THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, June 24, 1996 TAG: 9606210016
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Another View
SOURCE: By RICHARD E. SINCERE JR.
LENGTH: 85 lines
In 1975, the distinguished American historian C. Vann Woodward noted that ``the history of intellectual growth and discovery clearly demonstrates the need for unfettered freedom, the right to think the unthinkable, discuss the unmentionable and challenge the unchallengeable.''
New life was breathed into Woodward's words on June 12, when the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals struck down as unconstitutional the so-called Communications Decency Act (CDA), which was passed by Congress earlier this year as part of sweeping telecommunications reform. Paradoxically, the rest of the new law expanded freedom in that realm - by permitting more competition in telephone and cable TV services, for instance - while the decency provisions shrank freedom considerably.
At issue was the rapidly growing new mode of communications known as the Internet, and the fact that some of the material carried on this global network is considered obscene or indecent. The appeals-court panel ruled that the Internet is the ``most-participatory form of mass communication yet developed (and) deserves the highest protection against government intrusion.'' The judges also ruled that the CDA's prohibition of ``indecent'' material - punishable by a $250,000 fine and two years in prison - was unconstitutionally broad and vague.
Virginians should be especially pleased with the court's decision on the CDA, because our state's job growth is due in large part to the expansion of computer technology, in particular the Internet. Mini-``Silicon Valleys' have sprung up in Northern Virginia and near Blacksburg; several multinational computer firms have announced plans to build facilities in suburban Richmond. Anything that would impede that growth - including the CDA - must be condemned.
The Libertarian Party - along with dozens of other organized groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Council for the Arts, the Center for Democracy & Technology and People for the American Way, as well as thousands of individuals across the country - was an early opponent of the CDA. Libertarians agree with former Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, who wrote in 1952 that ``restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.''
The appeals-court's decision will help keep meddling politicians away from a technology that most of them don't even understand. It has created a zone of privacy around electronic communications that the government cannot breach. Our children's livelihoods as adults will rely extensively on new telecommunications technology, as America's - and Virginia's - economies increasingly become information-based, continuing a rising trend. The 21st century will, thanks to the First Amendment, be the Age of the Internet.
While some might argue that new technologies call for new restrictions, this is simply not the case. Although the First Amendment is more than 200 years old, it has not lost its validity simply because we can communicate in faster and flashier fashions than the founders could. Censorship today is no different from censorship in 1791. Free speech is free speech, whether it is distributed via an 18th-century printing press or a 20th-century modem.
Professional politicians - including the chief sponsor of the CDA, Nebraska Sen. James Exon - have little understanding of modern technology because they themselves do not deal with it on a daily basis, as the rest of us do. They do not realize that the free market is already responding with innovation and flexibility to the problems that they seek to remedy through rigid laws and expanding bureaucracies.
Large commercial Internet services such as the Fairfax County-based America Online already offer parents a ``lock-out' tool to keep objectionable material away from children. Numerous commercial software products are now available to block objectionable material from the Internet's World Wide Web. Some of these products are marketed through religious bookstores and through Christian mail-order houses. Using the bludgeon of government to solve this ``problem'' is not necessary, since far-more-focused, discrete and effective tools are already available at your local computer store.
Primary responsibility for the moral upbringing of children belongs to their parents. No one should rely on government for this duty, because it is not the government's job. If parents are afraid their children will find something objectionable on the Internet, they should more fully supervise their children's use of computer technology - in the same way that they supervise their TV viewing habits, the books they read and the playmates they meet at school.
Individuals, exercising responsibility for their own lives and the lives of their family members, are far better equipped to make decisions about what to read, watch, write or create than are outsiders working for some anonymous government agency. Citizens deserve to be trusted to lead their own lives without the interference of Beltway busybodies. MEMO: Richard Sincere is chairman of the Libertarian Party of Virginia. by CNB