Statement of Senator Leahy on Report of Interactive Working Group on Parental Empowerment, Child Protection and Free Speech in Interactive Media

July 21, 1995

In response to various legislative proposals to regulate indecent and obscene content on the Internet, I have asked the Attorney General of the United States and 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 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 and public interest organizations dedicated to the interactive communications media. I recommend their report to my colleagues. In its report, the Interactive Working Group describes some of the technology available now to help parents supervise their children's activities on the Internet, and protect them from objectionable online material. Available blocking technology can make pornographic Usenet news groups or World Wide Web sites off- limits to children. Other commercially available products limit children's access to chat rooms, where they might be solicited, and limit children's ability to receive pornographic pictures through electronic mail. Yet other products allow parents to monitor their children's usage of the Internet.

In sum, 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 would be free to 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.

On the other hand, government regulation will stifle this new industry. The Internet has been growing at an exponential rate and new uses for it are devised daily. Overly restrictive bans against indecency on the Internet will prove not only unconstitutional but will also hamper the growth of this new communications medium. To import government regulation of broadcasters to the Internet is inappropriate. 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. Indecency does not come easily into the home without someone first seeking it out.

We are at the dawn of a new era in communication. Interactive communications -- ranging from online computer services, CD ROMs, 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 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 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 on-line 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 on-line 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 eighteen 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.

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 on-line stalkers and child pornographers. Our criminal laws already prohibit the sale or distribution over computer networks of obscene material (18 U.S.C. 1465, 1466, 2252 and 2423(a)). We already impose criminal liability for transmitting any threatening message over computer networks (18 U.S.C. . 875(c)). We already proscribe the solicitation of minors over computers for any sexual activity (18 U.S.C. . 2452), and illegal luring of minors into sexual activity through computer conversations (18 U.S.C. . 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.