Commission Looks at Ways to Safeguard Kids

Children must be protected from harmful Internet content, but a law requiring filters where children are present is not the answer. These are the findings of a commission established under the Child Online Protection Act, which on Friday will release a report to Congress supporting its decision not to recommend passage of a law requiring filters at libraries and schools that receive federal funding.

After holding public hearings, the 18-member commission approved several recommendations earlier this month, saying the most effective means of protecting children from harmful Internet content include more public education, consumer empowerment, enforcement of existing laws, and greater use of existing technologies.

The commission says witness after witness testified at its hearings that protection of children online requires more education, more technologies, heightened public awareness of existing technologies, and more money for authorities to enforce existing laws.

"Voluntary methods and technologies to protect children must be developed, tested, evaluated, and made readily available," the commission says in its recommendations. "Coupled with information to make these methods understandable and useful, these voluntary approaches provide powerful technologies for families."

The commission adds that technologies aimed at protecting children must reflect next-generation Internet systems and the convergence of old and new media.

The commission unanimously recommends public education, "user empowerment," and enforcement of existing laws to keep obscenity and child pornography away from children, saying these were the only feasible ways to protect children who use the Internet without violating the right to free speech. The Commission also declines to endorse proposals to create a .xxx domain or promote labeling of Web sites.

Mixed Reaction

Nika Herford, a spokesperson for Net Nanny Software International, based in Bellevue, Washington, says the company's position on the recommendations is neutral, but as a technology company, its goal is to give people tools they need to control their own environment.

"We want the Internet to grow unfettered with regulations," Herford says.

She adds that concern expressed by the commission over the quality of filtering software was a "subjective judgment." Net Nanny software allows users to see the URLs of all the sites that it blocks and remove or add to the list as they see fit, Herford says.

The idea of requiring filters has picked up some currency since being mentioned during the debate on Tuesday between presidential candidates Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George Bush. Some Republicans in Congress are also supporting an amendment that would require schools and libraries that buy technology with certain federal funds to install filters. The amendment has been attached to an appropriations bill that is due to be voted on next week (see "Senate Approves Internet Filtering Amendment").

At least one lawyer who specializes in First Amendment law, Jason Epstein, with Baker Donelson Bearman and Caldwell, says the commission made sound recommendations. The recommendations show that the commission feels some action should be taken on children's exposure to obscenity on the Web, but it appears the commission recognized that any law affecting freedom of speech should be considered in a calculated and well-thought-out manner, Epstein says.

"People who say, 'First Amendment be damned -- it's my kids!' haven't had the chance to go through to see what it means as a practical matter to put in the controls," Epstein says. "[Americans] need to discuss specifically what the controls are and have a healthy debate as to what you are giving up by enforcing those controls."