Word: cda
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...that, said the court, could have crippled the Internet, which now has some 50 million users. Indeed, wrote Stevens in his 15-page opinion, the CDA threatened "to torch a large segment of the Internet community." Clearly the Justices, like many newbies before them, were swept up in the global reach and boundless potential of the medium. "Any person with a phone line can become a town crier with a voice that resonates farther than it could from any soapbox," Stevens observed...
...CDA proponents were every bit as vociferous in defeat as their counterparts were in victory. Members of the anti-porn group Enough Is Enough, led by former Gary Hart co-scandalist Donna Rice Hughes, demonstrated outside the Supreme Court with signs that read HONK IF YOU HATE PORN and CHILD MOLESTERS ARE LOOKING FOR VICTIMS ON THE INTERNET...
Legislators seized the moment as well. "Parents are going to have to realize that a computer without any restrictions to children is just as dangerous to their minds and development as a triple-X store," said retiring Indiana Senator Dan Coats, co-author of the CDA. "The court has ignored the clear will of the Executive Branch and the Congress and the clear will of the American people...
...fact, though, the court did not rule that government cannot regulate the Internet. Nor did it alter the long-standing legal prohibition against obscenity, which remains unprotected speech, both on and off the Net. It simply said that the CDA as written was fatally flawed because in trying to protect children it would also keep adults from getting material they have a legal right to see. That gives CDA forces hope that they'll be able to revisit the issue. "The opinion gives us a good road map to what the courts will allow," says Bob Flores, senior counsel...
...evidently, will the President. The White House began backing away from its support of the clearly doomed CDA months ago. But Administration officials have recently come at the problem from a new angle. They propose to fight technology with technology. This week President Clinton will convene a meeting of Internet providers, family groups and others during which he'll propose to protect kids from indecency with a software...