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A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That the Government Has the Right to Regulate the Internet (1996-02-23)
About this film
Congress had just passed the Communications Decency Act, making it a felony to send "indecent" or "patently offensive" material over the Internet if that material might be seen by children. Today's debate addresses not only the usual question of free speech versus overriding public interest, but also the question whether it is physically possible to regulate the Internet. First-time Firing Line debater John Perry Barlow brings a perspective we aren't used to hearing: "I come to you from cyberspace, and that sounds to you like a ridiculous thing to say.... But I am telling you that there is a social space that includes the entire geographical area of the planet Earth and a fairly large and rapidly growing percentage of the earth's population.... Arid those folks are not vulnerable to the excesses of the United States Congress. We are free and sovereign from whatever the United States Congress may wish to impose on the rest of the human race.... You've got people who have never been to this place trying to pass laws which have means of enforcement that they can't use. And this is not the sort of thing that is good for the law."
Directors & creators
Southern Educational Communications Association
Subjects
public broadcasting, AAPB, William F. Buckley Jr., John Perry Barlow, Communications Decency Act, Internet censorship, freedom of speech, cyberspace, internet regulation, Stanford University, First Amendment, digital rights, government regulation, information technology law, online privacy
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