c Frontier Foundation” (EFF), stated: “[T]he legislation not only fails to solve the problems it is intended to address, but it also imposes content restrictions on computer communications that would chill First Amendment-protected speech and, in effect, restrict adults in the public forums of computer networks to writing and reading only such content as is suitable for children.” A second problem was the uncompromising nature of the bill. A particular example would perhaps best illustrate this point. An online appeal from an organisation called Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) stated the following: “This proposed law could mean the demise of the Seattle Community Network (SCN), a 6,500-member free, public access computer network established to benefit the public. Under the proposed legislation, if an individual member of the SCN posted a message on an SCN forum or from SCN that was later deemed to be "indecent," SCN could be fined $100,000, and SCN's board of Directors and staff could face two-year prison sentences. Yet without community networks like SCN, the Internet would be out of reach to millions of citizens.” It is easy to admire the ideals that the CDA stands for. The Senate approved the Act with a vote of 84-16. The approach of the legislation however, is much too nave. In June of 1997 the CDA was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on the grounds that it “violates constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression”. The general problem with legislation with respect to the Internet is the fact that regulation laws have for so long been focused on traditional media channels such as radio and television. The Internet is new and extreme form of media. It is thus incompatible with existing laws. New and equally extreme laws would be necessary to regulate the Internet. However, as experience with the CDA has shown, extreme laws are not very popular and are ...
