[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 119 (Friday, July 21, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10484-S10486]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


  REPORT OF INTERACTIVE WORKING GROUP ON PARENTAL EMPOWERMENT, CHILD 
            PROTECTION AND FREE SPEECH IN INTERACTIVE MEDIA

  In light of concerns and legislative proposals to regulate indecent 
and obscene content on the Internet, I have asked the Attorney General 
of the United States as well as a coalition of private and public 
interest groups known as the Interactive Working Group to look at this 
issue and provide recommendations on addressing the problem of 
children's access to objectionable online material, but to do so in a 
constitutional and effective manner.
  I have not yet heard back from the Attorney General and look forward 
to receiving the report of the Department of Justice as promptly as 
their study can be concluded.
  I come to the Senate today to speak about the report from the 
Interactive Working Group that will be released Monday. This group 
includes online service providers, content providers, 

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and public interest organizations dedicated to the interactive 
communications media. I would recommend the report to my colleagues.
  In its report, the Interactive Working Group describes some of the 
technology available, not in the future but today, to help parents 
supervise their children's activities on the Internet and protect them 
from objectionable online material. In fact, available blocking 
technology can make pornographic Usenet news groups or World Wide Web 
sites off limits to children.
  I mention this because we seem to be carried away with the idea that 
somehow we will set up a Federal standard that will treat everybody 
exactly the same, whether adult or child, in setting up gateways on the 
Internet--without accepting the fact that maybe parents have a certain 
responsibility to raise their children. The responsibility parents have 
is greater than the Senate or the House of Representatives has, and as 
a parent, I would readily take on that responsibility rather than to 
have the Congress tell me what to do.
  There are other commercially available products that limit children's 
access to chat rooms, where they might be solicited. They limit 
children's ability to receive pornographic pictures through electronic 
mail.
  Other products allow parents to monitor their children's usage of the 
Internet. You can find out exactly where they have been and what they 
might have been reading. This is significantly different from other 
settings where parents may have no idea what magazines or books their 
children read--but you can find out on the Internet.
  Yet some would close down the Internet to prevent the possibility of 
an infraction. What I am saying is that parents ought to take some 
responsibility themselves.
  Software entrepreneurs and the vibrant forces of the free market are 
providing tools that can empower parents' to restrict their children's 
access to offensive material. Parents can restrict access to whatever 
they considered objectionable: whether it is beer advertising, or 
fantastic card games that some parents believe promotes interest in the 
occult. Interested organizations, like the Christian Coalition or 
Mothers Against Drunk Driving, could provide parents that use blocking 
technology with lists of sites these groups consider inappropriate for 
children.
  This is not a case where we in Congress, playing big brother or big 
sister, need to determine what parents should tell their children to 
watch or read.
  If you set up Government regulations, the kind of heavy-handed 
regulations that we seem intent upon passing, then you will stifle this 
new industry. If you have overly restrictive bans on the Internet, they 
will prove not only unconstitutional, but they are going to hamper the 
growth of this new communications medium, one that has grown faster 
than anything else I have seen in my lifetime. The Internet has been 
growing at an exponential rate and new uses for it are devised daily.
  Anyone with a computer and a modem can send something out on the 
Internet, but unlike a broadcaster, potential listeners must seek out 
this information and download it. This indecency that we worry about 
does not come easily into a home. You have to go out and look for it.
  We are at the dawn of a new era in communication. Interactive 
communications--ranging from online computer services, CD-ROM's, and 
home shopping networks--are growing at an astonishing rate, bringing 
great opportunities for business, culture, and education. Of all these 
new interactive communications, the Internet has become the new 
location for our Nation's discourse.
  The Internet does not function like a broadcast or a newspaper where 
a station manager or editor chooses which images or stories to send out 
in public. The Internet is like a combination of a great library and 
town square, where people can make available vast amounts of 
information or take part in free and open discussions on any topic. It 
has provided great opportunities for our disabled citizens and has 
enabled our children the ability to discuss issues with some of 
society's greatest minds. With this technology, I conduct electronic 
town meetings with Vermonters, post information about legislative 
activities, and hear back from Vermonters about what they think.
  Unfortunately, like any free and open society, the Internet and 
online computer services have attracted their share of criminals. I 
recently introduced with Senators Kyl and Grassley the National 
Information Infrastructure Protection Act to increase protection for 
our Nation's important computer systems and confidential information 
from damage or prying by malicious insiders and computer hackers.
  In addition, the Internet is not immune from pornographers. 
Pornography exists in every communications media, including films, 
books, magazines, and dial-a-porn telephone services. The press has 
recently hyped the discovery that online pornography exists on the 
Internet. But we should be careful not to overstate the extent of the 
problem.
  In our universal condemnation of pornography and desire to protect 
our children from exposure to online pornography, we should not rush in 
with well-meaning but misguided legislation. Any response we choose 
must be tempered by first amendment concerns. Heavy-handed attempts to 
protect children could unduly chill speech on the Internet and infringe 
upon the first amendment.
  What are we doing as a legislative body if we discourage the project 
Gutenberg from placing online the works of Charles Dickens, Geoffrey 
Chaucer, or D.H. Lawrence for fear of prosecution because someone, 
somewhere on the Internet, might find the works indecent? Would the 
Internet still be the great electronic library and the setting for open 
discussion it now promises? These questions and issues will be the 
subject of an important Judiciary Committee hearing Monday afternoon.
  Any legislative approach must take into consideration online users' 
privacy and free speech interests. If we grant too much power to online 
providers to screen for indecent material, public discourse and online 
content in cyberspace will be controlled by the providers and not the 
users of this fantastic resource. At the same time, we should carefully 
consider the Interactive Working Group's recommendation that online 
providers be encouraged to implement reasonable forms of filtering 
technology. Our laws should encourage and not discourage online 
providers from creating a safe environment for children.
  Even worse than discouraging online providers from implementing 
blocking technologies, is discouraging them from allowing children onto 
their services altogether. If online providers are liable for any 
exposure of indecent material to children, people under the age of 18 
will be shut out of this technology or relegated by the Government to 
sanitized kids-only services that contain only a tiny fraction of the 
entire Internet. That would be the equivalent of limiting today's 
students to the childhood section of the library or locking them out 
completely. This is not how this country should face the increasingly 
competitive global marketplace of the 21st century.
  I do not want somebody to tell me what I can say if I am talking to 
my neighbor on the Internet, or if I am sending messages back and forth 
to friends. Frankly, Mr. President, sometimes my friends and I will 
disagree pretty loudly on the Internet and we will be very frank in our 
discussion of other's ideas and what not. At what point do we have 
somebody come on and say you cannot talk like that to each other, 
someone I have known for 30 years?
  With our children, I again say that there are times when the 
responsibility should be that of parents. Parents know their children 
better than any Government official, and are in the best position to 
know the sort of online material to which their children may be 
exposed.
  Finally, the Interactive Working Group's report shows how we can use 
existing Federal laws to stop online stalkers and child pornographers. 
Our criminal laws already prohibit the sale or distribution over 
computer networks of obscene material (18 U.S.C. Secs. 1465, 1466, 2252 
and 2423(a)). We already impose criminal liability for transmitting any 
threatening message over computer networks (18 U.S.C. Sec. 875(c)). We 
already proscribe the solicitation of minors over computers for any 
sexual activity (18 U.S.C. Sec. 

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2452), and illegal luring of minors into sexual activity through 
computer conversations (18 U.S.C. Sec. 2423(b)). We need to make sure 
our law enforcement has the training and resources to track down 
computer criminals, and not create new laws which restrict free speech 
and are repetitive of existing crimes.
  This paper is important because it shows how we can address the 
problem of online pornography by empowering parents, and not the 
Government, to screen children's computer activities. This is the best 
way to police the Internet without unduly restricting free speech or 
squelching the growth of this fantastic new communications medium.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Inhofe). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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