Congress soon will decide whether to take reasonable steps to protect children from hard-core pornography on the Internet or simply hand the keys of our homes over to pornographers who now have free rein to distribute the most lewd and indecent material to our children via computer.
Material ranging from bestiality to sexual torture, once relegated to adult bookstores and peep shows, is now available to any child with a computer and a modem.
The Exon-Coats Communications Decency Act stands for these principles: It's wrong to use a computer to electronically stalk or harass another person; it's wrong to use a computer to distribute or publicly display illegal pornography or obscenity; and it's wrong to use a computer to provide children with indecent material.
Our legislation would impose penalties of up to two years in jail and fines of up to $100,000 for anyone who knowingly makes indecency available to a minor. Nothing in the amendment touches constitutionally protected speech between consenting adults. It only extends to computers existing constitutional and tested statutes against obscenity and children's access to pornography long in force for telephones, broadcast and the U.S. mail.
Our proposal specifically targets the wrongdoer -- the person who sends or posts indecent material. We do not hold on-line service providers responsible if they take reasonable steps to make sure their facilities are not being used to make porn available to minors.
Our proposal is carefully constructed to follow previous court rulings on protecting minors from pornography. The restrictions apply only to those under 18. Indecent communications must simply be conducted in a place out of reach of children.
Parents, schools and responsible industry must still be involved in the effort to make the Internet safer.
But wringing one's hands in dismay and disgust while refusing to do anything to protect children and families is not responsible. I applaud the companies that have developed software allowing parents to block some of this material from coming into their homes. But why should the onus of blocking this smut be on the parents alone? I don't believe they should have to buy software that can't completely stop this onslaught from reaching their children.
Some newspapers that have editorialized against our proposal acknowledge a monetary interest in the Internet. Sex sells. But the goal of moneymaking cannot be held above protecting our children. We should not turn a fantastic educational tool like the Internet over to profiteering pornographers. The belief that our amendment would hamper legitimate profitmaking in cyberspace is nonsense.
Members of the conference committee on the pending telecommunications reform bill have now come to preliminary agreement on a significant step toward protecting children from hard-core porn on computer networks by accepting something very close to the Exon-Coats amendment. Even the on-line industry, which was most vocal in opposing the Exon-Coats bill, has agreed to appropriate restrictions.
We now have a framework for reaching a final agreement on a proposal that will go a long way toward keeping the red-light districts on the information superhighway off-limits to our kids.
Sen. James Exon is a Nebraska Democrat.