Dick Thornburgh and Herbert S. Lin, Editors

Committee to Study Tools and Strategies for Protecting Kids from Pornography and Their Applicability to Other Inappropriate Internet Content

Computer Science and Telecommunications Board

National Research Council



4.

 

Legal and Regulatory Issues



A variety of legal issues come into play in efforts to protect children from inappropriate sexually explicit material on the Internet. The U.S. Constitution, state and federal statutes, and regulations issued by executive branch agencies all play important roles. In addition, the threat of law and regulation can also push the regulated parties into taking unmandated actions that they would not otherwise take.


4.1.

 

THE FIRST AMENDMENT




4.1.1.

 

First Principles

The First Amendment states that "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press." Through a complex process of constitutional amendment and judicial interpretation, over the past 150 years the Constitution has come to mean that "government shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech"--that is, the First Amendment restricts the actions not only of the Congress, but also of the President, the State of Montana, the city of Pittsburgh, the University of Nebraska, and police officers in Decatur.

On the other hand, like other provisions of the Constitution, the First Amendment restricts only the government. It does not restrict private individuals. Thus, a private individual cannot be said to unconstitutionally "abridge" another private individual's "freedom of speech and press." Only the government, or its agents, can be charged with violating the First Amendment.

To give meaning to the First Amendment, scholars have identified three primary reasons for giving constitutional protection to free expression.

First, freedom of speech and press is a necessary corollary of self-governance. In a self-governing society, it is the citizens and not the government who ultimately must decide on issues of public policy. To exercise this responsibility effectively, citizens must have access to the entire spectrum of information, opinions, and ideas, without interference from the government.

Second, in the words of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, "The best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market." The idea here is that in all areas of decision making, reaching far beyond the political, and including such questions as whether to marry, or whether to have children, or whether to go to college--the best way of reaching the best decisions for both the individual and the community is to allow all ideas and opinions to contest in a free and open encounter, without interference from the government.

Third, freedom of expression is guaranteed as a means of ensuring individual self-fulfillment. The notion here is that, as, human beings, we have a fundamental need to speak our minds, to express our emotions and desires, and to create and to learn from one another. The constitutional protection of free expression is an essential adjunct of ensuring our common humanity and the opportunity for individual development.

These three bases for providing constitutional protection to the freedom of speech and press are not always consistent with one another and sometimes point in different directions. But, in very general terms, they state the primary values that the First Amendment is thought to serve.

Building on these values, the Supreme Court has identified several very basic principles that have shaped its interpretation and application of the First Amendment. Three such principles are most directly relevant to the issues of interest to this committee:

  • First, the Supreme Court has held that the government cannot constitutionally restrict speech because the speech advocates ideas, opinions, or values that the government (or perhaps more accurately the majority of citizens) believe to be "wrong" or "improper." Thus, for example, the government cannot constitutionally prohibit speech calling for the legal repeal of the draft on the ground that such expression might persuade the public to vote unwisely to end the draft, even if the government profoundly believes that the draft is a good thing and that it is essential to our national welfare. The explanation here is simple: under the First Amendment, it is for the citizens themselves to make such decisions, after hearing all the arguments; it is not for the government--or for the majority--to prevent such decisions by shutting off debate.
  • Second, the Court has generally held that, except in the most extraordinary circumstances, the government cannot constitutionally restrict speech because the ideas expressed might cause readers or listeners to engage in unlawful or otherwise socially undesirable conduct. For example, the government cannot prohibit opposition to the draft on the ground that such expression might cause others to refuse induction or even to blow up induction centers. Indeed, although the Court has often said that such speech can be restricted if it creates a "clear and present danger" of grave harm, in fact the Court has not upheld a governmental effort to restrict speech on this basis for some 50 years.
  • Third, the Court has generally held that the second principle is inapplicable to specific categories of speech that the Court has defined as having only "low" First Amendment value. That is, as the Court explained some 60 years ago:1

There are certain well defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, [such as the obscene and the libelous, that] are no essential part of any exposition of ideas and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.

For these categories of expression, which include not only the obscene and the libelous, but also fighting words, commercial advertising, express incitement, and threats, the Court has held that some forms of government regulation are permissible.

These are the three basic principles that most directly informed the committee's work. They are not exhaustive--they do not deal with a host of other First Amendment issues that are largely beyond the bounds of the committee's concern. But they helped frame most of the questions the committee considered concerning the regulation of sexually explicit materials on the Internet.


4.1.2.

 

The First Amendment, Pornography, and Obscenity

How does the concept of "pornography" square with the First Amendment? It is important to note that there is a potentially confusing issue of terminology. Historically, the term "pornography" has been used in at least four different ways. First, the terms "obscenity" and "pornography" traditionally were used interchangeably. Second, beginning about 20 years ago, the term "pornography" began to be used by feminist scholars to refer to a concept quite distinct from the legal concept of "obscenity"; this feminist concept focused specifically on sexually explicit material harmful to women. Third, there is the concept of child pornography, which deals with a very specific problem involving the abuse of children in order to make certain kinds of sexually explicit material. Fourth, the term "pornography" is often used as a catch-all synonym for the generic idea of "sexually explicit material," especially that intended to create sexual arousal. For the sake of clarity, it is important to note that the term "pornography" does not have a legal meaning under the First Amendment. To avoid confusion, the committee therefore focuses on the three distinct concepts of "obscenity," "child pornography" and "sexually explicit material."

How does the concept of "obscenity" square with the First Amendment? Throughout the first half of the 20th century, it was generally assumed that the First Amendment posed no barrier to the suppression of obscene expression. The assumption was that obscene expression is of only "low" First Amendment value and can therefore be regulated more readily than other forms of expression.

The Supreme Court did not have occasion to rule on the constitutionality of anti-obscenity legislation until its 1957 decision in Roth v. United States.2 The Court reasoned as follows:

    All ideas having even the slightest redeeming social importance--unorthodox ideas, controversial ideas, even ideas hateful to the prevailing climate of opinion--have the full protection of the [First Amendment]. But implicit in the history of the First Amendment is the rejection of obscenity as utterly without redeeming social importance. Indeed, it is apparent that obscenity, like libel, is outside the protection intended for speech and press. Accordingly, obscene material may be suppressed without proof that it will create a clear and present danger of antisocial conduct.

"However, sex and obscenity," the Court continued,

    are not synonymous. Obscene material is material which deals with sex in a manner appealing to prurient interest. The portrayal of sex, for example in art, literature, and scientific works, is not itself sufficient reason to deny material constitutional protection. Sex, a great and mysterious motivating force in human life, has indisputably been a subject of absorbing interest to humankind though the ages; it is one of the vital problems of human interest and public concern. It is therefore essential that the standards for judging obscenity safeguard the protection of freedom of speech and press for material which does not treat sex in a manner appealing to prurient interest. The proper test is whether to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to the prurient interest.

Thus, the specific holding of Roth was that if material meets the definition of obscenity, it is not protected by the First Amendment and may thus be restricted without any showing that its sale, exhibition or distribution will cause any particular harm to any particular person.

For the next 17 years, the Court wrestled with the problem of refining the Roth definition of obscenity, which proved difficult because of its inherent subjectivity. It was in this era that Justice Potter Stewart offered his famous quip that "I can't define it [obscenity], but I know it when I see it." As Justice Stewart understood, this observation did not bode well for having a clear and consistently applied constitutional standard.

In 1973, the Court revisited the question. In Miller v. California,3 the Court reaffirmed the idea that obscene expression is of such "low" constitutional value that it is outside the protection of the First Amendment. However, the Court redefined the concept as having three components. Miller concluded that, to be obscene, a work, taken as a whole, and judged by contemporary community standards, must appeal to the prurient interest in sex, must depict sexual conduct in a patently offensive manner, and must lack serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value.

This definition has now been in place for the past quarter-century. Under this regime, and as community standards have tended to evolve toward a greater degree of acceptance of sexually oriented expression, it is generally thought today that only the most hard-core forms of sexually explicit material are sufficient to satisfy the constitutional definition of obscenity. As of the date of this writing in April 2002, prosecutions for obscenity are rare though not unheard of at both the federal and local level.

Nonetheless, it remains the case that the government, consistent with the First Amendment as it has been interpreted, may prohibit the sale, exhibition, or distribution of obscene material, and there is no Constitutional obstacle to a more aggressive policy of prosecuting obscenity on the Internet, subject to the caveats below.

One caveat is the narrowness of the definition of obscenity, as described above. Moreover, enforcing an anti-obscenity prohibition on the Internet presents three additional problems. First, because the definition of obscenity turns on contemporary community standards, there is considerable uncertainty about how one defines the relevant "community" for purposes of the Internet. For example, if X creates a sexually explicit Web site in Amsterdam that Y views in St. Louis, what is the relevant community--Amsterdam? St. Louis? Is the "Internet" itself a "community" for these purposes?4

Second, there is often a tricky problem of assigning legal responsibility. For example, suppose X makes a threat over the telephone. Can AT&T be held responsible for this criminal use of its phone line? Because AT&T is legally a "common carrier," the answer is no. However, the same type of question can be asked about obscenity on the Internet. If X puts obscene material on a Web site that Y views through, say, America Online, can AOL be held legally responsible for X's conduct? For Internet service providers, the law is evolving in this area.5

Third, content transmitted through the Internet presents the issue of what counts as "work as a whole." In the physical world, the work as a whole would include a book, film, or magazine. In an online environment, is the "work as a whole" the Web page on which an image resides, or the entire Web site of which it is a part? No court cases have addressed this point to the best of the committee's knowledge.


4.1.3.

 

The First Amendment and Protecting Children from Exposure to Sexually Explicit Material

As already noted, even if obscenity can constitutionally be prohibited on the Internet, this does not solve the broader problem of the exposure of children to sexually explicit material because of the very narrow definition of obscenity required by the Constitution. This raises the question of whether there are other steps the government can take, consistent with the First Amendment, to protect children from non-obscene, sexually explicit material.

In recognition of the special problems posed by the exposure of children to such material, the Supreme Court has recognized the concept of "variable obscenity." Thus, in its 1968 decision in Ginsberg v. New York,6 the Court recognized that the "power of the state to control the conduct of children reaches beyond the scope of its authority over adults," that the claim of parents "to direct the rearing of their children is basic in the structure of our society," and that the state "has an independent interest in the well-being of its youth." With these factors in mind, the Court held in Ginsberg that the government can constitutionally prohibit "the sale to minors . . . of material defined to be obscene on the basis of its appeal to them whether or not it would be obscene to adults." In other words, the government can prohibit children from having access to certain types of sexually explicit material that it cannot constitutionally ban for adults. (Recent legislation (e.g., the COPA, discussed below) defined such speech as "harmful to minors." In this report, the phrase "obscene with respect to minors" or "obscene for minors" is used interchangeably with "harmful to minors.")

Although this distinction compounds still further the problems of vagueness and subjectivity inherent in the very concept of obscenity--by now creating multiple definitions of obscenity--it is also a useful tool, for it is the doctrine of variable obscenity that enables the government constitutionally to prohibit minors from buying, renting, or viewing certain sexually explicit movies, magazines, or books that would not be obscene for adults.

The key limitation of this doctrine, however, is that it works best (perhaps only) in those situations in which it is possible to individuate the audience--that is, to separate the children from the adults. Thus, the doctrine of variable obscenity works reasonably well for movie theaters, video rental shops, and book stores, but not for television and radio. For in those latter means of communication, it is not as easy to separate the children from the adults. And as the Supreme Court recognized in its 1957 decision in Butler v. Michigan,7 the government "may not reduce the adult population . . . to reading only what is fit for children."

To understand this precept, it is useful to consider several recent decisions of the Supreme Court. In Sable Communications v. FCC,8 decided in 1989, the Court unanimously held unconstitutional a federal statute prohibiting "indecent" commercial telephone messages--so-called "dial-a-porn" services. The Court said that if the government wants to protect children in this context, it must do so by technical means rather than by a total ban on the transmission of such messages, for although some limited numbers of children might be able to defeat these devices, a prohibition would have the impermissible effect of "limiting the content of adult telephone conversations to that which is suitable for children to hear."

In Reno v. ACLU,9 decided in 1997, the Court unanimously held unconstitutional the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which prohibited any person from making any "indecent" communication over the Internet with knowledge that a recipient might be under the age of 18. "Indecent" was defined in the statute as expression that "depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs."

Although acknowledging the importance of the government's interest "in protecting children from harmful materials," the Court reaffirmed that that "interest does not justify an unnecessarily broad suppression of speech addressed to adults," and that the government "may not reduce the adult population to only what is fit for children."

The Court suggested that the government should explore less speech-restrictive means of serving this interest, such as requiring indecent material to be "tagged" in a way that facilitates parental control of material entering the home, exempting from regulation indecent messages with artistic or educational value, and perhaps regulating only some portions of the Internet--such as commercial Web sites--while leaving unregulated non-commercial uses of the Internet, such as chat rooms.

The lesson of these decisions10 is this: outside the realm of speech that is constitutionally obscene, the government may not prohibit "indecent" or "offensive" or "sexually explicit" or "profane" speech on the Internet in order to protect children, unless the speech is obscene with respect to minors and government regulation does not unduly interfere with the rights of adults to have access to such material. The challenge is thus to devise mechanisms that reconcile these two powerfully competing interests, where the Court has made clear the strong First Amendment presumption that the government's legitimate interests in protecting children will have to yield to the constitutional interests of adults, to the extent that those interests cannot otherwise be reconciled.


4.1.4.

 

The First Amendment Rights of Minors

Because the First Amendment relates only to government action, children have no First Amendment rights against their parents. Thus, if a parent prevents a child from reading a book or watching a movie, the child cannot sue the parent for violating the First Amendment. But minors "are 'persons' under our Constitution. . . . possessed of fundamental rights which the State must respect"11 and "are entitled to a significant measure of First Amendment protection."12

Moreover, a constitutional issue can arise if the government intrudes itself into the parent-child relationship. For example, if the government passed a law prohibiting any person from permitting a minor to view a movie that includes nudity without the written permission of the minor's parent, a court would likely hold such a law unconstitutional, at least as applied to older minors, and especially if the nudity were not further qualified. (Note, however, that materials deemed to be illegal--that is, to be child pornography or obscenity--do not enjoy First Amendment protection, either for adults or for minors. Thus, even if a minor has permission from his/her parents to obtain child pornography or obscenity, he or she does not have a First Amendment right to do so.

It is important to note that the constitutionality of any particular regulation of the speech rights of minors may turn on the age of the particular minor in question. Indeed, as this report discusses in Chapter 5, minors range from 0 to 18 years old, and there are large developmental differences between an 8-year-old and a 17-year-old. The Supreme Court has held that "the strength of the Government's interest in protecting minors is not equally strong throughout the [age] coverage."13 The constitutional rights of minors, including their First Amendment rights, get stronger as they grow older. As the Court has said, "constitutional rights do not mature and come into being magically only when one attains the state-defined age of majority,"14 and these rights ripen at different times and in different contexts.

The precise contours of the First Amendment rights of minors, even acknowledging that they may well vary with age and maturity, are uncertain. The Supreme Court has held that certain minors have constitutional rights in certain circumstances that trump a general deference to parental authority, for example, in the case of a mature minor seeking an abortion15 or privacy rights about the use of contraception.16 Further, it is arguable that mature minors have a First Amendment right to receive information relevant to the exercise of these substantive rights. Whether and in what circumstances a minor has a First Amendment right of access to adult-oriented entertainment Web sites remains an open question. But even if minors do not themselves have a constitutional right to access such material, the government cannot unduly burden the rights of adults to such material in order to keep it away from children.


4.1.5.

 

The First Amendment and Child Pornography

Another facet of protecting children concerns the issue of child pornography. Here, the primary concern is not the exposure of children to sexually explicit material, but the use (or, possibly, the apparent use) of children to make such material. In New York v. Ferber,17 the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a state statute that prohibited any person from knowingly producing, promoting, directing, exhibiting, or selling any material depicting a "sexual performance" by a child under the age of 16. The statute defined "sexual performance" as any performance that includes "actual or simulated sexual intercourse, deviate sexual intercourse, sexual bestiality, masturbation, sado-masochistic abuse, or lewd exhibition of the genitals." The Court explained that, like obscenity, child pornography is of only "low" First Amendment value and that the "use of children" in such materials "is harmful to the physiological, emotional, and mental health of the child." The Court added that, unlike obscenity, child pornography does not have to meet all of the requirements of Miller.


4.1.6.

 

The First Amendment in Public Libraries

The general principles of the First Amendment are designed primarily for those circumstances in which the government attempts to regulate the free speech rights of individuals in the larger society. Those principles may apply differently in special contexts, such as public libraries and schools. In public libraries, for example, the government has limited resources. It cannot buy all books. It must therefore make choices. In making those choices, it inevitably must decide which books are most necessary and most appropriate for the particular collection. This gives the government, in the form of the library board or the librarian, the authority and the responsibility to make decisions based on content that it could not make in more general regulations of public discourse. For example, although the government cannot constitutionally prohibit all books on any subject but art history, it can constitutionally create a library dedicated only to art history. And although the government cannot constitutionally prohibit all books that are not appropriate for children, it can constitutionally create a library dedicated only to children's books.

On the other hand, even a public library is not free to engage in "viewpoint discrimination." For example, in Board of Education of Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico,18 the members of a public school board of education decided to remove from the school library certain books, including Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver and Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, because they were "improper fare for children." The board members described the books as "anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and just plain filthy." The Supreme Court held that this action would violate the First Amendment if the intent of the board members was to deny "access to ideas" with which they "disagreed."19

It should be noted that an important reason for granting a public library broad (but not absolute) discretion to decide which books to include in its collection is the fact of limited resources. This fact is not present in the same way in the Internet context. To the contrary, in the Internet context, where filters may be at issue, it will generally cost more to reduce rather than to expand the "collection." It is unclear how this will affect the constitutional calculus.20

Another facet of the public library situation concerns the appropriate role of parents. For example, although a public library cannot constitutionally select which books it will make available to students on the basis of whether the library officials agree or disagree with the ideas presented in particular books, it presumably could decline to lend books to minors (at least younger minors) without parental permission, as long as the library acts in a content-neutral manner itself. That is, a library could insist on parental permission for younger minors to borrow any book from the library, but probably could not limit this requirement only to, for example, "racist" books or books about Scientology.


4.1.7.

 

The First Amendment in Public Schools

In the context of public schools, the Supreme Court has expressly recognized, in Tinker v. Des Moines School District,21 that neither "students nor teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." On the other hand, the Court has also recognized that, in light of "the special characteristics of the school environment," public school officials may restrict expression that would "materially and substantially interfere" with the core activities of the school. Thus, in Bethel School District v. Fraser,22 the Court upheld a public high school's decision to discipline a student for using "vulgar and lewd speech" in a public assembly because such expression "would undermine the school's basic educational mission." Similarly, although a public school may not generally deny a student's right to speak or to access information on school grounds or through school facilities, it may restrict expression or access to information that "would undermine the school's basic educational mission," so long as school officials do not attempt to deny access to ideas because they disagree with them.


4.1.8.

 

The First Amendment and the Commercial Advertising of Sexually Explicit Material

The Supreme Court has held that commercial advertising may in some circumstances be regulated more readily than other forms of expression. For example, the Court has permitted government to regulate such advertising when it is false or deceptive in circumstances in which similar regulation of political expression would not be permitted. The interesting--and open--question in this context is whether the government can constitutionally regulate or even prohibit the commercial advertising of constitutionally protected sexually explicit material. In general, the Court has suggested that such regulations would not be constitutionally permissible. In Bolger v. Youngs Drug Products Corp.,23 for example, the Court held unconstitutional a federal statute prohibiting the mailing of unsolicited advertisements for contraceptives because the interest in shielding "recipients from materials that they are likely to find offensive" is not sufficiently substantial to justify the suppression of "protected speech."

This does not mean that all restrictions on the e-mailing of unsolicited commercial advertisements for sexually explicit Web sites would necessarily be unconstitutional. For example, such a restriction might arguably be distinguishable from Bolger if it focused specifically on material that is obscene for minors under Ginsberg. Moreover, a restriction on the e-mailing of all unsolicited commercial advertisements might be constitutional on the theory that it is justified not by the offensiveness of any particular material but because this practice has the potential to overwhelm electronic mailboxes and thus to discourage the use of this valuable means of communication.


4.2.

 

RELEVANT STATUTES AND COMMON LAW




4.2.1.

 

Federal Obscenity Statues

Federal obscenity statutes restrict the use of computers and the Internet to distribute obscene materials.24 Section 1465 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code prohibits the use of any means of interstate or foreign commerce or an interactive computer service to sell or distribute obscenity, and this prohibition applies to adults as well as to children. Section 1470 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code prohibits the use of any facility or means of interstate or foreign commerce to transfer obscene materials to someone under the age of 16 if the person knows that the recipient is under the age of 16. Whether material is within the restrictions of either of these statutes depends on whether a reasonable person in the community would interpret the work, taken as a whole, to appeal to the prurient interest; whether the work, as a whole, is patently offensive; and whether the work, as a whole and in context, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.25


4.2.2.

 

Child Pornography Statutes

In general, Chapter 110 of Title 18 provides for civil and criminal penalties for the production, possession, distribution, and sale of child pornography. Historically, child pornography has been defined as a visual depiction involving the use of an individual under 18 engaging in sexually explicit conduct (18 U.S.C. 2256, Chapter 110).26 The Child Pornography Protection Act of 1996 (CPPA) amended this definition to include three additional elements: a visual depiction "that is or appears to be of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct," a visual depiction that "has been created, adapted, or modified to appear that an identifiable minor is engaging in sexually explicit conduct," or a visual depiction that is "advertised, promoted, presented, described, or distributed in such a manner that conveys the impression that the material is or contains a visual depiction of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct." The CPPA also expanded the definition of "distribution" or "receipt" of such depictions through interstate or foreign commerce to include computer channels.27

On April 16, 2002, the Supreme Court ruling that the provisions of the CPPA regarding the portion of the definition that refers to "appearing to be a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct" was unconstitutional. describes the Court's reasoning on this decision.

Finally, the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act of 1988 and amendments of the Child Protection Restoration and Penalties Enhancement Act of 1990 added requirements associated with 18 U.S.C. 2257. These requirements call for certain parties in the adult entertainment industry to create and maintain records that allow law enforcement authorities to verify the names and birth dates of models and performers depicted in sexually explicit activity if such depictions were made after November 1, 1990. These requirements were developed in 1988 in response to the avoidance of prosecution by producers and distributors of child pornography through claims of ignorance regarding a model's true age.28 The record-keeping requirements of 18 U.S.C. 2257 call for:

  • Records to be maintained that indicate the legal name, stage names, and all other names used by a performer, and date of birth of each performer, obtained by the producer's examination of an appropriate identification document. For depictions made after May 26, 1992, a legible copy of the identification document examined (and a photo) are also required, and names must be indexed by the title or the identifying number of the depiction involved.
  • Records to be categorized and retrievable by the name(s) of each performer and according to the title, number, or other similar identifier of the depiction in question.
  • Records to be available at the producer's place of business, and made available for inspection to the Attorney General or his delegate for inspection at all reasonable times.


4.2.3.

 

The Communications Decency Act

The Congress's first attempt to regulate children's access to sexually explicit materials on the Internet was the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA).29 The CDA, enacted as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, amended 47 U.S.C. § 223 to prohibit the use of an interactive computer service to send or display, in a manner available to those under the age of 18, any communication that describes or depicts sexual or excretory activities or organs in terms that are patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards.

The Supreme Court, reviewing the CDA, determined that the provisions of the CDA relating to the dissemination of indecent or patently offensive material to individuals under 18 violated the First Amendment.30 The Court struck down these sections of the act as overbroad and unconstitutionally vague, reasoning that the restrictions chilled protected speech and unduly restricted adults' access to constitutionally protected materials.31 The Court severed the provisions concerning obscene material because obscenity receives no protection under the First Amendment; thus, the obscenity provisions were found not to suffer from the same constitutional infirmities as the provisions regulating indecent speech.

Another aspect of the CDA that remains in force is protection for "Good Samaritan" blocking and screening of offensive material. Prior to the CDA, a service provider that filtered certain kinds of material (e.g., adult-oriented, sexually explicit material) might have incurred liability as a publisher if its filtering of such material was not perfect. (So, for example, an ISP that filtered could not be said to be acting in a "common carrier" mode, and thus might have incurred some liability for the content it made available to the end user.) The CDA provided that service providers could not be held liable on account of any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider considers to be "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected."32

One consequence of this provision in the CDA is that ISPs cannot be held liable for deciding to refrain from carrying Usenet newsgroups that are, in its judgment, obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable.

One analyst further believes that another section of the CDA absolves schools and libraries of civil liability if students or patrons access inappropriate material. This analyst's reasoning is based on the fact that under the CDA, an "interactive computer service" cannot be treated as the publisher of any information provided by another information content provider, and further that libraries and schools are providers of interactive computer services.33


4.2.4.

 

The Child Online Protection Act

Congress's next attempt to regulate minors' access to sexually explicit material on the Internet was the Child Online Protection Act (COPA).34 COPA amended 47 U.S.C. § 231 to prohibit the communication of material that is "harmful to minors" in interstate or foreign commerce by means of the World Wide Web if it is available to minors. Congress included provisions in COPA that were designed to remedy the problems identified by the Supreme Court in the CDA. Specifically:

  • COPA defined a minor as one under the age of 17, whereas the CDA defined minors as individuals under the age of 18.
  • COPA applied only to the World Wide Web, whereas the CDA applied to all communications over the entire Internet.
  • COPA applied only to Web sites that exist for a commercial purpose, whereas the CDA applied to commercial and non-commercial sites alike. Under COPA, a commercial purpose is found if the site's operator or owner is "engaged in the business of making such communications." The phrase "engaged in the business" is defined as applying to "the person who makes a communication, or offers to make a communication, by means of the World Wide Web, that includes any material that is harmful to minors, devotes time, attention, or labor to such activities, as a regular course of such person's trade or business, with the objective of earning a profit as a result of such activities (although it is not necessary that the person make a profit or that the making or offering to make such communication be the person's sole or principal business or source of income)."35
  • Whereas the CDA provided a vague definition of "indecent material," COPA restricts only material that is "harmful to minors"--that is, material that satisfies all three prongs of the Miller36 test, as applied to minors. Thus, COPA restricts sexually explicit material only if (1) "the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find, taking the material as a whole and with respect to minors, [that it] is designed to appeal to . . . the prurient interest," (2) it "depicts, describes or represents, in a manner patently offensive with respect to minors, an actual or simulated sexual act or sexual contact, an actual or simulated normal or perverted sexual act, or a lewd exhibition of the genitals or post-pubescent female breasts"; and (3) "taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value for minors."37

Both the CDA and COPA provide an affirmative defense to prosecution if the defendant, in good faith, took reasonable measures to restrict access to regulated material, such as requiring a credit card, debit account, adult access code, or adult personal identification number, or accepting a digital certificate that verifies age. (The use of age verification technologies is discussed in Chapter 13.)

As of this writing (February 2002), a preliminary injunction issued by the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (and upheld in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit) currently prohibits the enforcement of COPA because the court found that the standard used to determine whether material is harmful to minors places an impermissible burden on protected speech.38 The court explained that using community standards to assess the nature of material is inappropriate in the context of material on the Internet because Web publishers do not have the technological ability to restrict access to their sites on the basis of visitors' geographical location. Without this ability to restrict access on a geographical basis, Web publishers must publish only materials that would not be considered obscene for minors under the standards of the most restrictive community that might gain access to the material or subject themselves to potential liability if a viewer in a more restrictive community finds the material obscene. To avoid the liability that would be imposed by COPA, a Web publisher would have to publish only those materials that would not be considered obscene for minors by Internet users in the community with the most restrictive definition of obscenity.

     The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on COPA in late November 2001, and is expected to render a decision by the summer of 2002.


4.2.5.

 

The Children's Internet Protection Act

In December 2000, Congress enacted the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA).39 CIPA took effect on April 21, 2001. CIPA requires schools and libraries that receive federal funds for Internet access from the FCC's E-Rate program,40 the Department of Education, or the Institute of Museum and Library Services to enforce a policy of Internet safety for minors that includes limiting the online activities of those under the age of 17 through the operation of a "technology protection measure" that "blocks or filters Internet access to visual depictions that are obscene, child pornography, or 'harmful to minors.'" Accordingly, public schools and public libraries that wish to receive these federal funds must install on computers that have Internet access a specific technology protection measure that blocks or filters access to child pornography, obscene materials, or material that is harmful to minors.41 The technology protection measure must be operative with respect to obscenity and child pornography when adults are using those computers, and with respect to obscenity, child pornography, and material that is harmful to minors when minors are using those computers. (The CIPA also allows, but does not require, giving an authorized person the ability to disable the technology protection measure during any use by an adult to enable access for bona fide research or other lawful purpose.)

Under CIPA, material is "harmful to minors" if

taken as a whole and with respect to minors, [it] appeals to a prurient interest in nudity, sex, or excretion; depicts, describes or represents, in a patently offensive way with respect to what is suitable for minors, an actual or simulated normal or perverted sexual act, or a lewd exhibition of the genitals, and taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value to minors.42

The American Civil Liberties Union and the American Library Association have both filed suit to challenge CIPA on First Amendment grounds as the act is applied to libraries.43


4.2.6.

 

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA) prohibits the collection, maintenance, and use or disclosure44 of personal information45 from children under the age of 13 on commercial Web sites that are directed at children46 or if the operator has actual knowledge that the child is under 13, if the information is collected without notice and without verifiable parental consent.47 COPPA provides that the site operator48 must allow the parent to refuse to permit the operator's further or continued use, maintenance, or collection of information at any time. It further provides that the site operator may not condition participation in a game, a prize offer, or other activity on a disclosure of information where the information requested is more than necessary to participate in the activity. To ensure the effectiveness of these prohibitions, COPPA authorizes the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enact regulations concerning the method and content of the notification provisions and its parental consent provisions.

COPPA provides that a site that is directed at children and collects personal information, or any operator that knowingly collects information from a child, must provide notice on the Web site that discloses the type of information collected, how the operator uses the information collected, and the operator's disclosure practices. The FTC regulations adopted pursuant to COPPA require the operator to place the notice on the home page of the site, as well as at each area where personal information is collected.49

The FTC regulations further require that the notice be clearly and prominently displayed. A site that uses a link to the notice must ensure that the link is clearly distinguishable from other links. The FTC regulations also prescribe the necessary content of the notice, which must be clearly written and understandable ().

COPPA also requires the operator to obtain verifiable parental consent to the collection, maintenance, and use of personal information. Under COPPA, the operator must use "any reasonable effort" to ensure that a parent of a child receives notice of the operator's collection, maintenance, use, or disclosure of personal information and that a parent authorizes any collection, maintenance, use, or disclosure of his or her child's information before the information is collected from the child.50

The FTC has stated that, until April 2002, it will use a sliding scale to assess the measures used to obtain verifiable parental consent.51 Under the sliding-scale approach the required effectiveness of the method used depends upon the use that the operator makes of the information collected. If the information is only used internally for purposes such as marketing back to the child, the operator may use e-mail to obtain parental consent, as long as the operator also takes additional steps to increase the likelihood that the parent has, in fact, provided consent. However, if the information is disclosed to third parties or made publicly available, a more reliable method must be used to obtain parental consent. A more reliable method includes such measures as getting a signed form from the parent via facsimile or mail, accepting and verifying a credit card number, taking calls from parents through a toll-free number, or accepting e-mails accompanied by a digital signature. COPPA also provides a safe harbor for Web site operators: an operator will be found to have satisfied the notice and the consent requirements if it is shown that the site implemented a set of self-regulatory guidelines issued by representatives of the marketing or online industries.


4.2.7.

 

State Statutes

All states prohibit the production, sale, or exhibition of obscenity. A typical state law on this subject would incorporate the Miller definition, as applied to the community standards of the state. To regulate the distribution specifically to minors of sexually explicit material that does not meet the Miller test for obscenity, states have often used the phrase "harmful to minors," which derives from Ginsberg. For example, the California penal code Section 313 defines "harmful matter" as matter that, "taken as a whole, which to the average person, applying contemporary statewide standards, appeals to the prurient interest, and is matter which, taken as a whole, depicts or describes in a patently offensive way sexual conduct and which, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors." For the remainder of this report, the term "harmful to minors" should be understood as meaning "obscene with respect to minors" (or equivalently, "obscene for minors"), as defined by the Supreme Court in Ginsberg.


4.2.8.

 

Regulatory Efforts

The Federal Trade Commission

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) enforces the Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C. §§ 41-58) (the FTC Act), which prohibits deceptive or unfair acts or practices in commerce. A representation or practice is deceptive under the FTC Act if it is likely to mislead consumers acting reasonably under the circumstances and it is material, meaning that the representation or practice is likely to affect consumers' conduct or decisions with respect to the product or service at issue. An act or practice is unfair under the FTC Act if it causes or is likely to cause injury to consumers that is substantial, not outweighed by countervailing benefits to consumers or to competition, and not reasonably avoidable by consumers themselves. Practices within the adult entertainment industry may violate the FTC Act if they utilize deceptive or unfair methods that facilitate minors' access to adult content. In recent years, the FTC has brought eight law enforcement actions focusing on the deceptive or unfair use of new technology that has the effect of luring minors to sexually explicit material on the Internet.52

In one action, the FTC filed suit in September 1999 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia against a number of companies for "page-jacking" and "mousetrapping" in a way that exposed users not seeking it to sexually explicit material.53

Page-jacking refers to a practice in which almost-exact copies are made of innocuous Web pages, including all the metadata that informs search engines about the subject matter of the site. These new pages differ from the original pages only in that they redirect a user coming to the new page to another Web site containing sexually explicit, adult-oriented material. Using the metadata, the sham copy of a legitimate Web site would be registered in the databases of search engines along with the legitimate Web site itself, but any user clicking on a search-engine-generated link to the sham copy would be directed to the adult Web site. In this case, the defendants located overseas produced look-alike versions of U.S.-based Web sites that were indexed by search engines. This process diverted unsuspecting consumers, including minors, to a sequence of pornography sites from which they could not easily exit, essentially "trapping" them at the site. The defendants cloned as many as 25 million Web pages, including kids' game sites and movie review sites.

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia granted a temporary injunction against these practices. Subsequently, one of the defendants settled out of court and agreed to refrain from undertaking such practices, and another was never located (though its actions have ceased).

In a second case, the FTC also took action against the use of executable dialer programs that hijack consumers' modems and connect them to adult sites. Companies advertising "free" adult images disconnected consumers from their local Internet service without their knowledge and reconnected them to long-distance lines, resulting in enormous telephone bills. Consumers victimized by this scheme included a substantial number of minors. The FTC obtained orders halting these schemes and providing redress for financial injury.54

In a third case, the FTC has targeted the deceptive use of unsolicited commercial e-mail to attract consumers, including minors, to adult entertainment. Defendants' e-mail messages advised each consumer contacted that his "order" had been received, that his credit card had been charged $250, and that he should call a specified number to cancel the order. This ploy deceived numerous consumers, including minors, into making expensive international calls that connected to an audiotext entertainment service with sexual content. The FTC obtained a court order stopping the scheme and also obtained monetary redress for consumers.55

     In addition to law enforcement action, the FTC is sometimes able to obtain modification of potentially deceptive practices through informal action. For example, one company set up an adult Web site with the domain name nasa.com, leading consumers to sexually explicit, adult-oriented sites, not the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (www.nasa.gov). At the request of FTC staff, the domain name registry Network Solutions Inc. immediately deactivated nasa.com. In October 2001, the FTC charged an online firm with the use of thousands of "copycat" Web addresses to divert Web users from their intended Internet destinations to one of its sites; in response, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia enjoined its activities pending further order of the court.56 These copycat addresses were based on the use of domain names that are confusingly similar misspellings of domain names or famous marks of interest to children. (For example, the firm registered 15 variations of the popular children's cartoon site, <www.cartoonnetwork.com>, and 41 variations on the name of teen pop star, Britney Spears.) Users who misspelled a Web address were taken to the firm's Web sites, where they received a rapid series of advertisements for goods and services ranging from Internet gambling to pornography. Users seeking to leave one of these sites were also mousetrapped.

FTC staff currently are investigating additional, potentially deceptive, adult content industry practices that may target minors. These include the use of domain names that are confusingly similar misspellings of domain names or famous marks of interest to children.

Finally, the FTC has launched what it describes as a crackdown on deceptive unsolicited commercial e-mail (also known as "spam").57 In February 2002, seven defendants caught in an FTC sting operation agreed to settle charges that they were spamming consumers with deceptive chain letters. In addition, the FTC announced that it would mail warning letters to an additional 2,000+ individuals who were involved in this chain letter scheme. Further, the agency will launch a public/private education effort in conjunction with various Internet service provider associations. Though the spam in these cases did not involve adult-oriented, sexually explicit material, spam that does involve such materials is a source of many complaints regarding the exposure of children to inappropriate sexually explicit material.

The Federal Communications Commission

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has promulgated rules requiring all television sets with picture screens 13 inches or larger to be equipped with the V-chip, a technology that enables the blocking of the display of television programming based on its rating. (The rating is encoded in the program broadcast, and the V-chip blocks programs from the set based on the rating selected by the parent.) Ratings identify programming with sexual, violent, or other material parents may deem inappropriate (). However, despite much political support for the V-chip initiative, its use remains relatively uncommon in U.S. households. An Annenberg study, Media in the Home,58 found that while 40 percent of parents have access to the V-chip or similar blocking technologies, only half of them use it. Only 50 percent of parents are aware of the content ratings associated with the V-chip, and only 10 percent can correctly identify the age ratings for programs watched by their children. (This survey also found that although parents are more concerned about children's television use than their use of any other medium, over half of the children surveyed (57 percent) had a television in their bedroom.)

The FCC has issued regulations governing practices in the pay-per-call industry, which includes dial-a-porn services. For example, FCC regulations require use of credit cards, access codes, or scrambling as ways to prevent minors from accessing such services.

The FCC is responsible for the development of guidelines for "indecent material" broadcast on the public airwaves. Such guidelines include definitions of indecency (such as the famous "seven dirty words"59 or the description or depiction of sexual or excretory organs or activities in a manner that is patently offensive to an average viewer or listener) and regulations that prohibit broadcast of such material during times that children are likely to be listening or watching.

Finally, under the Children's Internet Protection Act, the FCC is responsible for promulgating and enforcing regulations to implement the CIPA.60


4.2.9.

 

International Dimensions

Today, the Internet is a global medium that presents challenges to traditional systems of national governance that are based on the existence of geographical borders.61 Because different nations have different sensitivities toward various types of material (e.g., hate, politics, sexually explicit materials), international consensus on an appropriate regulatory environment for materials on the Internet is hard (if not impossible) to obtain, and few attempts have been made to do so beyond the outlawing of child pornography.

Given this state of affairs, the behavior of foreign parties (e.g., content providers, ISPs, foreign citizens) is difficult to affect directly through the application of U.S. law. Nevertheless, foreign institutional parties (i.e., non-individual foreign players) often operate through the use of facilities and equipment subject to U.S. jurisdiction, and how the United States will be able to use this jurisdiction has yet to be seen.


4.3.

 

LAW ENFORCEMENT, TRAINING, AND EDUCATION



The effectiveness of a statutory framework for regulating the access of minors to sexually explicit material depends on a number of factors. One factor, of course, is the extent to which it can withstand constitutional challenge. But assuming that it is constitutional, factors such as enforcement, training, and education are also relevant.

For example, testimony to the committee from the Department of Justice in October 2000 indicated that it was department policy to prosecute obscenity cases where major producers and major distribution of obscenity are involved, rather than local cases in which community standards are at issue. Moreover, the department's priorities at the time were to prosecute matters related to the production and online distribution of child pornography and the luring of minors into illegal sexual activity, with the consequence that federal obscenity prosecutions had declined significantly. This policy emphasis, as described, indicated a significant difference from the emphasis of the previous administration, which had prosecuted obscenity cases with greater vigor.

This is an important point. In the 1980s, the Department of Justice undertook an aggressive approach to the prosecution of obscenity. As noted in Chapter 3, many of the most graphic forms of sexually explicit material that can now readily be found on the Internet (including graphic depictions of sexual intercourse both heterosexual and homosexual, fellatio, cunnilingus, anal intercourse, incest, and bestiality) would have fallen within the prosecutorial policies of the Department of Justice in the 1980s.

By the mid-1990s, however, prosecutorial attention began to shift to concerns about child pornography and sexual predators of children. Because resource limitations inevitably constrain what investigators and prosecutors can do,62 this shift of attention led to a substantial reduction at both the national and local levels in the number of prosecutions for the sale, production, or exhibition of traditional obscenity.

Today, the conventional wisdom seems to be that community standards about sexually explicit material may well have changed to the point that only the most hard-core depictions could any longer be classified as legally "obscene." But this is speculative. Because of the relative dearth of obscenity prosecutions in recent years, it is in fact impossible to say for certain that a more aggressive prosecutorial strategy directed at online "obscenity," as legally defined by the Supreme Court in Miller, could not have a significant impact on the availability of such material on the Internet. Whether the current state of affairs with respect to obscenity prosecutions is due to changes in community standards or a mere lack of prosecutions is an open question. (This point is discussed further in Section 9.1.)

Moreover, the concept of material that is "obscene for minors" has not been fully developed. Although this concept was recognized by the Supreme Court in Ginsberg, it has rarely been applied since. In ACLU v. Reno, the Court made clear that any effort to regulate such material must be careful not to interfere with the right of adults to gain access to material that is constitutionally protected for them. But with a more creative use of technology to develop effective and simple age verification processes, this concept could take on a more significant role in the future, at least with respect to commercial Web sites.

Another key implementation issue in law enforcement is interagency cooperation and citizen involvement. Jurisdiction for anti-obscenity and anti-child-pornography efforts is shared among the FBI, the U.S. Customs Service, and the U.S. Postal Service, as well as state and local law enforcement authorities. In addition, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) has responsibility for providing technical assistance and training to federal, state, and local law enforcement in identifying and investigating cases of child exploitation.

An example of bureaucratic impediments to coordination can be seen in the relationship of the NCMEC to law enforcement agencies. One of the NCMEC's functions is to take reports from the field on child pornography, provide analysis on these cases, and then relay those reports to law enforcement agencies of jurisdiction. In order to expedite law enforcement action in cases involving ongoing exploitation of a child (and hence calling for immediate intervention by law enforcement to prevent further exploitation), it is desirable that the NCMEC analysis forward to law enforcement contain as much information as possible on the alleged perpetrator. Thus, the NCMEC, as a congressionally mandated quasi-law enforcement agency, would benefit from access to information in the FBI's CRS records systems, FBI investigative files, the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), the Interstate Identification Index system within the NCIC, the FBI's Sex Offender Data Base, state motor vehicle registration and drivers' license systems, the wanted-persons index within NCIC, and the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (NLETS). However, it does not currently have such access.

Finally, training is an issue. No case is brought unless a prosecutor is willing and able to bring such a case, and prosecutors and investigators vary in the knowledge and ability they bring to the enforcement of laws related to sexually explicit material. For example, a prosecutor must be familiar with the concept of "community standards" relevant and essential to a successful prosecution. In the United States, the NCMEC provides training to law enforcement agencies in all aspects of missing- and exploited-child cases. Training topics include child sexual exploitation investigations, responding to missing and exploited children cases, response planning, and policy development.


Boxes

Box 4.1 Computer-generated Child Pornography and the Child Pornography Prevention Act
Box 4.2 FTC Regulations Implementing the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act
Box 4.3 V-chip Ratings


Notes

1 Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942).

2 354 U.S. 476 (1957).

3 413 U.S. 15 (1973).

4 Indeed, one of the primary challenges posed by the Internet is to the traditional association of geographical co-location with the definition of community. To date, most constructions of "community" have, in practice, reduced to some kind of geographical delineation to identify the community in question.

5 Some analysts argue, for example, that cyberspace calls for the creation of new law and legal institutions that apply specifically to it. See, for example, David R. Johnson and David G. Post, 1996, "Law and Borders--The Rise of Law in Cyberspace," Stanford Law Review 48: 1367. Others challenge this view, arguing that it underestimates the potential of traditional legal tools and technology to resolve the multijurisdictional regulatory problems implicated by cyberspace. See, for example, Jack L. Goldsmith, 1998, "Against Cyberanarchy," University of Chicago Law Review 65(Fall): 1199.

6 390 U.S. 629 (1969).

7 352 U.S. 380 (1957).

8 492 U.S. 115 (1989).

9 521 U.S. 844 (1997).

10 See also the following Supreme Court cases. In Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971), the Court rejected the idea that profanity could be analogized to obscenity as a form of "low"-value speech and dismissed the notion that such language, which can serve a useful role in public debate, can be prohibited merely because it is offensive to others. In FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978), the Court upheld the constitutionality of a Federal Communications Commission order that a radio station had impermissibly broadcast indecent material when it broadcast in the middle of the day a satirical monologue that involved [the] "seven words you cannot say on the public airwaves." In doing so, the Court suggested some latitude for the regulation of offensive but non-obscene speech in order to shield children, even at some intrusion on what otherwise would be the rights of adults. In Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205 (1975), the Court held that a city could not constitutionally prohibit drive-in movie theaters whose screens were visible to the public from exhibiting movies that contain nudity, even if the goal was to protect children from exposure to such scenes. In Denver Area v. FCC, 422 U.S. 205 (1996), the Court held that the FCC could not constitutionally require cable operators to segregate "indecent" programming on a single, blocked channel and to unblock that channel only on a subscriber's written request. In United States v. Playboy Entertainment 529 U.S. 803 (2000), 120 S. Ct. 1878 (2000), the Court held unconstitutional a provision of the 1996 Federal Telecommunications Act that required cable operators who provide channels devoted "primarily to sexually-oriented programming" either to limit their transmission of such channels to between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. or to "fully scramble" those channels so that they cannot even inadvertently "bleed through" to those households that do not want them.

11 Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503, 511 (1969); see Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 899 (1992), parental consent statute must contain method by which minor can obtain abortion without parental consent; see In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 13 (1967), minors' right to criminal due process.

12 Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205, 212-213 (1975) (citation omitted).

13 Reno, 521 U.S. at 878 (using examples of 17-year-olds); American Booksellers Association v. Webb, 919 F.2d 1493, 1504-05 (11th Cir. 1990); American Booksellers Association v. Virginia, 882 F.2d 125, 127 (4th Cir. 1989).

14 Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 52, 74 (1976), minors' right to abortion.

15 Id. at 640-3; Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 899 (1992); Lambert v. Wicklund, 520 U.S. 292 (1997).

16 See Carey v. Population Services International, 431 U.S. 678 (1977) (plurality opinion). Although Carey was a plurality opinion, the holding that teenagers have privacy rights regarding procreation commanded five votes. See 431 U.S. at 681 (plurality opinion) (Justice Brennan, joined by Justices Stewart, Marshall, and Blackmun); Id. at 693, 702 (Justice White, concurring) (agreeing with plurality in result and including "with respect to Part IV" in which plurality recognized privacy interests of minors in contraception).

17 458 U.S. 747 (1982).

18 457 U.S. 853 (1982).

19 As a matter of legal precedent, Pico has specific relevance to public school libraries; however, the applicability of its logic to other settings such as public libraries has yet to be determined.

20 For example, in Mainstream Loudon v. Board of Trustees of Loudon County, 2 F. Supp. 783 (ED Va. 1998), the Court held invalid a public library's use of filters (for all patrons) as an unconstitutional prior restraint. More generally, opponents of filtering in public libraries have argued that the use of filters constitutes an unconstitutional prior restraint because the government is technologically preventing the censored material from even reaching potential users. They argue that this is prior restraint because the filter relies not on the threat of criminal punishment after the speech takes place, but on an actual blocking of the speech itself. For relevant Supreme Court decisions, see Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U.S. 51 (1965), holding that a movie censorship board that makes decisions about what may or may not be shown publicly is constitutionally permissible if the board is screening for obscenity, but only if the board is required immediately to go to court to obtain a prompt judicial determination that the movie is in fact obscene; and Southeastern Promotions v. Conrad, 420 U.S. 546 (1975), holding that a city manager would be required to abide by the Freedman v. Maryland requirements.

21 393 U.S. 503 (1969).

22 478 U.S. 675 (1986).

23 463 U.S. 60 (1983).

24 Chapter 71 of Title 18 (Criminal Code) contains the federal obscenity statutes.

25 Eckstein v. Cullen, 803 F. Supp. 1107 (ED Va. 1992).

26 "Sexually explicit conduct'' is defined as "actual or simulated sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex; bestiality; masturbation; sadistic or masochistic abuse; or lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of any person."

27 P.L. 104-208, Title 1, § 121(a), 110 Stat. 3009. The CPPA amends 18 U.S.C. § 2241, 18 U.S.C. § 2243, 18 U.S.C. § 2251, 18 U.S.C. § 2252, 18 U.S.C. § 2256, and 42 U.S.C § 2000(a) and adds 12 U.S.C. § 2252(a). In addition, the Sex Crimes Against Children Prevention Act of 1995 increases the base-level penalty for creating, distributing, or receiving visual depictions that show, or purport to show, minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct (P.L. 104-71, 28 U.S.C. § 994 nt). The act amends 18 U.S.C. § 2251(c)(1)(A) and 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a).

28 The text of 18 U.S.C. 2257 and associated implementing regulations can be found online at <http://www.execpc.com/~xxxlaw/sec2257.html>.

29 P.L. 104-104, Title V, 47 U.S.C.S. § 994 nt. The CDA was enacted on October 21, 1998.

30 Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844, 117 S. Ct. 2329, 138 L. Ed. 2d 874 (1997).

31 Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844, 117 S. Ct. 2329, 138 L. Ed. 2d 874 (1997).

32 47 U.S.C. 230.

33 Nancy Willard (University of Oregon), the analyst, cites two cases in support of this view. First, in Zeran v. America Online, Inc. (129 F.3d 327 (4th Cir. 1997)), the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals expressly held that "[b]y its plain language, §230 (a provision of the CDA) creates a federal immunity to any cause of action that would make service providers liable for information originating with a third-party user of the service". Second, in Kathleen R. v. City of Livermore (Cal, Ct. App., 1st App. Dist., A086349, 3/6/01), a mother of a teenage boy sued the library because her son had accessed sexually explicit pictures through the library's Internet service. The case was dismissed, and the dismissal was upheld in appellate court. The appellate court found that under the CDA, the library was an interactive service provider and was entitled to immunity, and noted that although the purpose of the CDA was to prevent minors from obtaining access to pornography, Congress made a deliberate policy choice not to subject those providing Internet access to tort liability.

34 P.L. 105-227, Div. C, Title XIV, § 231. COPA was enacted on October 21, 1998.

35 47 U.S.C. § 231(e)(2)(B).

36 Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973).

37 47 U.S.C. § 231(e)(6).

38 ACLU v. Reno, 31 F. Supp. 2d 473 (ED Pa. 1999). The Third Circuit Court of Appeals upheld this decision. ACLU v. Reno, 217 F. 3d 162 (3d Cir. 2000), cert. granted, Ashcroft v. ACLU, 121 S. Ct. 1997 (2001).

39 P.L. 106-554, § 1(a)(4), 114 Stat. 2763 (2001). A good summary of the provisions of CIPA can be found online at <http://www.cybertelecom.org/cda/cipatext.htm#1712>.

40 The "E-rate" program was mandated by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. In that program, phone companies contribute to a fund that the FCC administers to help finance the wiring of K-12 public schools. The program has been important in enabling Internet access for many schools. For more information, see <http://www.sl.universalservice.org/>.

41 One additional requirement placed on schools (but not on libraries) receiving federal funding for Internet access is that its policy of Internet safety must include monitoring the online activities of minors, though the tracking of Internet use by any identifiable minor or adult user is not required. Further, it is not clear whether technologies other than filters as defined in Chapter 12 will qualify as appropriate "technology protection measures"; some parties have advanced the argument that according to the principles of statutory construction, the use of the phrase "block or filter" rather than simply "block" means that a device that "filters" but does not "block" is consistent with the definition of "technology protection measure." Since CIPA does not provide a definition of the term "filter," at least one of these parties has argued that products that rely on the identification of inappropriate sites (filtering) but which also record access to those sites will be compliant (personal communication, Nancy Willard, University of Oregon).

42 47 U.S.C. § 254(h)(7)(G) (2001).

43 Multnomah County Library v. United States. No. 01-CV-1322 (ED Pa. 2001). Available online at <http://www.aclu.org/court/multnomah.pdf>.

44 Disclosure of information means the release of personal information collected from a child in identifiable form for any purpose, except where such information is used for internal purposes only and the operator does not disclose or use that information for any other purpose, or making personal information collected from a child publicly available in identifiable form.

45 For purposes of COPPA, personal information is "individually identifiable information about an individual collected online, including: first and last name, a home or other physical address, an e-mail address, a telephone number, a social security number, anything that the FTC determines permits the physical or online contacting of a specific individual, and information concerning the child or the parents of the child that the Web site collects online from the child and combines with any of the previously mentioned information."

46 A Web site directed at children is a commercial Web site that is targeted to children or the portion of a commercial site that is targeted to children.

47 P.L. No. 105-277, Division C, Title XIII, 112 Stat. 2681, 15 U.S.C. § 650 nt. The act amends 15 U.S.C. § 41, et seq.

48 For purposes of COPPA, a site operator is any person who operates a Web site and collects or maintains personal information from or about site visitors, or the person for whom the information is collected, if the site is operated for commercial purposes.

49 How to Comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule, November 1999, available online at <http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/coppa.htm>.

50 COPPA provides exceptions to the requirement that the operator obtain verifiable parental consent in certain circumstances.

51 How to Comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule, November 1999, available online at <http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/coppa.htm>.

52 The FTC has a broad program of enforcement in the area of e-commerce and the Internet; the first FTC actions involving the Internet date to the mid-1990s. See <http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/menu-internet.htm>.

53 FTC v. Carlos Pereira d/b/a atariz.com, No. 99-1367-A (ED Va. filed Sept. 14, 1999); press release available online at <http://www.ftc.gov/opa/1999/9909/atariz.htm>.

54 FTC v. RJB Telecom, Inc. et al, No. 002017 PHX (D. Az., filed Sept. 26, 2001); FTC v. Ty Anderson et al, No. C 00-1843P (WD Wa., filed Oct. 27, 2000); FTC v. Verity International, Ltd., No.00 Civ. 7422 (LAK) (SDNY, filed Oct. 2, 2000); FTC v. Sheinkin, No.00-CV-03636 (DSC, filed Nov. 11, 2000); FTC v. Audiotex Connection, Inc., CV-97-0726 (EDNY, filed Feb. 13, 1997); Beylen Telecom, Ltd., No. C-3782 (court, final consent Jan. 23, 1998).

55 FTC v. Benoit, No. 3:99 CV 181 (WDNC, filed May 11, 1999).

56 See <http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2001/10/cupcake.htm>.

57 See <http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2002/02/eileenspam1.htm>.

58 Media In The Home 2000: The Fifth Annual Survey of Parents and Children, a national poll conducted for the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and released on June 26, 2000. Available online at <http://www.appcpenn.org/mediainhome/conference/report-39.pdf>.

59 See Footnote .

60 See <http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-01-120A1.pdf>.

61 For more discussion, see Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research Council, 2002, Global Networks and Local Values, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.

62 For example, pursuing an online sexual predator of children through a sting operation is a personnel-intensive enterprise. Because a sexual predator works slowly to build up a relationship of trust with his victims, law enforcement officials must operate in a similar fashion. Participating in such an enterprise is time-consuming. In any event, the number of potentially law-breaking interactions far outstrips any plausible enforcement efforts that could be made.











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Copyright 2002 by the National Academy of Sciences
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