[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 36 (Wednesday, March 19, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2511-S2512]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT

  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I rise today to join with a number of my 
colleagues to say there was a very important argument in the Supreme 
Court today over the constitutionality of the Communications Decency 
Act, which we passed last year. You will recall that we passed a bill 
to make it difficult to communicate pornography to children. The day it 
was passed and signed, the American Civil Liberties Union jumped in to 
say it was unconstitutional. I'm sorry, but I think the ACLU has it all 
wrong. I was very pleased to be one of a group of Senators, including 
the occupant of the Chair, who signed a brief in support of Congress' 
effort to impose reasonable regulations and restrictions to prevent the 
worst form of pornography from reaching our children.
  Congress can regulate speech when there is a compelling reason. That 
has been clear. That has been held constitutional in many instances, 
and I suggest that there is no more compelling need than to protect our 
children and future generations from exposure to explicit pornographic 
pictures and messages, and from the people who send them.
  The government, both the Federal Government and State and local 
governments, have engaged in efforts to regulate pornography. We 
regulate media available to children such as the sale of books and 
magazines, the viewing and sale of films, the use of telephone services 
to communicate adult messages, and the broadcast media. So, this has 
been done and it has been done for a very good and I believe a very 
compelling reason. The standard put forth in the Communications Decency 
Act is even more stringent than that, in terms of the limitations of 
it. The constraints are more severely limited than the constraints on 
the broadcast media. We have tightened up the definitions and made the 
ban much narrower.
  The Internet is clearly the latest means of communications. Any of us

[[Page S2512]]

who have children knows how readily accessible the Internet is. If you 
are like I am, when you have a computer problem you ask your child how 
to fix it, because the children know how to make it work. My forehead 
still breaks out in perspiration and my hands shake when I try to send 
e-mail. But the kids can not only send the e-mail for you, they can 
tell you how to send it, fix the problems on it, and make things 
happen. We want to make sure that what they do not make happen is that 
they get access to things that are now banned to them through adult 
book stores, through broadcast media, through telephone communications. 
They should not be subject to the deviants, the pornographers, the 
child molesters who want to use the Internet in an interactive way to 
get access to our children.
  There are, unfortunately, an abundance of examples of where perverts 
have used Internet communications to communicate with and to lure young 
children to locations away from their homes. They have used pornography 
as a tool. Not only have they polluted children's minds with this 
pornography, but they have used it as a tool for their own, very sick 
purposes.
  In Louisville, I know there was a 12-year-old girl who was sent a bus 
ticket and left home without her parents knowing about it. These 
examples have happened time and time again. I believe this Congress had 
every right to say it is OK for adults to communicate anything they 
want but you cannot be sending material to children that is 
pornographic. You cannot be putting pornographic information on the 
kiddie chat rooms.
  Contrary to what the ACLU will tell you, the Communications Decency 
Act does not ban speech or interrupt the free exchange of ideas. There 
is technology available that can keep children from gaining access to 
it. And if it takes a pornographer a little more difficulty to 
communicate pornographic materials to another consenting adult, so they 
do not get the information before children, I am not going to lose any 
sleep over it.
  There is every reason that we can, under the Communications Decency 
Act, continue to use the Communications Decency Act for communicating 
medical information, discussing literature--these are not banned. If 
the purpose is getting pornography, for pornographic purposes or even 
personal whims of those who communicate it, to children, that the 
Communications Decency Act bans.
  I think this should be upheld. I am proud to be one of the signers of 
the brief and we will all be watching to see this very important case 
resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. COATS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.

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