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But civil libertarians fear the proposed law could turn every online-service provider into an info cop. "Exon's bill would be the end of the Internet as we know it," says Mark Stahlman, president of New Media Associates, a New York City-based media-research firm. Mike Godwin, staff counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, argues that constitutional guarantees apply in the new media just as they apply in the old-no matter how offensive the material. "The First Amendment was designed to protect offensive speech, because no one ever tries to ban the other kind," he says.
On the Ann Arbor campus, opinion on Baker is divided. "If he's a threat, I'd rather have this taken care of quickly," says senior Kathryn Jesudowich. The Michigan Student Assembly, on the other hand, issued a resolution condemning the university. Then on Thursday, half an hour before his disciplinary hearing was set to begin, fbi agents arrested Baker under a federal statute that prohibits interstate transmission of a threat to kidnap or injure.
In an interview with Time before he was taken into custody, Baker insisted that he never meant to hurt anyone and had never even spoken to the woman. "I could have made up a name, but I didn't," he said. "I used hers because it was on the top of my mind." He says the violence he expressed was a product of stress. "This would not have got written had I not been fearful about my future at the university. I had a lot of anxiety about my student loan,'' he says. Baker is anxious about coming back to school, and insists he will pursue psychological counseling even if the university does not require it. But above all, he wants to be a writer-the kind who gets noticed. "The worst insult to a writer is for people to have no opinion about his work,'' he says. His newest plot line: "a guy who has been wronged by society and is out for revenge." By the time this case is sorted out, he should have plenty of material.
--Reported by Wendy Cole/Chicago