In some ways, possibly the United States' answer to the British Criminal
Justice Act...
Remember that a law is not unconstitutional unless and until someone asks
the Court, and the Court says it is unconstitutional. Separate but Equal
was the law of the land, for instance, until the Supreme Court was asked.
Quotations from _Investor's Business Daily_, May 3, 1995.
...
"When it takes up proposals to deregulate the telecommunications
industries, the Senate will consider a bill passed out of the Commerce
Commitee that critics contend clamps tighter controls on computer network
content than rules applied to any other media.
"The bill, S. 652, would impose stiff fines and prison terms on people
who use computers to communicate words or images that are 'obscene, lewd,
lascivious, filthy or indecent.'
...
"Essentially, most of the critics contend that today's personal comptuers
put the electronic equivalent of printing presses into virtually every
owner's hands.....
"But historically when it comes to electronic media, policymakers have
taken a sharply different route. Railroad rules regulate telephones, for
instance, while vague 'public interest' standards are routinely used to
dictate content and operational requirements for broadcasters.
...
"Authored by Sen. James Exon, D-Neb., and co-sponsored by Sen. Slade,
R-Wash., the amendment would apply laws that govern telephone use to
computer networks in order to stamp out sexually explicit material. Exon
would punish originators of such images and text with fines of up to
$100,000 and prison terms of up to two years.
...
"In cities with 'red light' districts populated with adult bookstores and
other unsavory businesses, offended citizens don't rip up the streets
leading to these areas in order to keep their children out, notes
[Electronic Frontier Foundation's David] Johnson.
"...But he and others stress technology and the marketplace offer better
solutions to the problem of pornographic and obscene material, not new
regulations.
...
"'Parents ought to take responsibility for their children,' said David
Boaz of the libertarian Cato Institute.
...
"'I think young people, especially small children, should be able to
cruise that [information] superhighway without being endangered by a
whole series of smut, pornography, call it what you will,' Exon told a
CNN interviewer earlier this year.
...
"But even Morality in Media finds Exon's effort fatally flawed. Robert
Peters, the group's president, recently faulted Exon's approach as being
unconstitutional because it attempts to ban non-commercial transactions
between adults, among other reasons.
...
"'Where public speech is going on, where you're not sure who -- or what --
they are, that's the area where the greatest potential for regulatory
harm exists,' observed Lawrence Lessig, who began offering a 'Law of
Cyberspace' course at Yale University this year."
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