ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, December 7, 1995 TAG: 9512070074
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
House lawmakers agreed Wednesday on a plan that would make it illegal for a company to knowingly transmit sexually explicit and other ``indecent'' material to minors over computers.
The agreement makes it all but certain that if legislation overhauling the nation's telecommunication laws is enacted, it will contain some of the most sweeping anti-smut provisions ever imposed on computer communications.
The plan is part of negotiations on a larger telecommunication bill and settles differences among House members who were deeply divided over how best to limit children's exposure to smut carried on computer services, including the global network, Internet.
The plan not only toughens an anti-smut provision contained in a House telecommunication bill, but brings it in line with a provision in the Senate's telecommunication bill.
``We're on the road to an agreement that most can agree to,'' said Sen. James Exon, D-Neb., author of the Senate's anti-smut provision, which like the House plan also outlaws the transmission of indecent material to minors.
House and Senate lawmakers serving on a committee to reconcile House- and Senate-passed telecommunication bills met for the second time in six weeks on Wednesday.
``I'm determined to finish this bill,'' said Sen. Larry Pressler, R-S.D., architect of the Senate's telecommunication measure and chairman of the conference committee.
Supporters are scrambling to bring a final bill to each chamber for a vote by Dec. 15. Republican Rep. Thomas J. Bliley of Richmond, the primary author of the House bill, said the conference could be completed within days.
While the panel ended up reconciling nearly three dozen largely noncontroversial provisions contained in both bills, it has yet to resolve differences on the most contentious issues - the conditions by which Bell companies may enter the long-distance business and media ownership.
A tentative agreement on another contentious issue - cable deregulation - would lift existing price regulations on all but the smallest cable TV systems in at least three years. Small systems would be deregulated on enactment.
The House's anti-smut plan - a combination of dueling proposals from Reps. Rick White, R-Wash., and Henry Hyde, R-Ill. - would prohibit content providers on a computer service from ``knowingly sending or directly sending'' sexually explicit material to anyone 18 years old or younger.
Companies that provide access to computer networks, such as America Online and CompuServe, would not be liable under the provision, White said.
The Department of Justice would enforce the provision, which also carries criminal penalties of up to two years in jail and $100,000 in fines.
Businesses and civil liberties groups opposed Hyde's plan to toughen the House's anti-smut provision by making it illegal for a content provider to knowingly transmit indecent materials.
Instead, they had rallied behind a proposal from White, whose district includes the headquarters of Microsoft, that among other things, would have prohibited only the transmission of materials ``harmful to minors'' and would not have outlawed indecent transmissions.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, one of the groups pushing for weaker anti-smut provisions, was pleased that the House plan would shield on-line access providers from liability, said spokesman Frank Coleman. But the chamber is concerned about the indecency language because it ``fails to establish a clear and certain national standard of conduct for business,'' he said.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which advocates privacy rights for computer users, called the plan unconstitutional. The ACLU plans to fight the measure in court if it becomes law.
But Mike Russell, a spokesman for the Christian Coalition, which backed Hyde's tougher standard, said: ``It is clearly going in our direction. We were holding out for tougher language, and it appears we're going to get it.''
Indecent speech, unlike obscenity, is protected under the First Amendment. Though the House plan doesn't yet specifically define ``indecent,'' the standard legal and regulatory definition says it is material that describes in terms patently offensive, as measured by contemporary community standard, sexual or excretory activities or organs.
Transmission of obscene materials, whether by print, broadcast, cable or computers, is illegal. Obscenity is explicit material that, measured by community standards, lacks serious artistic, political, scientific or social merit.
LENGTH: Medium: 84 linesby CNB