Solveig Singleton on "Brave New Partners in Net censorship"

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 01 Dec 1997 16:26:03 -0500
From: Solveig Singleton <solveig@cato.org>
To: declan@well.com

Op-ed: Brave New Partners In Internet Censorship

by Solveig Singleton (solveig@cato.org)

Solveig Singleton is the director of information studies at the Cato
Institute. 


	A few short months ago, the Supreme Court declared that the First
Amendment protects the Internet just as it protects booksellers,
newspapers and books when it found the Communications Decency Act (CDA)
unconstitutional.  That critical ruling signaled censorious governments in
countries like Argentina, China, Germany and Zambia that the United States
would not provide a precedent for blocking undesirable Internet content. 

	Yet now the computer industry flirts with technologies of
"self-censorship"  at a December Internet summit under the guiding hand of
the Clinton administration. The summit, called Focus on Children, poses
subtle new dangers to free speech on the Internet.

	The First Amendment keeps the government out of the business of
controlling media content.  Private citizens are free to follow their
consciences in choosing their own reading material and guiding their
children to seek out or avoid certain information.  There's no First
Amendment objection when a newspaper editor refuses to print an article or
when parents take books away from their children, or use a "censorware"
program like SurfWatch in their own homes.  The private sector is allowed
to edit, to exclude and to silence speech).  The public sector is not. 

	But the summit's organizers call for "partnership" between
industry and government in keeping "inappropriate" material from children. 
President Clinton is expected to attend.  The summit emerged from a July
meeting of President Clinton, Vice President Gore and some of the groups
involved in the lawsuit against the Communications Decency Act. 

	As it blurs the line between public and private, the Focus on
Children summit becomes government action disguised as parental action.
Filtering software like SurfWatch and the Platform for Internet Content
Selection (PICS) -- a computer language standard that allows labels to be
attached to Internet content -- are fine as long as they stay in the
private sector, driven by customer demand and free choice.  There's no
need for a summit to make that happen.  With nothing better to do,
politicians and sensationalists are likely to use the occasion to shine a
media spotlight on the dangers of the Internet.  Government pressure will
make it all the more likely that the computer industry will be unable to
resist calls for mandatory PICS or universal filters built into the fabric
of the Internet itself. 

	Disturbingly, the summit's program suggests that free speech
rights do not necessarily rank high in the sponsors' priorities. Its
sponsors include, for example, the conservative group Enough is Enough;
the summit's Web site links to their pro-CDA arguments but not to anti-CDA
sites.  While some opponents of the CDA are involved, defenders of free
speech such as the American Civil Liberties Union are conspicuously
absent.  Documents promoting the summit describe the CDA as "well
intentioned" and note that "supporters and opponents of the CDA agree that
children should not have access to inappropriate material on the Internet
or in any other medium. The real question is, how best to do it." 

	The right question is whether government has any proper place at
the table discussing any of these issues -- and especially in determining
what is "inappropriate."  The answer is a resounding no.  Furthermore,
government involvement is not necessary.  The vendors of filtering
programs have reason enough to ensure that parents are aware of their
products. 

	Government involvement promotes political, centralized solutions
to what should be private problems.  The V-chip is a prime example. 
Before lawmakers chose to mandate V-chips, entrepreneurs and private
groups competed to help parents monitor their children's viewing habits,
offering dozens of different blocking technologies as well as ratings and
reviews of programs from diverse perspectives.  Now the monopoly V-chip
threatens to shoulder those offerings out of the picture. 

	Freedom of speech on the Internet offers hope to millions of
people around the world who live under political regimes that stifle their
access to information.  But the Internet's freedom depends on its
technology.  Politicians should be ashamed to set a precedent in this
country by pressuring the industry to engineer this freedom out.  We do
not need a V-chip for the Internet any more than we need a rating system
for libraries or bookstores. 

###

Solveig Singleton
(202) 789-5274
(202) 842-3490 (fax)

Director of Information Studies
Cato Institute
1000 Mass. Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20001