The Internet: The Feds Are Aiming to Clean Up Cyberspace

By DECLAN MCCULLAGH/WASHINGTON Monday, Jul. 13, 1998

Internet pornographers, watch out. Stung by Republican complaints and egged on by antiporn activists, the Justice Department recently told federal prosecutors to crack down on smut. "Investigation and prosecution of Internet obscenity is particularly suitable for federal resources," Deputy Attorney General ERIC HOLDER wrote in a June 10 memo sent to U.S. Attorneys and obtained by TIME, which emphasized that no website is too insignificant. "Prosecution of cases involving relatively small distributors can have a deterrent effect."

--By Declan McCullagh/Washington

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"With hindsight it's the border guards we must thank."
HANS MONDROW, East Germany's last communist prime minister, on the East German soldiers who ignored orders to shoot to kill those crossing into West Germany and made the decision to open the border on Nov. 9, 1989
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