Internet Legislation

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.