IP: Washington Post: Conf Committee Debates Cyberporn

[Dave Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

November 9, 1995
Conferees Debate Bid for Penalties on On-Line Pornography


   
   By John Schwartz and Elizabeth Corcoran
   Washington Post Staff Writers
   
   
   Activists who want tough restrictions on on-line pornography are
   making a last-ditch effort to empower cops to walk the cyber-beat.
   
   Lawmakers are taking up the issue in Congress in conference committee
   negotiations over provisions of a huge telecommunications bill.
   
   Two conflicting provisions are attached to House and Senate versions
   of the bill, and the activists are fighting for the approach of the
   Senate legislation, which was sponsored by Sens. James Exon (D-Neb.)
   and Dan Coats (R-Ind.).
   
   The Senate version would criminalize "indecent" material on-line and
   establish stiff penalties for people and companies that transmit it.
   The proposal also calls for enforcement by the Federal Communications
   Commission.
   
   The bill's House amendment, supported by Speaker Newt Gingrich
   (R-Ga.), would expressly forbid regulation of content on the Internet,
   instead encouraging high-tech companies to come up with software that
   parents could use to block objectionable material from reaching their
   children.
   
   On both sides of the fight are conservatives, who are split over how
   much power to give the government over the Internet. Letters to
   lawmakers from two coalitions of conservative activists make the
   differences clear.
   
   One letter, which has been circulating since late last month, calls
   for "the strongest possible criminal law provisions" against computer
   pornography.
   
   Among those signing it are former attorney general Edwin Meese III,
   Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition, Phyllis Schlafly of Eagle Forum
   and Donald E. Wildmon of the American Family Association.
   
   The other letter, obtained yesterday by The Washington Post, says that
   "content regulation of cyber-speech will unduly chill free expression
   and needlessly undermine the vitality of the on-line/Internet market."
   
   It is signed by George A. Keyworth II and Jeffrey Eisenach of the
   Gingrich-affiliated Progress and Freedom Foundation, as well as
   scholars at several other conservative Washington-based think tanks,
   including the Cato Institute, the American Enterprise Institute and
   the Heritage Foundation.
   
   Within recent months, the high-tech community has jointly sponsored a
   team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who
   are developing standards that would enable many companies to build
   filters for blocking objectionable material.
   
   Other companies have already announced early products of their own.
   
   Harris N. Miller, president of the Information Technology Association
   of America, said such tools, "which were more ideas than reality six
   months ago, are reality now." Miller's group is a co-sponsor of the
   work at MIT.
   
   Adam D. Thierer, who is a Heritage Foundation fellow like Meese but
   signed the anti-regulation letter, said "We don't want the Big Brother
   approach, and at the end of the day the conservative movement will
   come around to realizing that ultimately the same solutions we've
   applied in the past will work in cyberspace."
   
   Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Larry Pressler (R-S.D.), is urging
   lawmakers to resolve their differences on the bill by Thanksgiving.