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84 lines
4.0 KiB
Plaintext
84 lines
4.0 KiB
Plaintext
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WIRED's Press Release Regarding the Ban - 3/23/94
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact:
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Taara Eden Hoffman
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544 Second Street Director of Publicity
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San Francisco, CA 94107 USA +1 (415) 904 0666
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taara@wired.com
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Cyberspace Cannot Be Censored
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*****************************
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WIRED Responds to Canadian Ban of Its April Issue
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Wednesday, March 23, 1994, San Francisco
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WIRED's April issue has been banned in Canada. WIRED's offense? Publication
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of a story called "Paul and Karla Hit the Net," a 400-word article about
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how Canadians are getting around a Canadian court decision to ban media
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coverage of details in the Teale-Homolka murder case.
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This article does not reveal details of the case. Instead, the article
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WIRED's Press Release Regarding the Ban - 3/23/94 (23/24)
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explains why the media ban has proven unenforceable and reports how
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information on the case is readily available to Canadians.
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According to a survey conducted by the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, 26 percent
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of those polled said they knew prohibited details of the trial, because
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they are continuously leaked by Canadian court witnesses, police, and
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others to the international media. Once this information is published, it
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pours back into Canada via fax, videocassettes, magazines and photocopies
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of articles, e-mail, Internet newsgroups, and other online services. In the
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United States, People magazine, and the TV show, A Current Affair as well
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as the New York Times and other publications and shows have covered the
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story and the ban.
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As WIRED's story and the action of Canada's Attorney General make clear,
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the ban is not only a waste of time and money,but has actually had the
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opposite effect of what was intended. Rumors and sensationalized accounts
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of the case abound, and the Teale-Homolka trial is one of the hottest
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topics of discussion among Canadians.
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"Banning of publications is behavior we normally associate with Third World
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dictatorships," said WIRED publisher Louis Rossetto. "This an ominous
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indication that the violation of human rights is becoming Canadian policy."
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WIRED's Press Release Regarding the Ban - 3/23/94 (24/47)
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According to Rossetto, the Canadian Government's recent seizure of gay and
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lesbian periodicals under the guise of controlling "pornography" and its
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behavior in the Teale-Homolka case have made Canada a leading violator of
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free speech rights, and have set a scary precedent for other nations that
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would like to control what its citizens read and think.
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"Information wants to be free," said Jane Metcalfe, WIRED's president. "At
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the end of the 20th century, attempts to ban stories like this one are
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condemned to be futile. That WIRED's criticism of the ban has itself been
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banned is supremely ironic and utterly chilling."
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Since WIRED supports free speech, WIRED is making the text of its "banned"
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story with details on how readers can get more information on the case
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available on the Internet. Canadians and people around the world can
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discover exactly what the Canadian government is trying to keep hidden.
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The banned article text can be obtained via the following WIRED Online
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services:
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o WIRED Infobot e-mail server send e-mail to infobot@wired.com,
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containing the words "get
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homolka/banned.text" on a single
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WIRED's Press Release Regarding the Ban - 3/23/94 (24/69)
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line inside the message body
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o WIRED Gopher gopher to gopher.wired.com
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select "Teale-Homolka "
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o WIRED on World Wide Web http://www.wired.com
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select "Teale-Homolka "
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The complete text of WIRED 2.04 will be available from the Infobot, Gopher,
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and World Wide Web on April 19.
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