Elise Miller Kirby, whose three children range in age from 9 to 15, has kept the Internet out of her home, even though she knows it could help them immensely with their homework.
“I’m concerned that my children would have access to things that I would just rather that they not see,” said the suburban mother and lawyer, referring to the raunchiest of smut and other material unsuitable for children that is freely available on the Internet.
While her home remains an Internet-free zone, she worries about what her children could see by surfing the World Wide Web at school or their friends’ homes.
That’s why “we need the (federal) government to do something,” she said. “What do we have a government for if it’s not to help set some standards?”
Most of the participants planning to attend a White House-inspired Washington conference on children and the Internet, which starts Monday, would agree with Kirby up to a point: Children should be shielded from pedophiles and the numerous XXX-rated sites.
But many of the participants bristle at suggestions such as Kirby’s that the government regulate the Internet. They also differ widely and sometimes stridently with each other about possible solutions.
The meeting is a follow-up to a gathering held by President Clinton. The session aims to bring together Internet executives, parental groups, law-enforcement officials, government officials and civil libertarians in a search for answers.
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The meeting has come under attack from at least two directions.
Conservative groups have derided the gathering as an Internet “love fest” meant more to shill for the industry than to address child safety.
On the other hand, civil libertarians fear the meeting’s ultimate goal is censorship of the Internet.
Hanging over the proceedings is June’s Supreme Court decision striking down as unconstitutional the Communications Decency Act that sought to ban “indecent” material from the Internet.
Likely to draw heated discussion at the conference is legislation introduced by Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.), who some have dubbed “Son of the CDA.”
Coats’ bill would make it a crime to commercially distribute over the Internet sexual material “harmful to minors” under 17.
Distributors of cyberporn would have to ensure only adults could receive it by requiring the use of credit cards or other identifiers.
“We’re absolutely opposed to it. We think it’s unconstitutional,” said Jerry Berman, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology. The center will take part in the conference.
“Because of the way the Internet is designed, a whole range of material that is constitutionally protected for adults would be barred or kept away from them,” said Berman, who said he thought a law would create a logistical nightmare.
He fears Coats’ bill could wind up wasting lawmakers’ time only to be eventually struck down by the Supreme Court like the Communications Decency Act was.
One of the conference’s main themes will be educating parents about how filtering software can help them “keep their children out of the red-light district,” Berman said.
The emphasis on the use of filtering software and expected talk about Internet ratings systems has prompted the American Civil Liberties Union to dub the event the “censorware summit.”
The ACLU, which played a major role in opposing the decency act, doesn’t oppose filtering software in principle, but it asserts that parents who buy it should be able to learn exactly what sites the software blocks and what criteria were used in deciding to block those sites.
The problem, the ACLU says, is that some software-makers decline to disclose that information, calling it proprietary.
ACLU lawyers also are disturbed by the prospect of a ratings system for the Internet.
Clinton has raised the possibility of a system similar to ones adopted in the entertainment industry.
A computer version of the television “V-chip” would block out Web sites whose ratings, in the view of parents, make them inappropriate for children.
Ratings proponents say a number of organizations, ranging from liberal to conservative, would judge the Web sites.
Barry Steinhardt, associate director of the ACLU, fears that eventually there would be “one or two centralized ratings systems that will reflect particular moral values and have the effect of limiting the breadth and variety of speech on the Internet.”
“The way these rating systems are going to work,” he said “is that parties other than (consumers) are going to decide whether to employ the ratings systems. Sites that are rated unfavorably are going to be blocked out, rendered invisible to the average user.”
Berman expressed frustration with the ACLU’s criticisms. “The court said there were less restrictive ways than government
censorship, and they pointed at these filtering tools. It was endorsed by the Supreme Court 9-0. If you take those tools away, what do parents do?”
The conference’s organizers, Berman said, also want to let parents know about the efforts of companies with major Internet presences to make the Web more family-friendly.
Public Broadcasting Corp., Walt Disney Co. and America Online are expected to highlight their activities in this area.
This struck the Family Research Council as Internet boosterism and a significant departure from what some saw as an early conference goal, a focus on the Internet’s dangers and how best to protect children from them.
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“We think it will be serving the interests of the industry people more so than families and children,” said Crystal Roberts, a legal policy analyst for the council, a group that promotes traditional family values.
Roberts said parents might draw a false sense of security about the Internet from the conference. She said her organization would have welcomed a greater emphasis at the three-day conference on the role of law enforcement in cleaning up the Internet.
Atty. Gen. Janet Reno is scheduled to speak, but law enforcement officially gets only 55 minutes Tuesday.