Victims ask U.S. firms to help end web violence
By Ellen Wulfhorst
NEW YORK, May 19 (Reuters) - The brother of convicted
Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski, a victim of one of his bombings,
and the mother of a victim of the Oklahoma City bombing made a
plea on Wednesday for Internet companies to purge or block Web
sites that carry recipes for building bombs.
David Kaczynski, Unabomber victim Gary Wright and Marsha
Kight, whose daughter died in the Oklahoma City blast, appeared
at a news conference to ask America Online Inc <AOL.N>., ,
Microsoft Corp <MSFT.O>. , Walt Disney Co <DIS.N>. and Yahoo
Inc <YHOO.O>. to police the vast array of Web sites on a
voluntary basis.
Access to violent sites, particularly by children, has come
under sharp focus since the deadly April 20 attack in a
Littleton, Colorado, high school, where one of the teen-age
killers detailed the building of pipe bombs on the Web a year
earlier.
David Kaczynski, who has made few public statements since
he exposed his brother as the Unabomber, said he saw a parallel
between his and his wife's decision to turn his brother in to
authorities and the issue that faces Internet companies.
"It was absolutely agonizing for us to make the decision to
turn in my brother," said Kaczynski, a social worker in upstate
New York. "I'm glad we made the decision. I think it was the
right decision.
"I think it's much less agonizing for Internet companies,
and they ought to do it," he said.
His brother pleaded guilty last year to charges related to
a 17-year string of bombings that killed three people and
injured 29 others. David Kaczynski and his wife, Linda Patrik,
tipped authorities after recognizing many of their reclusive
relative's sentiments in the Unabomber's published manifesto.
Wright, a Salt Lake City software executive, was injured
when he picked up a Unabomber bomb behind a computer store
where he worked in 1987. Kight's 23-year-old daughter died in
the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal office building
that killed 168 people.
Writing letters to AOL, Microsoft, Disney, which is part
owner of the Go Network, and Yahoo, the victims and a New York
based group called the Center for Community Interest want host
companies to scan for, and delete, bomb-making instructions and
search engines to scan for, and block access to, such sites.
Industry spokesmen said companies do what they can but
questioned if it is possible to scan the content of every Web
site, particularly if a bomb recipe, for example, contains just
chemical ingredients and no violent or hateful language.
"We don't tolerate any bomb-making information to be posted
on AOL Web pages, chat rooms or any other areas of service,"
said AOL spokesman Andrew Weinstein. "When we find it, we
remove it."
The Go Network uses automated filters to find and block
sites filled with hateful or violent language, said Amanda
Higgins, a spokeswoman for Infoseek, the Sunnyvale, Cal.
company that produces the network.
"It's not 100 percent foolproof at this point," she said.
"There's an awful lot of sites out there.
"The Internet is still a relatively new medium," she added.
"There's still a little bit of the wild, wild Web aspect of
it."
Dennis Saffran, head of CCI, which also has defended
pornography shop restrictions and panhandling bans, said the
call would not violate the constitutional right to free speech
because they are seeking the voluntary cooperation of private
companies rather than government regulation.
But, he added, limited government regulation might be
needed if companies don't participate on a voluntary basis.
"We're giving every troubled kid out there the tools to
become a Tim McVeigh (convicted and sentenced to death for the
Oklahoma City Bombing) or a Ted Kaczynski," he said.
David Kaczynski recently created a tax-exempt fund with the
$1 million reward he got for turning in his brother, after tax
restrictions prevented him from distributi... |
