Wrong Place for Smut Solution

There are literally dozens of ways to prevent children from running into pornographic sites on the Internet. Just don’t look to Congress or the president for any substantive solution.

The latest bad example is Congress’ Child Online Protection Act, which was signed by President Clinton last year. The law has just been blocked by a federal judge’s preliminary injunction on the ground that it is at odds with the 1st Amendment’s right to free speech. Previous attempts to legislate control of Internet porn ran into similar court rulings.

Under the act, commercial Web sites would be required to check the age of users, perhaps by requiring a credit card number, before allowing access to sexual content that might be “harmful to minors.” But the judge in the case, Lowell A. Reed Jr., said that the law could hamper access to legitimate medical or counseling sites that address sexual or reproductive issues.

Moreover, the law would have no effect on pornography from overseas sites. Reed suggested that an effective solution can be found in the electronic filters and software blocking packages now on the market. There are even search engines that steer innocent inquiries away from prurient sites.

The best defense is better, childproof filtering software and parents who understand that the Internet is not a neighborhood where children can blithely wander without an adult at their side.