More on Censorware Summit, from Communications Daily

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

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Communications Daily
November 3, 1997, Monday

ONLINE SUMMIT ON KIDS' ISSUES SET FOR DEC.


   Broad-based effort by industry, consumer and advocacy groups to come up with
means to protect children who use Internet and online services will begin to
announce its solutions at summit meeting Dec. 1-3 in Washington. Summit, which
could involve as many as 300 participants, is result of meeting at White House
in July following Supreme Court decision to strike down key parts of
Communications Decency Act (CDA). At meeting, industry promised to find ways to
protect children.

   While original focus was on protecting children from pornography, plan is
being drawn up to include examination of other issues with children online such
as privacy and marketing. Longer term project could take another 6 months or as
long as year, said Christine Varney, ex-FTC member now in private practice who
is chmn. of summit. She was heavily involved with online issues during her
tenure at FTC.

   Varney said there will be other events next year, tentatively set for Feb.,
April, May and June, although structure for those hasn't been set. Idea was to
concentrate first on children's safety issues for Dec. meeting, she said in
interview. Dec. conference in Washington will announce tools and
recommendations
that industry and interest groups have come up with in safety area, Varney
said,
and there will be "concrete action at each stage" of process on issues to be
considered.

   Those recommendations aren't yet final, but could include some types of
rating system. Varney rejected notion that there are First Amendment concerns
involved, saying project "is not at all about censorship." Biggest danger, she
said, is that there could be single rating system -- it's not censorship if
there are many rating systems. Daniel Weitzner, deputy dir. of Center for
Democracy & Technology (CDT), one of groups that challenged CDA, agreed, saying
that key difference is between govt.'s taking role of censor and parents'
deciding what can be seen by children. He, too, said he was worried about
proposals for "some kind of mandatory labeling, which would be clearly
unconstitutional." Because of technical limitations, TV can accommodate
only one
system, Weitzner said, but computers are much more flexible. He added: "I know
of no interpretation of the First Amendment which says individuals, private
citizens, can't control what they read."

   There is some disagreement, however. David Banisar of Electronic Privacy
Information Center (EPIC) called meeting "censorware summit." He said it's
"attempting to undo what the Supreme Court did when it struck down the
CDA," and
"this is something that should be avoided because it's worse than the disease."
Banisar agreed no First Amendment restraint is involved, but more basic
principles of free speech can be violated by filtering tools and software that
could be used on national level.  That possibility, he said, is "equally as
dangerous as the CDA." Banisar said he's working with "a coalition of free
speech groups on alternatives" to summit. He said private industry and group
effort is more dangerous than legislation because "at least with legislation
there are certain rights under the First Amendment that can be applied."

   One of Varney's challenges in heading project is to bring together
groups who
spent years fighting each other over CDA and to determine whether there
could be
some areas of agreement. So far, she said, process has been working very well.
In addition to goal of coming up with recommendations on substance of issues is
goal of "creating partnerships where they didn't exist before," process
that she
said was particularly important because it's taking place as new medium
develops. She acknowledged that there must be concerted effort to maintain
focus
on children in deliberations while persuading former opponents to "check their
differences at the door" on CDA and other issues. Donna Hughes, communications
dir. for Enough Is Enough, anti-child porn group, said she was pleased that
summit has adopted much of her group's agenda. She said she was "pleased to be
at the table, to work very closely with many people who we had debated for 3
years." One benefit of summit, she said, is to "get to know each other. That's
always constructive." Hughes said she doesn't view online summit process as
refighting of CDA issues, saying result of CDA debate was to focus public
attention on dangers to children. Varney agreed, saying that "great beauty" of
process is that "folks so divided on the CDA" are agreed on children's' issues.

   But Banisar takes different view. He said his group was part of anti-CDA
coalition that had view different from CDT. Now, he said, CDT is taking "a very
industry viewpoint on this." Commitment of America Online (AOL), another CDA
defendant and major sponsor of online summit, to free speech "has been premised
that it doesn't want to be held liable for what its people said. It doesn't
mind
when it's censoring."