                              WIRED's Press Release Regarding the Ban - 3/23/94
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                 Contact:
                                                      Taara Eden Hoffman
544 Second Street                                     Director of Publicity
San Francisco, CA 94107 USA                           +1 (415) 904 0666
                                                      taara@wired.com



Cyberspace Cannot Be Censored
*****************************

WIRED Responds to Canadian Ban of Its April Issue

Wednesday, March 23, 1994, San Francisco


WIRED's April issue has been banned in Canada. WIRED's offense? Publication
of a story called "Paul and Karla Hit the Net," a 400-word article about
how Canadians are getting around a Canadian court decision to ban media
coverage of details in the  Teale-Homolka murder case.

This article does not reveal details of the case. Instead, the article

                      WIRED's Press Release Regarding the Ban - 3/23/94 (23/24)
explains why the media ban has proven unenforceable and reports how
information on the case is readily available to Canadians.

According to a survey conducted by the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, 26 percent
of those polled said they knew prohibited details of the trial, because
they are continuously leaked by Canadian court witnesses, police, and
others to the international  media. Once this information is published, it
pours back into Canada via fax, videocassettes, magazines and photocopies
of articles, e-mail, Internet newsgroups, and other online services. In the
United States, People magazine, and the TV show, A  Current Affair as well
as the New York Times and other publications and shows have covered the
story and the ban.

As WIRED's story and the action of Canada's Attorney General make clear,
the ban is not only a waste of time and money,but has actually had the
opposite effect of what was intended. Rumors and sensationalized accounts
of the case abound, and the  Teale-Homolka trial is one of the hottest
topics of discussion among Canadians.

"Banning of publications is behavior we normally associate with Third World
dictatorships," said WIRED publisher Louis Rossetto. "This an ominous
indication that the violation of human rights is becoming Canadian policy."

                      WIRED's Press Release Regarding the Ban - 3/23/94 (24/47)
According to Rossetto, the Canadian Government's recent seizure of gay and
lesbian periodicals under the guise of controlling "pornography" and its
behavior in the Teale-Homolka case have made Canada a leading violator of
free speech rights, and  have set a scary precedent for other nations that
would like to control what its citizens read and think.

"Information wants to be free," said Jane Metcalfe, WIRED's president. "At
the end of the 20th century, attempts to ban stories like this one are
condemned to be futile. That WIRED's criticism of the ban has itself been
banned is supremely ironic  and utterly chilling."

Since WIRED supports free speech, WIRED is making the text of its "banned"
story with details on how readers can get more information on the case
available on the Internet. Canadians and people around the world can
discover exactly what the Canadian  government is trying to keep hidden.

The banned article text can be obtained via the following WIRED Online
services:

  o WIRED Infobot e-mail server     send e-mail to infobot@wired.com,
                                    containing the words "get
                                    homolka/banned.text" on a single

                      WIRED's Press Release Regarding the Ban - 3/23/94 (24/69)
                                    line inside the message body

  o WIRED Gopher                    gopher to gopher.wired.com
                                    select "Teale-Homolka "

  o WIRED on World Wide Web         http://www.wired.com
                                    select "Teale-Homolka "

The complete text of WIRED 2.04 will be available from the Infobot, Gopher,
and World Wide Web on April 19.
