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The Center for Democracy and Technology /____/ Volume 4, Number 2
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A briefing on public policy issues affecting civil liberties online
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CDT POLICY POST Volume 4, Number 2 February 11, 1998
CONTENTS: (1) Congress Rushes to Censor the Net. Again.
(2) How to Subscribe/Unsubscribe
(3) About CDT, Contacting us
** This document may be redistributed freely with this banner intact **
Excerpts may be re-posted with permission of
|PLEASE SEE END OF THIS DOCUMENT FOR SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION|
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(1) CONGRESS RUSHES TO CENSOR THE NET. HERE WE GO AGAIN.
Congress is back in session and rushing to censor the Net again, this time
in the name of saving school children and library users from material that
is 'harmful to minors.' Yesterday Sen. John McCain introduced a bill that
would force schools and libraries with federally-subsidized Internet access
to use software filters. Last November Sen. Dan Coats spo nsored a bill
that would criminalize the publication of material 'harmful to minors' on
the Internet. Together these two bills would take Congress down the same
wrong-headed path it followed when it passed the Communications Decency
Act. The Internet community saw what happened to the CDA--the Supreme Court
overturned it, and told Congress in no uncertain terms that the Internet
deserved "the highest First Amendment protections." But this is a new year,
and a new session, and Congress is poised to make the same mistake all over
again. [For a copy of the McCain bill, see
http://www.cdt.org/speech/980210_mccain.html
CDT believes that the McCain and Coats proposals violate the First
Amendment and are no more likely than the CDA was to offer any real
protection for kids who use the Net. But the Senate Commerce, Science and
Transportation Committee didn't see things that way when it held a hearing
yesterday on "Indecency on the Internet," where Members of Congress
examined, according to a committee press release, 'concerns about
widespread availability and easy access to obscene material on the
Internet.'
Throughout the hearing most of the committee insisted that Congress MUST
act quickly, and do *something* to regulate the Internet and stop the
proliferation of questionable online materials. Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchinson
and Olympia Snowe, for example, said they supported the McCain and Coats
bills because indecent material online is 'a serious problem' and Congress
'must protect children' from it. Sen. Coats warned the committee that
'parents do not want to send their children to school in a red light
district' and that until the Internet 'is made safe for children' it won't
reach its full potential. He read to the committee a letter from teachers
at South Knox High School in southern Indiana saying that they have seen
'pictures on the Internet in our school library' of people engaged in oral
sex. 'The ironic result of the [Supreme] Court's ruling in the CDA is that
our government is racing to wire every child in America to the electronic
equivalent of a hard-core porn shop with no legal protections from indecent
material,' Coats exhorted his fellow Senators.
Fortunately, a few committee members said they were concerned about
Congress rushing to legislative judgement about the Internet before it has
heard about alternatives to imposing the heavy hand of the federal
government on the Net community. 'While this is a very emotional and
controversial issue, we must approach it calmly and rationally,' Sen.
Conrad Burns said. 'Those in the best position to determine the correct
policy [for] protecting kids from harmful material are the educators in
contact with those kids every day of the week.' Sen. Byron Dorgon noted
that while he's concerned about the problem of unsolicited pornographic
email, or "porn spam," that Congress must find 'an effective solution'
rather than a quick one. 'This hearing is a good start,' Byron added. Sen.
Spencer Abraham also raised questions about how effective the McCain and
Coats bills would be in shielding children from questionable materials
generated by sites not located within U.S. borders.
We believe the McCain bill (known as the 'Internet School Filtering Act')
and the Coats bill are unconstitutional because they both attempt to impose
a single national standard controlling what everyone online can see, think
and say. We believe this approach is inconsistent with not only with the
decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Reno v. ACLU, the case that
overturned the CDA, but with the Supreme Court's rulings on the regulation
of obscenity and material that is 'harmful to minors.'
In 1973, the Supreme Court made 'contemporary community standards' the law
of the land on the regulation of obscenity and material that is harmful to
minors. But the McCain and Coats bills ignore--as the CDA ignored--the
diversity of moral principles that hold sway in communities across the
nation--and among the thousands of communities that exist on the Internet.
Both bills also ignore the right of parents to teach their children
responsibility and judgment as they see fit.
It IS possible to find ways to protect children online without sacrificing
the free speech values of the First Amendment. Nonprofit organizations and
Internet industry members have been working for many months on solutions
that will help keep children safe on the Internet. For information on a
series of initiatives developed in the aftermath of a major summit meeting
in early December for the entire Internet community -- including
Internet/online service providers, online publishers, software companies,
librarians, educators, children's advocates and civil libertarians -- see
http://www.kidsonline.org . Congress simply shouldn't make a rush to
legislative judgment until it has heard from all of these people.
________________________________________________________________________
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(7) SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION
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(8) ABOUT THE CENTER FOR DEMOCRACY AND TECHNOLOGY/CONTACTING US
The Center for Democracy and Technology is a non-profit public interest
organization based in Washington, DC. The Center's mission is to develop
and advocate public policies that advance democratic values and
constitutional civil liberties in new computer and communications
technologies.
Contacting us:
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World Wide Web: http://www.cdt.org/
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(v) +1.202.637.9800 * (f) +1.202.637.0968
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