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Politech is the oldest Internet resource devoted to politics and technology. Launched in 1994 by Declan McCullagh, the mailing list has chronicled the growing intersection of culture, technology, politics, and law. Since 2000, so has the Politech web site.
******* Background: http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=methamphetamine http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/declan.cgi?term=methamphetamine http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,21152,00.html ******* http://www.motherjones.com/news_wire/methweb.html Speed Limit A bill banning Internet sites that publish or even link to drug-making information looks set to sail through Congress -- to the dismay of free-speech advocates. by Matthew B. Stannard April 27, 2000 A bill banning Internet sites that publish or even link to drug-making information looks set to sail through Congress -- to the dismay of free-speech advocates. by Matthew B. Stannard April 27, 2000 Watch it. The article you're reading could soon be illegal. Why? Because of this link. Click it, and up pops a site advertising bongs, pipes, and other pot paraphenalia. The site is Canadian -- advertising drug paraphernalia is illegal in the United States. But if a bill passed by the United States Senate last year becomes law, it would also be illegal to link to that page with the "intent to facilitate or promote" its business. Depending on a federal prosecutor's interpretation of "intent," that could make posting this article a federal crime. It's one of the more disturbing effects of the Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act of 1999. The bill, by Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo., is aimed at stopping the spread of crank. But it also has publishers, civil libertarians, and drug reformers arming for battle over free-speech rights. "There's just no question there's a First Amendment issue," said Richard Boire, a California attorney and director of the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics. "You're essentially getting into mind-policing." As the title implies, the bill was designed to fight the spread of methamphetamine -- a goal so popular that liberal Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., joined with her conservative sometimes-rival, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, in writing one of the legislation's crucial sections. Now awaiting action on a similar version in the House, the bill stiffens penalties for meth makers and includes money for busting labs and treating crank addicts. But it also tackles one of the knottier roots of the crank problem: recipies for do-it-yourself methamphetamine posted to the World Wide Web. Such recipes are all over the Internet; some explain how to extract ephedrine from cold medicine, while others describe how to set up a basic lab. Still others exist as electronic protestors against the Ashcroft bill itself. Law enforcement officials blame the online recipies for a rise in crank labs. Drug Enforcement Administration officials busted 1,627 labs in 1998, a number that has doubled over the past decade. [...] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- the moderated mailing list of politics and technology To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------