Censorship and the Internet: Recent Developments

Joanne Costello

In October 1996, Janet Reno, Attorney General of the United States, 
filed a brief that urged the Supreme Court to uphold the 
constitutionality of certain language of the Communications Decency Act 
(CDA) of 1996. This act was part of the Telecommunications Bill enacted 
into law in February 1996.  The Supreme Court is expected to hear the 
case over the next two months and make a ruling this summer.
  
This law would impose fines as high as $100,000 and prison sentences of 
up to two years for transmitting anything "obscene, lewd, lascivious, 
filthy or indecent." The key issue here for the Court to consider is the 
use of the word "indecent." Indecent speech, unlike obscenity, is 
protected by the First Amendment. 
  
The Blue Ribbon Campaign
Shortly after passage of the CDA, a coalition of groups launched a Blue 
Ribbon Campaign for Online Free Speech. The campaign is supported 
by the American Library Association, American Civil Liberties Union, and 
Electronic Freedom Foundation, as well as by several publishers and 
Internet service providers and over 55,000 "netizens."

The coalition filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the CDA; this blocked 
enforcement of the bill. In June 1996 a panel of three federal judges 
unanimously struck down the disputed portion of the CDA. This led the 
government to bring the issue to the Supreme Court.
  
State and Local Statutes
While the CDA has been a high-profile case, 20 states have considered 
similar bills and a dozen have passed them into law without garnering 
much attention. Most of these laws, however, don't ban indecent 
material but material harmful to minors.

At the local level, Boston Mayor Menino wants to ban indecent material 
from the computers in the Boston public libraries. He has ordered 
special software, called Cyber Patrol, installed on all library 
computers to block access to sexually explicit material.

Censorship at Universities
Faced with potential lawsuits, many universities have attempted to 
impose censorship of their own. For example, at Carnegie Mellon 
University the administration decided to ban newsgroups that might 
contain sexually explicit materials. Administrators were not prepared 
for the vehement protest of CMU students, who won the support of many 
libertarian organizations. Access to the newsgroups was restored.

The issue of censorship and free speech goes beyond pornography and 
obscenity. Campuses are reacting differently to offensive electronic 
speech of many kinds. The University of Massachusetts at Amherst last 
year pulled the plug on an Internet site that claimed the Holocaust 
never happened. When a professor at Northwestern University put similar 
theories online, NWU's President, Henry S. Bienen, stated that "We are 
an institution committed to the open expression of ideas. Thus it is of 
particular importance that, inside the boundaries of the law, we err on 
the side of offending people."

The debate about what can be published on the Internet is a repeat of 
the recent controversy over hate-speech policies, which many univer-
sities adopted in an attempt to end offensive speech directed at 
particular groups. Several of those policies (for example, those at 
Stanford University and the University of Michigan) were struck down as 
an infringement on free speech.

At MIT, there is no policy of censorship, as long as what is published 
is not against the law. The Institute has chosen to err on the side of 
free speech and academic freedom. Some of the ideas and concepts 
expressed on personal home pages, in newsgroups, or in email messages 
are likely to be offensive to many people. But the answer to offensive 
speech is not to censor it or punish the speaker, but to respond with 
speech that educates the speaker.

Keeping Up with Developments
To keep current on issues regarding censorship and the Internet, visit
http://www.eff.org/pub/Censorship/HTML/hot.html