[Congressional Bills 106th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 1930 Introduced in House (IH)]







106th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 1930

 To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to require the operator of a 
   World Wide Web site that offers to provide communication with any 
 prisoner to disclose on the site the crime for which the prisoner is 
          incarcerated and the release date for the prisoner.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                              May 25, 1999

 Mr. LoBiondo introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
                         Committee on Commerce

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to require the operator of a 
   World Wide Web site that offers to provide communication with any 
 prisoner to disclose on the site the crime for which the prisoner is 
          incarcerated and the release date for the prisoner.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Prisoner Web Site Disclosure Act of 
1999''.

SEC. 2. REQUIRED WEB SITE DISCLOSURES.

    Part I of title II of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 201 
et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the following new section:



``SEC. 232. REQUIRED INCLUSION ON WORLD WIDE WEB SITES OFFERING 
              COMMUNICATIONS WITH PRISONERS.

    ``(a) In General.--It shall be unlawful for any person to make an 
offer, by means of the World Wide Web, to provide any communication 
with any incarcerated individual unless such offer also contains 
notice, in a clear and conspicuous manner, of--
            ``(1) the crime or crimes for which such individual is 
        incarcerated; and
            ``(2) the earliest date on which such individual may be 
        released from incarceration under the terms of the individual's 
        sentence.
    ``(b) Inapplicability to Carriers and Other Service Providers.--For 
purposes of subsection (a), a person shall not be considered to make 
any offer to the extent that such person is--
            ``(1) a telecommunications carrier engaged in the provision 
        of a telecommunications service;
            ``(2) a person engaged in the business of providing an 
        Internet access service;
            ``(3) a person engaged in the business of providing an 
        Internet information location tool; or
            ``(4) a person similarly engaged in the transmission, 
        storage, retrieval, hosting, formatting, or translation (or any 
        combination thereof) of a communication made by another person, 
        without selection or alteration of the content of the 
        communication, except that such person's deletion of a 
        particular communication or material made by another person in 
        a manner consistent with subsection (c) or section 230 shall 
        not constitute such selection or alteration of the content of 
        the communication.
    ``(c) Civil Penalty.--Whoever is determined by the Commission, on 
the record after opportunity for a hearing, to have violated subsection 
(a) shall be subject to a civil penalty of not more than $1,000 for 
each violation. For purposes of this subsection, each incarcerated 
individual for whom an offer referred to in subsection (a) is made 
shall constitute a separate violation.
    ``(d) Definitions.--For purposes of this section, the following 
definitions shall apply:
            ``(1) By means of the world wide web, internet, internet 
        access service, internet information location tool.--The terms 
        `by means of the World Wide Web', `Internet', `Internet access 
        service', and `Internet information location tool' have the 
        meanings given such terms in section 231(e).
            ``(2) Incarcerated individual.--The term `incarcerated 
        individual' means any individual who, pursuant to a criminal 
        conviction under State or Federal law, is incarcerated in any 
        State or Federal prison, jail, workhouse, or other penal or 
        correctional institution.
    ``(e) Applicability.--The prohibition under subsection (a) shall 
apply to offers made on and after January 1, 2000.''.

SEC. 3. PUBLIC INFORMATION.

    As soon as practicable after the enactment of this Act, the Federal 
Communications Commission shall make widely available information that 
is designed to inform the public regarding the prohibition under 
section 232 of the Communications Act of 1934 (as added by section 2 of 
this Act), and what actions constitute violations of the prohibition, 
by making such information available--
            (1) on the World Wide Web site of the Commission; and
            (2) in such other manners as the Commission considers 
        appropriate.
                                 <all>