[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 8 (Monday, February 9, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S518-S519]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. McCAIN (For himself, Mr. Hollings, Mr. Coats, and Mrs. 
        Murray):
  S. 1619. A bill to direct the Federal Communications Commission to 
study systems for filtering or blocking matter on the Internet, to 
require the installation of such a system on computers in schools and 
libraries with Internet access, and for other purposes; to the 
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.


                   the internet school filtering act

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce The Internet 
School Filtering Act, which is designed to protect children from 
exposure to sexually explicit and other harmful material when they 
access the Internet in school and in the library. I am pleased to be 
joined by Senators Hollings, Coats, and Murray as cosponsors of this 
legislation, and I thank them for their assistance in this important 
effort.
  This legislation comes to grips with a regrettable but unavoidable 
problem. Today, pornography is widely available on the Internet. 
According to Wired

[[Page S519]]

magazine, today there are approximately 28,000 adult Web sites 
promoting hard and soft-core pornography. Together, these sites 
register many millions of ``hits'' by websurfers per day.
  Mr. President, there is no question that some of the websurfers who 
are accessing these sites are children. Some, unfortunately, are 
actively searching for these sites. But many others literally and 
unintentionally stumble across them. Anyone who uses seemingly 
innocuous terms while searching the World Wide Web for educational or 
harmless recreational purposes can inadvertently run into adult sites. 
For example, when the word ``teen'' is typed into a search engine, a 
site titled ``Teenagesex.com'' is the first search result to appear.
  Mr. President, parents have a responsibility to monitor their 
children's Internet use. This is their proper role, and no amount of 
governmental assistance or industry self-regulation could ever be as 
effective in protecting children as parental supervision.
  Parental supervision, however, is not possible when children use the 
Internet while they are away from home, in schools and libraries. The 
billions of dollars per year the Federal government will be giving 
schools and libraries to enable them to bring advanced Internet 
learning technology to the classroom will bring in the Internet's 
explicit online content as well. These billions of dollars will 
ultimately be paid for by the American people. So it is only right that 
if schools and libraries accept these federally-provided subsidies for 
Internet access, they have an absolute responsibility to their 
communities to assure that children are protected from online content 
that can harm them.
  And this harm can be prevented. The prevention lies, not in censoring 
what goes onto the Internet, but rather in filtering what comes out of 
it onto the computers our children use outside the home.
  Mr. President, Internet filtering systems work, and they need not be 
blunt instruments that unduly constrain the availability of 
legitimately instructional material. Today they are adaptable, capable 
of being fine-tuned to accommodate changes in websites as well as the 
evolving needs of individual schools and even individual lesson-plans. 
Best of all, their use will channel explicit material away from 
children while they are not under parental supervision, while not in 
any way inhibiting the rights of adults who may wish to post indecent 
material on the Web or have access to it outside school environs.
  Mr. President, it boils down to this: The same Internet that can 
benefit our children is also capable of inflicting terrible damage on 
them. For this reason, school and library administrators who accept 
univeral service support to provide students with its intended benefits 
must also safeguard them against its unintended harm. I commend the 
efforts of those who have recognized this responsibility by providing 
filtering systems in the many educational facilities that already have 
Internet capability. This legislation assures that this responsibility 
is extended to all other institutions as they implement advanced 
technologies funded by federally-mandated universal service funds.
  Mr. President, this bill takes a sensible approach. It requires 
schools receiving universal service discounts to use a filtering system 
on their computers so that objectionable online materials will not be 
accessible to students. Libraries are required to use a filtering 
system on one or more of their computers so that at least one computer 
will be appropriate for minors' use. Filtering technology is itself 
eligible to be subsidized by the E-rate discount. Once a school or 
library certifies that it will use a filtering system, they will be 
eligible to receive universal service fund subsidies for Internet 
access. If schools and libraries do not so certify, they will not be 
eligible to receive universal service fund-subsidized discounts.
  Some have argued that the use of filtering technology in public 
schools and libraries would amount to censorship under the First 
Amendment. The Supreme Court has found, however, that obscenity is not 
protected by the First Amendment. And insofar as other sexually-
explicit material is concerned, the bill will not affect an adult's 
ability to access this information on the Internet outside the school 
environment, and it will in no way impose any filtering requirement on 
Internet use in the home. Perhaps most important, the bill prohibits 
the federal government from prescribing any particular filtering 
system, or from imposing a different filtering system than the one 
selected by the certifying educational authority. It thus places the 
prerogative for determining which filtering system best reflects the 
community's standards precisely where it should be: on the community 
itself.
  Mr. President, more and more people are using the Internet each day. 
Currently, there may be as many as 50 million Americans online, and 
that number is expected to at least double by the millennium. As 
Internet use in our schools and libraries continues to grow, children's 
potential exposure to harmful online content will only increase. This 
bill simply assures that universal service subsidies will be used to 
defend them from the very dangers that these same subsidies are 
otherwise going to increase. This is a rational response to what could 
otherwise be a terrible and unintended problem.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill 
appear in the Record.
  There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                S. 1619

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

     SECTION 1. NO UNIVERSAL SERVICE FOR SCHOOLS OR LIBRARIES THAT 
                   FAIL TO IMPLEMENT A FILTERING OR BLOCKING 
                   SYSTEM FOR COMPUTERS WITH INTERNET ACCESS.

       (a) In General.--Section 254 of the Communications Act of 
     1934 (47 U.S.C. 254) is amended by adding at the end thereof 
     the following:
       ``(l) Implementation of a Filtering or Blocking System.--
       ``(1) In general.--No services may be provided under 
     subsection (h)(1)(B) to any elementary or secondary school, 
     or any library, unless it provides the certification required 
     by paragraph (2) or (3), respectively.
       ``(2) Certification for schools.--Before receiving 
     universal service assistance under subsection (h)(1)(B), an 
     elementary or secondary school (or the school board or other 
     authority with responsibility for administration of that 
     school) shall certify to the Commission that it has--
       ``(A) selected a system for computers with Internet access 
     to filter or block matter deemed to be inappropriate for 
     minors; and
       ``(B) installed, or will install as soon as it obtains 
     computers with Internet access, a system to filter or block 
     such matter.
       ``(3) Certification for libraries.--Before receiving 
     universal service assistance under subsection (h)(1)(B), a 
     library that has a computer with Internet access shall 
     certify to the Commission that, on one or more of its 
     computers with Internet access, it employs a system to filter 
     or block matter deemed to be inappropriate for minors. If a 
     library that makes a certification under this paragraph 
     changes the system it employs or ceases to employ any such 
     system, it shall notify the Commission within 10 days after 
     implementing the change or ceasing to employ the system.''.
       ``(4) Local determination of content.--For purposes of 
     paragraphs (2) and (3), the determination of what matter is 
     inappropriate for minors shall be made by the school, school 
     board, library or other authority responsible for making the 
     required certification. No agency or instrumentality of the 
     United States Government may--
       ``(A) establish criteria for making that determination;
       ``(B) review the determination made by the certifying 
     school, school board, library, or other authority; or
       ``(C) consider the criteria employed by the certifying 
     school, school board, library, or other authority in the 
     administration of subsection (h)(1)(B).''.
       (b) Conforming Change.--Section 254(h)(1)(B) of the 
     Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 254(h)(1)(B)) is 
     amended by striking ``All telecommunications'' and inserting 
     ``Except as provided by subsection (l), all 
     telecommunications''.

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