[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 19 (Thursday, February 13, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1355-S1357]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          COMPUTER PORNOGRAPHY

  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I come before my colleagues today to 
discuss an issue which is not pleasant. It is tragically controversial, 
and it is an unsavory topic. The issue is computer pornography.
  I have a copy of the February 10, 1997 U.S. News & World Report 
magazine. The cover story indicates, America is by far the world's 
leading producer of porn, churning out hard core videos at the 
astonishing rate of about 150 new titles per week. The magazine 
provides an inside look at the industry.
  Within this U.S. News & World Report edition is a lengthy article 
discussing the porn industry in the United States, shamefully 
pronouncing the United States as the world's leading producer of 
pornography. There is much in this article to shock, to disappoint, and 
to be ashamed of. But I am going to limit my remarks specifically to 
the issue of computer pornography.
  As a backdrop, let me quote from the article just to give us an idea 
of the scope of the problem. ``Last year,'' the article states, 
``Americans spent more

[[Page S1356]]

than $8 billion on hard-core videos, peep shows, live sex acts, adult 
cable programming, sexual devices, computer porn, and sex magazines--an 
amount larger than Hollywood's domestic box office receipts and larger 
than all of the revenues generated by rock and country music 
recordings. Americans now spend more money at strip clubs than at 
Broadway, off-Broadway, regional, and nonprofit theaters; at the opera, 
the ballet, and jazz and classical music performances . . . combined.''
  That is the scope of the problem. It is a staggering statistic, one 
that ought to shock us all.
  The article also discusses the role of the Internet and the role of 
computer pornography in driving the technology that we have all become 
so aware of in just the last year or so. Let me again quote from the 
magazine:

       In much the same way that hard-core films on videocassette 
     were largely responsible for the rapid introduction of the 
     VCR, porn CD-ROM and on the Internet has hastened the 
     acceptance of these new technologies. Interactive adult CD-
     ROMs, such as Virtual Valerie and the Penthouse Photo Shoot, 
     create interest in multimedia equipment among male computer 
     buyers.

  According to the article. It goes on to say, and I quote:

       The availability of sexually explicit material through 
     computer bulletin board systems has drawn many users to the 
     Internet. Porn companies have established elaborate web sites 
     to lure customers.

  For instance, ``Playboy's web site, which offers free glimpses of its 
Playmates, now averages about 5 million hits a day.'' Five million 
times someone is logging into the Playboy web site every day.
  The article then goes on to quote a seeming cult figure of the 
anything goes set in America, Larry Flynt:

       Larry Flynt imagines a future in which the TV and the 
     personal computer have merged. Americans will lie in bed, 
     cruising the Internet with their remote controls and ordering 
     hard-core films at the punch of a button. The Internet 
     promises to combine the video store's diversity of choices 
     with the secrecy of purchases through the mail.

  Why do I bring this up, Mr. President? Because in the last Congress, 
the 104th Congress, this Senate adopted the Exon-Coats amendment, known 
as the Communications Decency Act, as part of the telecommunications 
reform legislation. I bring this up not to point out what Americans 
should or should not do in the privacy of their bedroom. I bring this 
up to ask the question as to whether or not we have a responsibility to 
protect our children from the negative impact of pornography. The 
Communications Decency Act simply extends the same protections that are 
currently in place, for children from pornography, that exists in every 
other means of communication but has not caught up with computer 
communication. The Internet has exploded on the scene and, yet, the 
same restrictions and protections for children, regarding the 
distribution of pornography that we have built into telephone 
technology, television technology, VCR technology, and others, has not 
been extended to computer technology, until the Communications Decency 
Act.

  As U.S. News reports, ``The Nation's obscenity laws and the 
Communications Decency Act are the greatest impediments to Flynt's 
brave new world of porn.'' The article said that, ``Even he [Larry 
Flynt] is shocked by some of the material he has obtained through the 
Internet.''
  Let me quote him. ``Some of the stuff on there, I mean, I wouldn't 
even publish it.''
  Anybody familiar with Mr. Flynt's record in terms of extending the 
boundaries of publication of pornographic material have to be stunned 
by this statement. Basically what he is saying is that some of the 
material that is available on the Internet without any protections for 
children, is so shocking even he wouldn't publish it in his magazines, 
which are only sold to adults, or are only supposed to be sold to 
adults.
  Opponents of the Communications Decency Act, companies like America 
On-Line, the ACLU, the American Library Association, have argued that 
there should be no role for government in protecting children, that the 
Internet can regulate itself. The primary solution that they have 
offered is a system called PICs, Platform for Internet Content 
Selection. It is a type of self-rating system. This would allow the 
publisher of the material, the pornographer, to rate his own home page 
on the Web, and browsers, the tools that are used to search the 
Internet, would then respond to these ratings.
  Mr. President, I suggest that it is a ludicrous proposition to allow 
the pornographer to rate their own material. There is no incentive for 
compliance.
  PC Week magazine, a prominent voice in the computer industry recently 
published an editorial entitled ``Web Site Ratings--Shame on Most of 
Us.'' The column discusses the lack of voluntary compliance by content 
providers. The article states,

       We and many others in the computer industry and press have 
     decried the Communications Decency Act and other government 
     attempts to regulate the content of the Web. Instead, we've 
     all argued, the government should let the Web rate and 
     regulate its own content. Page ratings and browsers that 
     respond to those ratings, not legislation, are the answers 
     we've offered.

  But then the article goes on to say:

       The argument has been effective. With the CDA still wrapped 
     up in the Courts, the general feeling seems to be that we, 
     the good guys, carried the day on this one.

  ``Too bad we left the field before the game was over,'' the article 
says. ``We who work around the Web have done little to rate our 
content.'' The article goes on to say that, in search of the Web, they 
found ``few rated sites.'' And even those rated sites were an 
``exception to the rule.'' In other words, the PICs don't work. Of 
course they don't work. They don't work because you are asking the 
producer who is trying to sell the material to rate the material in a 
way that it will not be accessed as many people as it otherwise would. 
There is no incentive for pornographers to comply.
  So what are the ramifications to our children? A member of my staff 
went on Lexis/Nexis and searched for articles containing the words: 
Computer and pornography and Internet and looked for articles dated 
after the first of the year. And we came up with 139 separate stories. 
``Internet pornography at library concerns parents'', ``Parents want 
BPL (Boston Public Library) to block porn on Internet'', articles 
entitled, ``Kids see porn via the Internet.'' ``Mother sues America On-
Line over cyber porn,'' and on and on.
  At a time when the President and the Vice President are calling for 
every classroom in America to be wired to the Internet, when Larry 
Flynt is shocked by some of the material he finds there, the ACLU and 
congressional opponents of the Communications Decency Act claim that 
the Government has no right to protect our children from this 
pornographic material. Fortunately, the Senate spoke on a vote of 84 to 
16, and the Congress as a whole spoke overwhelmingly in favor of the 
CDA.
  Mr. President, the Supreme Court will soon hear arguments on the 
constitutionality of the CDA. I have a copy of the amicus brief, filed 
on behalf of Members of Congress, which reaffirms the voice of Congress 
on this important issue. I thank my colleagues who took a stand with me 
in this brief and ask unanimous consent that the content of the cover 
of the brief be printed and referenced in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

    [In the Supreme Court of the United States, October Term, 1996]

 Janet Reno, Attorney General of the United States, et al., appellants 
          v. American Civil Liberties Union, et al., appellees

    On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern 
                        District of Pennsylvania

                      Brief of Members of Congress

       Senators Dan Coats, James Exon, Jesse Helms, Charles 
     Grassley, Christopher Bond, James Inhofe, Rick Santorum, Rod 
     Grams; and
       Representatives Henry J. Hyde, Bob Goodlatte, F. James 
     Sensenbrenner, Jr., Steven Schiff, William L. Jenkins, Asa 
     Hutchinson, Chris Smith, Duncan Hunter, Roscoe Bartlett, 
     Walter B. Jones, Jr., Sherwood Boehlert, Mark Souder, Steve 
     Largent, Jim Ryun, Tony Hall, Dave Weldon, Frank R. Wolf as 
     amici curiae in support of appellants.

  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I know my time is up, I intend to take 
additional time later to talk about the constitutionality of the 
Communications Decency Act, and to restate the case for why I believe 
it will pass constitutional muster.
  Mr. President, this is something that we have to be vigilant on 
because

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clearly we have an interest, and a responsibility to protect our 
children from this kind of material.
  Mr. President, I thank you for the time.
  I yield the floor.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as if in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. MURRAY. I thank the Chair.
  (The remarks of Mrs. Murray pertaining to the introduction of S. 324 
are located in today's record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. KOHL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hutchinson). The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Mr. KOHL. I thank the Chair.

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