roundtable: Congress Brokers Censorship Deal

roundtable: Congress Brokers Censorship Deal

Congress Brokers Censorship Deal

Craig A. Johnson (caj@tdrs.com)
Sat, 2 Dec 1995 22:42:59 +0000 

Message-Id: <199512021545.KAA03411@clark.net>
From: "Craig A. Johnson" <caj@tdrs.com>
To: telecomreg@relay.doit.wisc.edu
Date:          Sat, 2 Dec 1995 22:42:59 +0000
Subject:       Congress Brokers Censorship Deal


Some of us have been predicting it.  It now seems inevitable.  
Congress has once again struck a blow for freedom -- from the Bill 
of Rights.  Let the snoops run free!!

This excerpt is posted under the "fair use" doctrine of U.S. 
copyright law.

Craig


Craig A. Johnson
<caj@tdrs.com>

=================================================

PACT REACHED ON CURBING SMUT ON THE INTERNET

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS 

c.1995 N.Y. Times News Service 

WASHINGTON - Bowing to a seemingly unstoppable push in Congress to keep
sexual material off the Internet, a coalition of commercial on-line services
and some civil liberties groups agreed Friday to accept a number of
restrictions they had opposed a few months ago. 

The move comes just a few days before a House-Senate conference committee is
expected to debate a measure that would impose fines of up to $100,000 and
prison sentences on people who knowingly transmit pornography or material
deemed ``filthy,'' ``lewd'' or ``indecent.'' 

The new compromise, drafted by Rep. Rick White, R-Wash., would retain
provisions of a Senate bill that would impose fines and prison sentences on
those who transmit pornography. 

But the compromise would weaken the Senate bill's prohibitions against making
indecent material available to children, by changing the prohibition to
material that is considered ``harmful to children.'' Supporters of the
compromise say that designation would apply only to graphic or explicit
sexual material that has no redeeming literary or social value. 

The compromise would also offer added protection to on-line services or
information providers who make a good-faith effort to keep sexual material
away from children. 

Opponents of any new restrictions, many of whom reluctantly agreed to the
compromise Friday, concede that Congress is certain to include new
prohibitions in a broad bill dealing with telecommunications that is now in
the conference committee. They have given up trying to kill the restrictions
entirely. 

Instead, they are trying to fend off efforts by the Christian Coalition and
conservative Republicans, led by Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois, to impose even
stricter regulations than those passed by the Senate last June. 

To a great degree, the compromise embodies features in the Senate bill, which
was adamantly opposed at the time by civil liberties groups and free-market
conservatives, including House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

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