Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 15, 1995 TAG: 9506160021
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEANNINE AVERSA ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
As a bill overhauling the nation's telecommunications laws moved toward final passage Wednesday, senators were looking to add provisions aimed at restricting children's access to indecent or pornographic material on television and computers.
Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., scheduled a final vote on the bill for today.
In addition to the anti-smut measures, senators were to consider an amendment tempering the cable deregulation provisions in the bill, the most sweeping rewrite of telecommunications law since the 1930s.
The bill would let local telephone, long-distance and cable companies get into each other's businesses and free the biggest electric utilities to provide an array of telecommunications services.
In another important addition to the bill, the Senate agreed on a voice vote Wednesday not to overturn so-called ``dialing parity'' rules in 10 states. Those rules guarantee that telephone customers only have to dial the numeral ``1'' before making an in-state long-distance call. States enacted the rules to make sure that companies competing against local phone companies were not put at a disadvantage.
AT&T and other long-distance companies had lobbied hard for the provision, but in a compromise that benefits the Bell companies, the measure prevents 13 other states that are writing dialing parity rules from implementing them for three years.
In addition, the amendment bars long-distance companies from jointly marketing interstate and in-state toll-call service until the Bells are in the interstate long-distance business.
As currently written, the overall bill also would substantially deregulate cable television rates.
The bill would lift longstanding limits on how many TV and radio stations one company may own nationally and would remove an 83-year-old restriction on foreign ownership of telecommunications companies as long other countries remove theirs.
The anti-smut provisions that have been added to the bill represent the most aggressive effort by the Senate to combat smut on television and computer services in years.
In an 84-16 vote Wednesday, the Senate agreed to toughen existing provisions, originally written by Sen. James Exon, D-Neb., that would ban indecent and obscene materials on computer services and the Internet global computer network.
Voting against the tougher provisions were Sens. Joseph Biden, D-Del.; Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M.; John Chafee, R-R.I.; Russell Feingold, D-Wis.; John Glenn, D-Ohio; James Jeffords, R-Vt.; Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.; Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.; Carl Levin, D-Mich.; Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn.; Carol Moseley-Baun, D-Ill.; Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y.; Patty Murray, D-Wash.; Charles Robb, D-Va.; Paul Simon, D-Ill., and Paul Wellstone, D-Minn.
Under a compromise, fines would be increased for companies or people that transmit obscene communications over cable, broadcast television and radio. The fines, administered by the Federal Communications Commission, would be increased to $100,000 per violation from $10,000.
Another new provision would require online computer services to restrict children's access to so-called indecent materials like chat lines or photos by requiring users to verify their age with a personal identification number, Senate aides said.
Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind., who wrote this provision, said it would ``give parents the ability to keep their children away from indecent and pornographic materials and to make sure these things don't come into the home automatically.''
In return, more contentious provisions were dropped, including one that would have required cable operators to keep indecent programs off the ``basic'' tier - the lowest level of service all subscribers must buy in order to get any other level of cable service.
Many amendments had been filed to restrict the electronic dissemination of smut, said Sen. Larry Pressler, R-S.D., author of the bill. But he said in an interview that he believed only a handful would be debated.
While sympathetic to parents who may want to control their children's exposure to indecent images on television and on computers, Pressler said he is no advocate of government intervention in this area.
``It is dangerous for the government to get into the regulatory business,'' he said.
Citing potential First Amendment violations and privacy invasions, Exon's plan is opposed by the Clinton administration, the American Civil Liberties Union and computer user groups.
Computer groups say the proposals to restrict smut are too broad.
``They dumb down the content of the entire media to make it acceptable to children,'' said William Godwin, staff counsel to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group for computer users.
Unlike television, which carries programs into people's homes whether they want them or not, computer users choose to bring information into their homes by plucking things from vast streams of data.
Indecent speech, unlike obscenity, is protected under the First Amendment. But courts have permitted indecent speech to be regulated to protect the interests of children.
Indecent speech is judged by ``contemporary community standards'' and can include, among other things, depictions of sexual organs and activities.
Obscene speech, which is deemed to have no social, political, literary or scientific value, has long been banned on radio, broadcast and cable television.
Under a measure added to the bill Tuesday, parents would have the power to zap violent and other objectionable programs, such as dirty movies, right off their TV screens.
by CNB