mirror of
https://github.com/nhammer514/textfiles-politics.git
synced 2024-10-01 01:15:38 -04:00
84 lines
4.0 KiB
Plaintext
84 lines
4.0 KiB
Plaintext
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.
|