I posted this document in various places around the Usenet; I am encouraging more people to post it as an act of protest against the CDA.
Since the material contained within is undoubtedly indecent by most community standards, you will theoretically be inviting prosecution. However, this is exactly what you want; and the likelihood of your actually getting into trouble for it is not very high.
Either prosecutors are going to end up looking very, very foolish for attempting to arrest you for quoting the Bible, or they will look foolish for not enforcing the CDA when many of us publish this document openly and jump up and down demanding loudly to be arrested. Either way, we win and the public gets the idea that the CDA is incredibly stupid.
This starts on the Internet, but I would like to get this project publicized as widely as possible in order to get the message across to John and Jane Q. Voter that the CDA is a dangerous and invasive measure that violates all our rights as citizens and as thinking adults to decide for ourselves what we may and may not read online.
The following document is a deliberate and premeditated violation of the Telecommunications Decency Act as it stands today, on March 1st, 1996. I am knowingly placing this document, which contains material referring to such topics as incest, rape, violent sexual dismemberment, cannibalism, abortion, coprophagy (the consumption of or defilement with fecal matter), urination, infanticide, bestiality and slavery, publically on the Usenet in groups where everyone, including minors, may have free access to it. Permission is freely granted to reproduce this document so long as the author is credited; crossposting is encouraged.
Federal agents, please come and arrest me now for this crime. Fellow outraged Internet users, please forgive the bandwidth I am using for this act of deliberate civil disobedience in protest of the CDA.
Quoted from the CDA text, and a legal analysis by Robert Cannon, Esq, cannon@cais.com:
The CDA amended 47 USC 223, which regulates obscene and harassing telephone calls. Pursuant to the CDA, it is illegal to knowingly use an "interactive computer service" to send to or display in a manner available to a person under 18 years of age any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs, regardless of whether the user of such service placed the call or initiated the communication.
Well, I am doing just that. I am deliberately posting this material, which is graphic in its descriptions of functions that have been judged "indecent" by contemporary community standards. This material definitely discusses sexual and excretory activities and organs, as well as other topics that are almost certainly offensive by most community standards.
I believe strongly that thinking adult citizens have a right to decide on an individual basis what is good and right for themselves and their children to read or watch or listen to. I also believe that the Federal government has no right to censor free communication between adults, which will be the actual end result of the CDA if it stands as written. To defend these ideals, and the First Amendment of this country, I am willing to commit this act of protest and if need be go to prison.
The following "indecent" material, which is now illegal to transmit online, can be found in schools and universities everywhere as well as in many people's homes. A great many parents believe that their children will benefit greatly from reading this particular "indecent" material, and while I do not necessarily agree, I will staunchly defend these parents' rights to allow their children access to this and to other books of their parental choice.
The material in question is the Bible. Under the CDA as it stands, it is illegal to maintain a copy of the Bible online where minors can have access to it, because some of the material discussed therein deals with serious adult themes. While I am a follower of a different faith myself, I do not believe that the Federal government may reasonably attempt to regulate any medium of communication to the point that even major works of art and literature in our culture are censored.
The decision in these matters belongs to the parents and to the individual, not to the government. This is the freedom we are fighting for, which is no more than our basic right under the Constitution of the United States of America to the freedom of speech. The Bill of Rights is overdue, and I am demanding that it be paid at last.
All quotes were taken verbatim (some passages skipped for space and clarity) from the King James translation of the Bible, which is now a "banned book" in cyberspace. If you care about your personal freedom and that of your children, protest the CDA now, before it is too late.
Regards,
Tanith Tyrr pleasure@netcom.com
Adultery
"Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her." (Description of a punishment to be laid on anyone who fails to observe all of the commandments, Deuteronomy 28:30)
"If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found, Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver.... (Deuteronomy 22:28,29)
"And Saul said, Thus shall ye say to David, the king desireth not any dowry, but a hundred foreskins of the Philistines, to be avenged of the king's enemies....wherefore David arose and went, he and his men, and slew of the Philistines two hundred men, and David brought their foreskins, and they gave them in full tale to the king, that he might be the king's son-in-law." (Samuel 18:25,27)
"Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbor, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of the sun. For thou didst it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun." (II Samuel 12:11,12)
"And Ahithophel said to Absalom, Go in unto thy father's concubines, which he hath left to keep the house, and all Israel shall hear that thou art abhorred of thy father.....so they spread Absalom a tent upon the top of the house; and Absalom went in unto his father's concubines in the sight of all Israel." (II Samuel 16:21,22)
"...Let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin; and let her stand before the kind, and let her cherish him, and let her lie in thy bosom, so that my lord the king may get heat.....And the damsel was very fair, and cherished the king, and ministered to him; but the king knew her not." (I Kings 1:2,4)
Forced Sexual Slavery
"How shall we do for wives for them that remain?..... And the congregation sent thither twelve thousand men of the valiantest, and commanded them, saying, Go and smite the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the edge of the sword, with the woman and the children. And this is the thing that ye shall do. Ye shall utterly destroy every male, and every woman that hath lain by man. And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead four hundred young virgins, that had known no man by lying by any male; and they brought them unto the camp to Shiloh, and they gave them wives which they had saved alive of the women of Jabesh-gilead." (Judges 21:7,12)
"When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the Lord thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, And thou seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and has a desire unto her, that thou wouldst have her to thy wife, Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house, and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails....and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife." (Deuteronomy 21:11,13)
"And if a woman approach unto any beast, and lie down thereto, thou shalt kill the woman, and the beast; they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them." (Leviticus 20:16)
"Now as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain sons of Belial, beset the house round about, and beat at the door, and spake to the master of the house, saying, Bring forth the man that came into thine house, that we may know him. And the man, the master of the house, went out unto them, and said unto them, Nay, my brethren, nay, I pray you, do not so wickedly; seeing that this man is come into mine house, do not this folly. Behold, there is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you; but unto this man do not so vile a thing. But the men would not hearken to him; so the man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto them, and they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning, and when the day began to spring, they let her go....and her lord rose up in the morning, and opened the dorrs of the house, and went out to go his way, and behold the woman his concubine was fallen down at the door of the house, and her hands were upon the threshold....and when he was come into his house, he took a knife, and laid hold on his concubine, and divided her, together with her bones, into twelve pieces, and sent her into all the coasts of Israel." (Judges 19:22,29)
"Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother, and they committed whoredoms in Egypt, they committed whoredoms in their youth; there were the breasts pressed, and there they bruised the teats of their virginity....Neither left she her whoredoms brought from Egypt; for in her youth they lay with her, and they bruised the breasts of her virginity, and poured their whoredom upon her....And when her sister Aholibah saw this, she was more corrupt in her inordinate love than she, and in her whoredoms more than her sister in her whoredoms....And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their whoredom, and she was polluted with them....so she discovered her whoredoms, and discovered her nakedness....for she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses." (Ezekiel 23:2,20)
"And it came to pass after these things, that his master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph, and she said, Lie with me....And she caught him by his garment, saying Lie with me, and he left his garment in her hand, and fled, and got him out." (Genesis 39:7,12)
"...Absalom the son of David had a fair sister, whose name was Tamar, and Amnon the son of David loved her. And Amnon was so vexed, that he fell sick for his sister Tamar, for she was a virgin, and Amnon thought it hard for him to do any thing to her...and when [his sister] had brought them unto him to eat, he took hold of her, and said unto her, Come lie with me, my sister. And she answered him, Nay, my brother, do not force me.....howbeit he would not hearken unto her voice, but being stronger than she, forced her, and lay with her." (II Samuel I 3:1,14)
"Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye unto them as is good in your =20 eyes, only unto these men do nothing." (Lot speaking to an angry mob, Genesis 19:8)
"Come let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. And they made their father drink wine that night; and the firstborn went in and lay with her father, and he percieved not when she lay down, nor when she arose. And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father, let us make him drink wine this night also, and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. And they made their father drink wine that night also, and the younger arose, and lay with him, and he percieved not when she lay down, nor when she arose. Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father." (Genesis 19:31,36)
"But king Solomon loved many strange women together with the daughter of Pharoah, woman of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians and Hittites....and he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines...." (Kings 11:1,3)
"Rabshakeh said, Hath my master sent me to thy master and to thee to speak these words? Hath he not sent me to the men that sit upon the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you?" (Isaiah 36:12)
"So and more also do God unto the enemies of David, if I leave all that pertain to him by morning light any that pisseth against the wall." (I Samuel 25:22)
"...surely there had not been left unto Nabal by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall." (I Samuel 25:34)
"Therefore, behold; I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall....and will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, till it all be gone." (I Kings 14:10)
"....he slew all the house of Baasha; he left him not one that pisseth against a wall...." (I Kings 16:11)
"Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and will take away thy posterity, and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall...." (I Kings 21:21)
"And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight. And the Lord said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread....Then he said unto me, Lo, I have given thee cow's dung for man's dung, and thou shalt prepare they bread forthwith." (Ezekiel 4:12,13)
"And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you. If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto My name, saith the Lord of Hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings, yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart. Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts, and one shall take you away with it." (Malachi 2:1,3)
"Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for thy love is better than wine...a bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me; he shall lie all night twixt my breasts....His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me....My beloved is mine, and I am his; he feedeth among the lilies.....They two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies....his left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me."
"Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished." (Isaiah 13:16)
"Slay utterly old and young, both maids and little children, and women..." (Ezekiel 9:6)
"O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed, happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones." (Psalms 137:8,9)
"Thus saith the Lord; For three transgessions of the children of Ammon, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof, because they have ripped up the women with child of Gilead, that they might enlarge their border." (Amos 1:13)
"Then Menahem smote Tiphsah, and all that were therein, and the coasts thereof from Tirzah; because they opened not to him, therefore he smote it, and all the women therein that were with child he ripped up." (I Kings 15:16)
"And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat." (Leviticus 26:29)
"And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of they daughters, which the Lord thy God hath given thee, in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee." (Deutoronomy 28:53)
"And Onan knew that the seed should not be his, and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother." (Genesis 38:9)
"Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink and to be merry." (Ecclesiastes 8:15)
"Let thy fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times, and be thou ravished always with her love. And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?" (Proverbs 5:18,20)