
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, May 2, 1995                   TAG: 9505040026
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ONE TO VETO

CHILD PORNOGRAPHY sickens us to our core. Few are the civil libertarians who would argue that this should be legal under constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression - and it is not. Numerous federal and state laws prohibit the practice and distribution of child pornography, with tough criminal penalties for violation.

The question before Gov. George Allen at the moment is whether criminal penalties should be extended to those who unknowingly aid and abet child pornographers.

Specifically, the governor must decide this week whether to sign a bill, passed by the 1995 General Assembly, that would criminally punish computer companies whose networks may be used to electronically transmit pornographic material involving children.

Allen says he's inclined to sign the bill, despite constitutional objections raised by major telecommunications carriers and civil-rights organizations. Yet the governor himself as much as recognized that the bill has serious constitutional flaws, when he proposed amendments to it at the assembly's veto session last month.

Allen's amendments would have addressed many of the free-speech problems with the legislation, but state lawmakers did not approve them. So, as it now stands, the legislation would virtually require on-line providers to do the impossible: to become cops of cyberspace, monitoring every word and image passing over the information superhighway. Because this is impossible, it could lead to unconstitutional prosecutions of people who had no knowledge of the sexually explicit nature of materials moving over cyberspace networks, or of the age of individuals featured in such materials.

As much as we abhor child pornography, do we want telephone companies listening in on our conversations? Do we want Internet providers, commercial on-line services and bulletin-board system operators snooping into our e-mail and electronic chitchat - passing judgments as to what we cannot say or read? (We should note that this newspaper's parent company, Landmark Communications Inc., holds a majority interest in an internet on-line service, InfiNet.)

Whatever its intentions, this legislation violates Virginians' rights both to free speech and to privacy. Allen should not hesitate to protect these rights by vetoing the bill.

by CNB