Internet Legislation Essay, Research Paper

With the recent popularity of the Internet

many topics concerning it have hit main street media. One of these

topics is legislation to control its certain aspects. Legislation

is now one of the feuded discussions when it comes to the Internet, and

through my report I hope to shed some light on this topic of conterversy.

The Internet by definition is an

international web of interconnected government, education, and business

computer networks–in essence, a network of networks. A person at a computer

terminal or personal computer with the proper software communicates across

the Internet by placing data in an Internet Protocol (IP) packet–an electronic

envelope–and “addressing” the packet to a particular destination on the

Internet. Communications software on the intervening networks between the

source and destination networks. And these collections of networks linking

millions of servers (computers) together, where in essence one computer

can access info from another. The Internet was first formed in the

lats 60’s by the military as a form of communication incase of nuclear

attack. Just recently in 1984 is when it was first opened to the

everyday consumer as a form of communication. After a few years of

mild aknowledgement of its assistance, From a thousand or so networks in

the mid- 1980s, the Internet has grown to an estimated 30,000 connected

networks in 1994 with about 25 million people having access to it. it all

of a sudden boomed with popularity with networks expanding at an exponential

rate. And with the networks came multi billionaire business such as American

Online.

Along with information the Internet

has links to other more unmoral forms of entertainment, on of these is

pornography, “porn” of the past few years has taken up more than one half

of the web pages on the Internet (about 4¼ out of 10 web pages are

porn) a number which has caused much dismay with users and nonusers alike.

Those who support porn on the Internet say its with in there rights and

everybody should have access to it. But parents are afraid that the

Internet carries a large number of minor users who with almost no Internet

experience can access porn. Only Legislation that currently exsists is

We start with the federal Communications Decency Act of 1996, a controversial

piece of legislation signed into law by President Clinton on February 8,

1996, and now under legal challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union

and others. The Communications Decency Act bans the communication of “obscene

or indecent” material via the Internet to anyone under 18 years of age.

(Telecommunications Act of 1996, Section 502, 47 U.S.C. Section 223[a].)

Probably the most conterversial of

topics on legislation, is the right of free speech on the Internet, currently

the Internet has no laws preventing anything said on the Internet.

But supporters of the bill say that the Internet should follow the same

guidelines concerning speech as the public television does (in part because

of the large number of young children on the net) Opposes of the Internet

legislation it is within there freedom of speech to say what ever they

wish. Currently there are many bills that are being voted on to carry

out a ban on free speech. If this bill is passed all servers will

have a program embedded in there speech prossers that when ever a word

against the law is written it will come out something like this (”*%^$#)

Hate pages is probably the next

topic that surrounds conterversy many cults and hate organizations such

as the KKK or the Neo Nazis have set up pages on the Internet spreading

what many say are lies in hopes of recruiting new members. Hate pages

are springing up at an alarming 30,000 a year. Tough there is no

legislation banning this many servers including Geo cities Netscape, Ichat,

have banned these pages.

Current legislation that is on the

net is few. There are the basic laws that limit all communication

uses but other than that there’s not much else. There are laws against

the display of minors in pornography, hacking in all its forms are banned,

the sale of narcotics and or weapons are also banned thought the Internet,

and the rest is up the of the servers and online users. But

it is nearly impossible to pass any other laws because many claim the right

is given through them in the constitution

In conclusion the Internet is a

very valuable tool with many uses if used properly, I myself have become

annoyed with porn, and free speech, because it limits the info on the net

(such as I try to look up Differences in Sex as in male or female, and

I am given a thousand or so porn pages)

I find it very annoying and distasteful.

Never the less the Internet is a marvelous creation that must be used to

its full extend as an information source.

Bibliography: Dordick, Herbert S., Understanding

Modern Telecommunications (1986); Heilborn, John, Using Telecommunications

(1988); Hudson, Heather E., Communication Satellites (1990); Krol, Ed,

The Whole Internet (1992); Pierce, J. R., and Noll, A. Michael, Signals:

The Science of Telecommunications (1990); Rosen, Arnold, Telecommunications

(1987); United States Telecommunications and Information Administration,

Telecom 2000 (1988); United States Office of Technology Assessment, Critical

Connections: Communication for the Future (1990); Williams, Frederick,

The New Telecommunications (1991). Abbot, Tony, ed., On Internet 94: An

International Guide to Electronic Journals, Newsletters, Texts, Discussion

Lists, and Other Resources on the Internet (1994); Krol, Ed, The Whole

Internet (1992)