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2/22/96, Caryn Shalita (caryn@sfm.com),Los Angeles, CA USA

Here's the transcript of the Supreme Court Case 3/19/97 Reno v. ACLU!!

Also check out John Barlow's Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace

When It's Time to Change

"When it's time to change...you've got to rearrange...who you are and what you want to be...."

I always thought that someday I may want to have a child, but I have always been a little hesitant about bringing a new life into this world that is already so fucked up. And now, I have to worry about bringing a child into a world that is so fucked up that I can't even express on the Internet that it's fucked up without breaking the law.

Society is a social contract we have all agreed to live by...I don't like these terms and I won't sign on the dotted line until the proper revisions are made. The only reason this is even happening is because Washington is afraid. Afraid that their hold over the media and the public is dwindling. Afraid that they have become ineffectual in a digital age where the rules are different and cannot be written down because they are constantly evolving as the community evolves. Afraid that people are going to realize the entire system sucks and Just Say No.

We've sat there and watched as these people mortgaged our future for the excess that defined their present--yeah, I was a kid who grew up in the 80's and if you think that experience didn't affect us-- then think again. It was a big era--sex turned from a symbol of freedom into a symbol of death. And when we looked at the mess around us, recognized the depth of the disgusting situation we had forced upon us as our legacy, and actually took a moment to panic, we were labeled as crybabies and the legend of that lazy Generation X was born. It's only gotten worse...it scares me that I totally understand why Seattle music and its anger and pain were welcome anthems reflecting life as it really is today for much of America's youth. How do you expect any of us to feel bad about layoffs cutting into retirement plans, when we have never been allowed to feel the luxury of a safety net at any time in our lives. We needed help when college tution costs were rising. It wasn't there. We needed it to protect our environment so that our chances of getting cancer from something as simple as enjoying the sunlight wouldn't be multiple that of our parents and grandparents. It wasn't there. We needed it to give us a reason to believe. It wasn't there. After so many disappointments, we didn't expect the goverment or some company to take care of us. In our world Kennedy was always dead and Nixon and Reagan had told us all we needed to know about Washington. The government of this country as envisioned by our forefathers is dead. Society has evolved beyond what they could foresee, and now it's time to change. And the only ones we can count on are ourselves.

Steven Jobs may call it the optimism of youth, but as a 20-something, I DO feel I have the power to make a difference in the world, and so does everyone else if they just tried. As an actress, a web producer and hopefully a film producer someday as well, I have dedicated my life to communicating the highs and lows of the human condition, opening paths for the discussion of problems and the fulfillment of dreams. We are about to shed a century that for all its progess, never even came close to being a postive experience for all of humanity. There may always be injustice in the world, but as someone who knows enough to know better than to want to perpetuate it myself, I cannot merely stay silent--that is not enough. The power of the Internet is the power of the individual to make a difference. That is why it so important that all these schools and neighborhoods get wired because the more people who are included, the greater the synergy of the whole. This has to be a group effort--a shared experience of evolution.

For the last 100 years, all of our lives have been defined by the experience of the Industrial Age--how and when we work, what we eat, where we go and how we get there all have been pieced together in a fashion that meshes with the assembly line/manufacturing mentality. I believe that 1995 was the first year of the Information Age, and history will tell. In front of us, we have a new way to think of things and a new vocabulary to learn if we are to adequately express life in a new century. And if we are smart, we will take the good and the bad from the past and learn from it. Every time in centuries past when the right to free speech has been stifled by governmental decree, things have quickly moved from bad to worse. It's time to change...what we change into is up to us.

Caryn Shalita