[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 92 (Thursday, June 26, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6490-S6491]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THE COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT

  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, the Supreme Court decision against the 
Communications Decency Act marks a departure from precedent on 
indecency, and weakens the protection of children by our laws.
  The Court, even in this decision, recognizes that Congress has a 
compelling interest in protecting the physical and psychological well-
being of children. In the past, they took that standard to include 
indecency restrictions on every communications medium of our society--
telephones, radio, television, bookstores, video shops.
  But with today's decision, the Supreme Court has refused to apply 
that standard to protect a child on a computer in his or her own home. 
It argues, instead, that unrestricted access to indecency by adults on 
the Internet overrides any community interest in the protection of 
children.
  In the Communications Decency Act, we gave a definition of indecency 
that was upheld by the Courts in case after case. Now the Supreme Court 
has apparently decided that this definition cannot be applied to the 
Internet. In other words, though an image displayed on a television 
screen would be indecent, an image displayed on a computer screen would 
not. It is difficult to understand how a child would understand the 
difference. It is the content, not the technology, that should concern 
us.
  The Supreme Court did leave some room for Congress to redraft the CDA 
along less restrictive lines, but, in the process, creates a privileged 
place for computer indecency, safe from the laws we apply everywhere 
else in our society. So, under the Supreme Court's guidelines, it is 
permissible for an adult to send indecent material directly to a child 
by e-mail, but not to

[[Page S6491]]

speak the same indecency over the telephone. What an adult may not send 
a child through the U.S. mail, he may send a child via e-mail. This is 
inconsistent and incomprehensible. It is also now the official position 
of the U.S. Supreme Court.
  What this Court is saying is that it recognizes indecency when it 
hears it on the radio, sees it on television, views it on a magazine 
rack, or overhears it on the telephone, but it does not recognize it 
on-line. Computer technology may be confusing to many of us, but it is 
not that confusing. The confusion lies with a Court that protects 
children from indecency everywhere but the one place most children want 
to be.
  I expect that Congress will revisit this issue, within the 
restrictions provided by the Court. But parents must understand that 
the Internet has been declared an exception to every other American law 
on the provision of indecency to children. It is a place where the 
predators against your children's innocence have legal rights, 
announced by distinguished judges. Whatever its virtues, the Internet 
is not a safe place, without a parent's constant supervision.
  The Supreme Court has actually suggested that the very industry which 
profits from the provision of this material be the guardians of your 
children's minds--that it regulate itself. It is nice to have the 
Supreme Court's extra-constitutional advice on these policy matters--
though I don't know why it should be more binding than the will of the 
Congress. I expect that we will have to live with this advice. But I 
hope that parents will understand that the Supreme Court has not taken 
your side, or the side of your children, or the side of decency.
  There are consequences of giving children free access to an adult 
culture with coarsened standards--consequences for their minds and 
souls and futures. Both the Congress and the President took those 
consequences seriously. The Supreme Court has not.
  This Court, which chose yesterday to undermine religious liberty and 
influence, has now chosen to defend immediate, unrestricted access of 
children to indecency. This is part of a disturbing pattern.
  The Supreme Court is actively disarming the Congress in the most 
important conflicts of our time--in defense of religious liberty and 
the character of children.

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