The High Court Grapples With Sin in Cyberspace : Ban on ‘indecent’ Internet material unworkable, unneeded

The Supreme Court will hear arguments this week for and against a 1996 federal law protecting children from so-called “indecent” material on the Internet. It’s the biggest case yet involving attempts to regulate this new medium, and some history is in order.

One of the matters that inspired high dudgeon in Congress last year involved the fact that prurient material could be accessed with relative ease over the worldwide computer network known as the Internet. Members were responding to (and no doubt helping to inflame) the concerns of parents.

Predictably, lawmakers, and ultimately the president, took this legitimate concern and ratcheted it up to blunderbuss level in the form of the Communications Decency Act. Passed by Congress in March 1996, its stated goal was to protect minors by making it a crime to place indecent words or images on the Net. It came under an immediate legal challenge, on constitutional grounds, in federal court by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Opponents of the act rightly argue that the act strays far afield of reasonable intent. It assaults free speech, amounts to broad censorship and has already been viewed by lower courts as unconstitutional.

What’s so wrong? First, it would have no effect at all on the many foreign sources found on the Net. Also, lower courts have said that the law is unconstitutionally vague in its use of the term “indecent.” Serious work in the arts, in medicine and in psychological counseling might be banned under the law. Also, other enforceable laws already on the books regarding pornography, for example, address the same concerns, and do so without infringing on individual rights. In fact, local, state and federal law enforcement have made significant inroads on this kind of Internet-based material.

It’s also easier now for parents to block objectionable material so that it cannot be viewed on a home computer. Finally, the attempt to restrict the Internet to material narrowly defined as suitable for minors would make it almost useless to adults.

The Supreme Court should reject the Decency Act on these grounds. Congress and the President erred badly on this one. And if the high court does not erase the error, Congress itself should do the right thing.