Black Thursday: Why is this page black?

BULLETIN -- On an incredibly non-black Thursday, June 26, 1997, The United States Supreme Court, in a 9-0 vote, declared the Communications Decency Act to be unconstitutional. Here is the text of that ruling.

In the spirit of that decision, and with apologies to my friend Steve Kelley for purloining his line ... I'd just like to say "Fuckin' A."

The Gumbo Pages author added this black page in early 1996 in support of the Coalition to Stop Net Censorship. On February 8, 1996, President Clinton signed legislation that included a provision which would have limited freedom of expression on the Internet. With this act, the very same materials which are legally available today in book stores and libraries could have been illegal if posted on World Wide Web sites or Usenet newsgroups.

The Coalition to Stop Net Censorship asked everyone, everywhere to turn their World Wide Web pages black until 11 a.m. EST on February 10 to show just how many people will be affected by this legislation. The support from the Net community was overwhelming. The author of The Gumbo Pages got a late start, and was particularly incensed and disturbed by this legislation, and extended his protest indefinitely via this page, and engaging in civil disobedience to protest the law.

Now that the law has rightfully been declared unconstitutional, it would seem the time for this page has come to an end, but it's staying up anyway. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and Congress is already trying to do this again.

The American Civil Liberties Union, with nineteen other plaintiffs (including The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Human Rights Watch, The National Writers' Union, Critical Path AIDS Project and the Queer Resources Directory), has filed ACLU et al. vs. Reno, the court action challenging the "Communications Decency Act". And they won.

For more information, see Yahoo's Black Thursday page.

 

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Chuck Taggart   (e-mail chuck)