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This Week's Attitude
Three cheers for the prudent jurist's support of free speech! The Child Online Protection Act of 1998 was created when the Supreme Court struck down a 1996 law in which Congress attempted to ban online pornography citing that it was too vague and trampled on the rights of adults. The 1998 legislation made it a crime for any person to provide minors access to "harmful material" over the Internet. Yet, three years ago, the conservative-leaning Supreme Court indicated the modified law still needed to be revised when it upheld a temporary injunction on grounds the act would be struck down and was perhaps outdated. Federal legislators apparently ignored their obligation to adequately modify the law and it remained intact, and was subsequently challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union, which argued that sections of it were too restrictive. The ACLU maintains that filters, which are used effectively in public libraries and schools, based on a law Congress passed seven years ago, prevent children from accessing questionable Internet material, are available to concerned parents, who can fix restrictions based on their own beliefs and their child's age. Judge Lowell Reed, of the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, wrote that while he sympathized with the goal of restricting minors from seeing pornography, other means that were less restrictive of free speech, such as commercial software filters, were available to block pornographic content. In his ruling the judge wrote: "Perhaps we do minors harm if First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection." Naturally, some knee-jerk reaction hastily condemned the jurist's decision deeming that protecting children is more paramount than freedom of speech. While this may be a precarious debate, freedom of speech deserves preference every time. And, the government should have very limited latitude to legislate what goes on in the privacy of one's home, even when it affects the security of children. Consequently, legislators need to toughen laws to protect children from Internet predators while not impeding on basic civil rights - no matter how abhorrent it may seem. Some readers may be thinking, here's another card-carrying, ACLU liberal with his head up his @#^! Well, that's fine with me. But I'm not advocating allowing children unlimited access to pornography - or, for that matter, to the Internet, which has become an information superhighway, free-for-all for reliable, as well as malevolent content. What I almost unconditionally support is unrestricted free speech, excluding shouting "Fire!" in a theater or hate speech that instigates large-scale civil disorder, to name a few crucial exceptions. More importantly, the ultimate obligation of what activities children engage in lies with parents. And you don't have to be a mother or father to know that responsibility is as vital an element of parenting as nurturing. Just as New York City parents should have known where their children are at 10 p.m. for the last 40 years - thanks to channel 5's nightly reminder - they should also be aware and particularly cautious about what their children do on the Internet. After all, responsible parents are almost certainly attentive to whether or not their children smoke cigarettes or use other harmful substances and what television programs they watch. Well, children must also be monitored and taught to be wary about what and whom they encounter on the Internet. Just as they are warned "not take candy from strangers" or getting into a stranger's car, an unknown Internet buddy with an ulterior agenda may offer temptation, but it is, in all likelihood, just candy of another kind. While the rapidly increasing Internet can be helpful and informative, it also perpetuates illicit activity, including identity theft and other scams, making it especially easy for sexual predators to find innocent prey. Conservatives, prigs, straitlaced individuals and even some parents were undoubtedly infuriated by the decision, and probably like nothing better than seeing the judge removed from the bench. But that kind of rash response is narrow-minded. Laws are made to be rewritten and when they are they should address a particular situation for which they are intended, without hindering basic freedoms, no matter how distasteful they may seem to some. Just as we sacrificed some personal freedoms, became somewhat more vigilant and altered daily routines after 9/11 to guarantee our safety, so must we tolerate pornography - a highly profitable multibillion-dollar industry - and other concerns that society, generally, deems unacceptable. But, at the end of the day, while parents must be held accountable for their children's behavior, lawmakers must regulate the information superhighway with reliable and secure protections for the most vulnerable, without restraining freedom of speech.
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