ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 31, 1995 TAG: 9512290124
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F2 EDITION: METRO
TELECOMMUNICATIONS reform was supposed to be about deregulation, remember?
One glaring, grotesque defect in an otherwise reasonable compromise reform bill recently devised by House and Senate conferees has nothing to do with deregulating telecommunications businesses and encouraging free-market competition. It has everything to do with regulating speech and discouraging the free exchange of information.
The provision in question seeks to regulate sexual material on on-line services by making it a crime to make "indecent" material available to minors over computer networks.
This was compromise language offered by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke, to replace an even more onerous proposal not only to impose this vague "indecency" standard on the originator, but also to make the distributor culpable if anything that someone finds offensive appears on its network.
Since no on-line service could hope to monitor everything posted in cyberspace, the latter provision would have created havoc on the Internet. It would have been like holding a phone company responsible if someone makes an obscene phone call.
Preserving the "indecency" standard, however, is no more workable.
Presumably, the provision - which would criminalize words and images that do not meet the Supreme Court's obscenity standards - has its genesis in the proper outrage that has greeted reports of children downloading pornography and even meeting molesters through the Net, all unbeknownst to their parents.
But federal statutes already ban obscenity and child pornography, and the Justice Department has all the laws it needs to police cyberspace for child molesters.
Goodlatte, along with the Christian Coalition that is supporting the measure, seems to confuse the Internet with broadcast media. The latter are one-way, rigidly channelized, with definable communities of origin and reach. The Internet, by contrast, is interactive, with virtually limitless choices in access to content, and global in scope.
Parents concerned about material that doesn't meet the obscenity standard should know that computer software is available to block minors' access to objectionable material.
In accepting this constitutionally questionable provision, House and Senate negotiators added a requirement that a federal court in Washington take up the issue as soon as a legal challenge is filed. It shouldn't have to go that far.
The provision should be dropped before Congress votes on the telecommunications bill. It is an unwarranted bureaucratic intrusion that would have a chilling effect on Internet communications. Sorry, but taking a stand against indecency looks like irresponsible pandering when it invites government censorship and endless litigation.
LENGTH: Medium: 55 linesby CNB