Controversial Online Issue Goes On Campus

The battle over one of the hottest online issues may be moving to the classroom.

In a move that has made free-speech activists furious and educators curious, an Arizona senator said he plans to introduce legislation that would force schools to block student access to “indecent and obscene” material if districts use federal money to get online.

Last week, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said the bill will be submitted when the Commerce Committee holds a hearing Feb. 10 about obscenity and pornography on the Internet.

At the core of McCain’s announcement is the debate about the Federal Universal Service Program, a nationwide effort to use phone company revenue to help wire schools, libraries and health clinics to the Internet.

McCain, a critic of the program, insists that schools receiving federal subsidies should “protect children and what they see in the classroom.” He said it would be up to the individual schools to specify what content falls into the nebulously defined area.

“If the schools get this funding, they need to also have the ability to screen out pornography,” McCain said.

One option is to install software-filtering programs on a school’s computers. These programs rely on long lists of sites that contain adult content, violent material or other information deemed inappropriate for a young audience. Some can also filter out certain content according to key words.

Civil libertarians insist McCain’s proposal is as unconstitutional as the 1996 Communications Decency Act. The Supreme Court struck down the act, which would have barred the display of indecent material on the Internet, saying it violated the free-speech rights of adults.

“Best-case scenario is this bill is all about forcing schools to buy filtering software,” said Daniel J. Weitzner, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology. “If that’s it, then it seems like an unusual federal intrusion on local school policy.”

Not so, say regional educators, who point out that federal subsidies often come with certain restrictions. Yet the question remains whether educators, many of whom say they are already using filtering software on their machines, need to have the government force the issue.

“We’re applying for that money. So is nearly every other school district I know of,” said Nan Aune, a technology liaison between teachers and students at Huntington Beach Union High School District, which uses filtering software. “Just because we need the money for technology doesn’t mean we don’t understand how to protect our children.”

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P.J. Huffstutter covers high technology for The Times. She can be reached at (714) 966-7830 and at p.j.huffstutter@latimes.com