The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“THE COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the Senate section on pages S1646-S1647 on March 7, 1996.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
THE COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT
Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I have just had one of the most remarkable and rewarding meetings of my career with a 10-year-old girl and her mother from the Washington, DC, area. I will only use her first name. She and her mother called and asked to see me today.
Lea is a sweet girl, 10 years of age, who was preparing for a computer project to earn a Girl Scout merit badge this week. In preparation for that project, Lea and her mother signed on to the Prodigy computer service and logged on to a so-called chat room for children, where kids from around the country can play checkers and do other such things that kids do with each other. It was Lea's very first time on the Internet.
Within minutes--I emphasize, Mr. President--within minutes, someone was attempting to engage young Lea, a 10-year-old, in conversations of a sexual nature. Needless to say, she was shocked and screamed. Lea and her mother were upset and very angry.
If I can be allowed a personal comment, this really brought this problem that I and others have been trying to do something about home, because my wife and I have been blessed with two 10-year-old granddaughters of our own. When Lea came in to see me, it was life as it exists and life as I know it.
At the time of this most unfortunate event, Prodigy did not provide the supposedly child-safe space with an alert button, which notifies the system operator that children's checkers room was being misused. A similar service was available for adults, in the adult chat room, but not for children, as strange as that might seem.
Together, the mother and the daughter contacted Prodigy and the news media. Within hours, Prodigy agreed to make the alert button available and the alarm available to those on these children's areas.
I heard this story on the news this morning, on the radio, and met with the mother and the daughter at their request this afternoon. I bring this story to the attention of the U.S. Senate because, since the passage of the Communications Decency Act as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, there has been a great deal of attention placed on this new law. With that attention, some have also continued their campaign of misinformation about the new law in the press and now in the courts.
Mr. President, Lea's story demonstrates and illustrates better than anything else that I know of that there are, indeed, real dangers on the Internet, especially for children and especially with the interactive computer services that are available. But more important, the very quick response from Prodigy to this problem illustrates that the new law is starting to work.
Opponents of the new law use harsh language like ``censorship'' to describe the Communications Decency Act that was jointly sponsored by myself and Senator Coats from Indiana and overwhelmingly passed in the U.S. Senate and in the House of Representatives and made part of the telecommunications bill. Those who cry censorship hide behind the first amendment to make defense of those who would give pornography to children and engage children in sexual conversations. What a travesty.
I hope more adults, whether they have children or grandchildren or not, will come to realize and recognize and see that the law is operational.
In respect to the first amendment, Mr. President, it is almost a sacred text with this Senator.
That is why I worked so closely--even with the new law's opponents--
to assure that our legislation was constitutional. The final legislation was the produce of nearly 3 years of investigation, research, negotiation, and compromise.
The Communications Decency Act makes it a crime to send indecent communications to children by means of a computer service or telecommunications device, to make indecent communications available to children on an open electronic bulletin board, to use a computer to make the equivalent of an obscene phone call to another computer user, and to use a computer or facility of interstate commerce to lure a child into illegal sexual activities.
The law makes computer services responsible for what is on their system. To comply with the new law, a computer service must take reasonable, effective and appropriate measures to restrict child access to indecent communications.
While it is fair to wonder why the alert button service has not been made available earlier, Prodigy is to be recognized for their quick response when this problem was brought to their attention. This is the type of response, that the Communications Decency Act sought to encourage and help prevent in the first place.
What the ACLU and their fellow travelers and the computer service companies have difficulty dealing with is that it is wrong--
despearately wrong--for an adult to electronically molest or corrupt a child.
And thinking people en masse want to do something about it.
The Communications Decency Act is not a cure-all. But, at a minimum, children and families deserve to have a law on their side notwithstanding the protests from the profiteers of child pornography that are rampant on the Internet today.
The heart and soul of the new law is its protections for children. It is not censorship. It is not prudishness. The new law does not prohibit consenting adults from engaging in constitutionally protected speech.
Published reports indicate that Penthouse and Hustler have removed indecent material from their publicly available bulletinboards in response to the new law and their material are now only available only to adults through credit card access.
That is another step in the right direction.
I count this action as a success for the new law. In these two cases, free samples of pornography are no longer given to children. We are making progress.
If the Internet and other computer services are to be a place of commerce, community, and communication, then it must be a place which is friendly to families. Indeed, the technology necessary to comply with the Communications Decency Act is the same technology which can tell a computer service whether a user is old enough to enter into a binding contract or not.
Before the passage of the Communications Decency Act, the Internet had been described as the Wild West. At last, there is now some degree of law and order. In effect, the new law is a zoning measure. Adults are free to engage in otherwise legal indecent activities and communications, just not with, or in the knowing presence, of children.
Mr. President, later this month, a three-judge panel will hear arguments on the constitutionality of the Communications Decency Act. An initial review by a Federal judge in Philadelphia protected the heart and soul of the new law from a temporary restraining order as had been requested by the ACLU. Only a small portion of the act was enjoined pending further court review. Ultimately, as we all know, Mr. President, this matter will come before a majority of the Supreme Court. And I hope that they will find--and believe that they will--the Communications Decency Act fully constitutional.
Although the U.S. Department of Justice has agreed not to file cases under the new law until the three-judge panel has an opportunity to review the statute, the action by Prodigy, and others indicates that the Communications Decency Act can and is working.
I thank all of my colleagues in the Senate and all of my colleagues in the House who have been up front in the support of this measure.
I now thank President Clinton and his Justice Department for entering into the fray on the side of the kids to begin to make further advances in correcting this terrible wrong.
I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.
Mr. MURKOWSKI addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I thank the Chair.
Mr. President, let me commend my colleague from Nebraska for his diligence in bringing to our attention a very, very important matter that affects the youth of our Nation. I commend him.
Mr. EXON. I thank my friend and colleague from Alaska, very much.
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