not been the only topic concerning our government and the Internet. Since the time when the Internet was initiated, it was often discussed what types of content restrictions would be applied to websites and who would be the ones to manage and enforce these restrictions. Should everything be allowed on the Internet by the government? If not, who should decide on what should be restricted? Should it be the job of individual Internet Service Providers (ISPs) or the job of the governments of the world? What about school systems? Should they be regulated differently than the rest of us? An article in Computing Canada titled “Freedom, Freedom” gives a good statement about the net and censorship. They feel that when it comes time for real censorship to be enforced, we shouldn’t leave to the technical people such as system administrators or the software they create (2). Others, such as D’Amico, write ...
