The Communications Decency Act is part of a larger Telecommunications Reform bill that was signed by President Clinton on Thursday, Feb. 8, 1996. The Telecommunications Bill in itself is not a bad thing. The Yahoo News Service reports that the act breaks down barriers erected by communication laws written 62 years ago. It allows telephone and broadcast companies to participate in each other's business. The goal of the bill is to increase competition in local and long-distance phone service as well as in the cable TV industry.

The Communications Decency Act is a product of amendment S.314 to the Telecommunications Bill that was introduced in Congress last February by Sen. Jim Exon (D-NE) and Sen. Slade Gorton (R-WA). According to an article in the Feb. 8 New York Times, "The act makes it a crime to transmit or allow indecent material to be transmitted over PC networks to which minors have access."

Russ Rader, Exon's press secretary, said the bill was carefully written so as not to infringe upon the free speech of adults. "The law makes it a crime to transmit anything indecent or patently offensive to people under the age of 18," Rader explained.

According to Rader, the courts have previously determined a legal definition for indecency. He said, "Indecent material is anything that in context is patently offensive and describes or depicts sexual or excretory functions."

Rader said this does not include medical warnings or e-mail between two consenting adults. He compared the bill to existing pornography laws and said this law will extend these restrictions to the Internet. "It's the same as laws that don't let children browse through adult book stores," Rader said.

"Congress has a compelling interest to protect children," Rader argued. Exon's office supports technology that blocks access of certain material to children. Rader said it's not always 100 percent effective. Parents can't always watch their children, Rader said, so people have to be responsible for what they put on the Web. If it's indecent and children can access it, then the person can be prosecuted according to this law.

In order to enforce the act, the government is authorized to restrict on-line speech and conduct. The penalty for violating the act is a fine of $250,000 and up to five years in jail.

Only 21 members of Congress voted against the Telecommunications Act. Rep. Jerry Nadler, a Democrat from New York, is one of the people who opposed the bill because of the Decency Act. The New York Times reports that Nadler called the act "the cyberspace equivalent of book burning."

Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont, has been fighting the Exon amendment since it was introduced. On April 7, 1995, Leahy introduced an alternative to S.314. His proposal was called "The Children Protection, User Empowerment and Free Expression in Interactive Media Study Bill."

Instead of censoring the Net, Leahy called for a Justice Department study to determine if the Communications Decency Act was necessary. Leahy supports the development of technology that would give parents and consumers the ability to control the information they receive over the Net. Leahy's bill would make censorship something imposed on a personal level instead of something imposed by the government.

Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich spoke out against the bill last June. On a national television show called "The Progress Report" aired on National Empowerment TV, Gingrich said he didn't think the bill would survive. "It is clearly a violation of free speech and it's a violation of the right of adults to communicate with each other," Gingrich said.

In spite of these arguments, the bill still passed Congress by a wide margin. After the president signed the act, most of the initial uproar centered on an apparent ban on the discussion of abortion over computer networks. Senator Henry J. Hyde, a Republican from Illinois, inserted language into the bill that was modeled after the Comstock Law of 1873. This law made it illegal to disseminate information about abortion. Hyde wanted to expand this act to electronic media.

On the same day the Telecommunications Bill was signed into law, attorney Zachary Carter from the U.S. Department of Justice said the government would not prosecute anyone for discussing abortion on computer networks.

Attempts to censor the discussion of abortion were quickly deemed unconstitutional, but other violations of First Amendment rights remained. The day before President Clinton signed the bill, the American Civil Liberties Union announced plans to seek a restraining order against the indecency clause. A statement from the ACLU argues that parts of the Telecommunications Reform Bill are unconstitutional "because it criminalizes expression that is protected by the First Amendment."

Shortly after the bill was signed, papers were filed in the Federal District Court in Philadelphia. Emily Whitfield, a press agent for the ACLU, said the motion was filed in Philadelphia because that is where the 50th computer was built, and it's also considered the birthplace of liberty in this country.

The ACLU filed on behalf on 20 organizations that are taking part in the suit. The Human Rights Watch, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, The AIDS Education Global Information System and the Electronic Privacy Information Center are some of the organizations involved.

Whitfield said the ACLU and other organizations are suing because the language of the law is vague. The term "patently offensive" refers to community standards which can vary from location to location. If the definition the bill refers to considers indecency anything that depicts or describes sexual or excretory activities, Whitfield argues, then directions on how to put on a condom by Planned Parenthood would be censored.

Rader maintains that these materials do not fall under the indecency clause. "You can't look at the words in the bill," Rader said. "You have to look at the material from previous cases." The United States Supreme Court has upheld indecency laws before and Rader said Exon is confident the CDA will also be upheld.

Federal Judge Ronald Buckwalter is presiding over the case in Philadelphia. A press release from the ACLU said that when the suit was filed on Feb. 8, he instructed the government to "refrain from prosecuting for so-called indecency of patently offensive material on-line at least until the motion is decided." One week later, Buckwalter granted a temporary restraining order enjoining the government from prosecuting indecency on the Net.

On Feb. 23, the plaintiff claimed to have scored a small victory when Attorney General Janet Reno announced that the government would not initiate investigations or prosecute offenders for indecency or patently offensive material while the case is being heard. This agreement expands the protection granted by the restraining order. If the law is upheld, the government has reserved the right to prosecute for indecent speech dating from the passage of the law.

The case will be heard by a three-judge panel that will include Chief Judge Dolores K. Sloviter, Judge Stuart Dalzell and Judge Buckwalter. The panel heard the ACLU's case on March 21 and 22. April 1 was set aside in case extra time was needed. The government presented its case on April 11 and 12. The trial is expected to last five days, then the panel will issue its decision.

While the ACLU is fighting the Communications Decency Act in the courts, other organizations are busy trying to keep the public informed. The Center for Democracy and Technology and the Voter's Telecommunications Watch are posting information on the World Wide Web to keep Net surfers apprised of the situation.

Steve Cherry, a member of the VTW's advisory board, said his organization opposes the bill because it controls and limits free speech on-line. He also cites the vague and partial definition of indecency as a major flaw in the bill. There is no strict legal definition of what is harmful or indecent to minors written into the CDA.

The government sets standards for broadcast and print media, but Cherry said that on-line media is different. He said, "People have more control over the intrusiveness of on-line media."

Cherry said it is not the government's job to control everything children come across. He argues that "we already have laws that govern the problem. We don't need any new laws that say pedophilia is illegal." As for parents who don't monitor their children's access to the Net, Cherry said, "They should go back to school and take Parenting 101."

Update as of April 21, 1996: There have been some new developments regarding the CDA since this story was originally written. The hearing took place in early April. It ended on the 15th with the cross-examination of government witness Dan Olsen. Olsen is the chairman of the Computer Science department at Brigham Young University. He testified in favor of a rating scheme to label sexually explicit content on the Internet.

The government presented two witnesses to defend the CDA. Lawyers for the ACLU and Citizens' Internet Empowerment Coalition (CIEC) called 13 witnesses. Witnesses for the government argued that sexually explicit material is available to minors over the Net and requiring providers to label the content will prevent children from accessing this material.

Lawyers for the ACLU and CIEC didn't deny that sexually explicit material is easily accessible by children. Instead, they argued that content labeling isn't a "good faith defense" and the government hasn't proven that the CDA is the "least restrictive means" of protecting children from inappropriate material.

When speaking to reporters after the hearings, Bruce Ennis, lead attorney for the CIEC, said parents already have the technology available to limit what their children see on the Net.

Closing arguments for this case will be heard on May 10. Each side will have two hours to sum up its argument. A decision is expected in June.