Bomb-making instructions on the internet

The availability of bomb-making instruction on the Internet has been a cause célèbre amongst lawmakers and politicians anxious to curb the Internet frontier by censoring certain types of information deemed "dangerous" which is available online. "Simple" examples of explosives created from cheap, readily available ingredients are given.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation reports that there were 1,699 criminal bombings in 1989 and 3,163 in 1994.

Supporters of digital rights argue that managers of Internet traffic do not have a right to deep packet inspection, the automated system of analyzing what information is being transmitted, for example refusing to deliver a packet with the words "bomb instructions" and alerting authorities to the ISP that requested the information. They suggest that "we never seem to hear" about how the same instructions, including those for building nuclear devices, have been available in public libraries for decades without calls for censorship. In the late 19th century, Johann Most compiled Austrian military documents into a booklet demonstrating the use of explosives and distributed it at anarchist picnics without repercussion.

Mike Godwin, then of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, claimed that journalists have played a key role in linking the creation of "bombs" with "the Internet" in the public conscious.

Critics of the prosecution of Sherman Austin, an American anarchist charged with publishing instructions on the Internet, have pointed out that the article on Molotov cocktails contains more detailed instructions on the construction of homemade explosives, than Austin's website did.

Most American websites offering bomb-making instructions would not face civil liability, since Hess v. Indiana and Waller v. Osbourne determined that free speech restrictions can only be applied if the goal was "producing imminent lawless conduct" among a single target group – which is not the case for a website available to a large swath of the population – making the situation comparable to music advocating violence or suicide in its lyrics.

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Wikipedia