Activists Say Efforts Continue to Limit Access to the Web

When the Supreme Court overturned the Communications Decency Act last year, supporters of free speech on the Internet hailed the decision. But attendees at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference here last week said the celebration is over.

Although the court ruled that the Internet has 1st Amendment protection--just like other media such as print--experts at the conference said state legislators across the nation are churning out new Internet censorship laws. Ratings schemes, which can block certain information on the Internet, also are troubling to activists.

Attorney Ann Beeson of the American Civil Liberties Union, who worked on the landmark Reno vs. ACLU case, said the court’s decision saved the Internet from total disruption because the CDA had contained a criminal statute.

But she remains worried.

“A second-generation battle is being waged for the quality of the medium,” Beeson said.

Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor and expert in copyright law, said Congress could try to bring back a revised version of the CDA. Indeed, legislation is already making the rounds in Washington that activists refer to as “son of CDA.”

Libraries, in the meantime, are limiting universal, unfiltered access to the Internet. Some are adopting policies that allow librarians to kick a person off a computer if they’re looking at something deemed “inappropriate.” Beeson said others are asking for parental consent for minors at libraries to access the Internet.

In addition, many schools are calling for mandatory blocking software on computers in classrooms--even for high school students, Beeson said.

Web pages designed by students on their own time and done completely outside of school have also been targeted.

Beeson gave the example of a Web page called Chow, designed by a 13-year-old Texas boy. Chow stood for Chihuahua Haters of the World, a sort of takeoff on the black humor books about “things to do with dead cats.”

A Chihuahua lover found the site, Beeson said, and repeatedly “harassed” not only the Internet service provider but also the boy’s school. As a result, she said, the boy was suspended for three days. The ACLU is now involved in the case.

In addition, proposed legislation would limit federal funding for Internet access at schools and libraries.

State laws are also keeping the ACLU busy.

A Virginia law, for example, forbids state employees, including university professors, from using state-owned computers to access or transmit sexually explicit material. But the ACLU, which is challenging the law, points out that such material could be information on AIDS, sexual abuse or gay and lesbian issues.