Feb 28 Assignment: Law & Internet Seminar (LAW 745)

The Communications Decency Act

Reading:

1. It seems sensible to start with the text of the Act.
2. Here is a (objective? biased?) chronology of events leading up to the passage of the CDA.
3. Here are some commentaries on the Act.
   • What Exactly Is He Banning?
   • Robert Cannon's (evolving) analysis
   • The Center for Democracy & Technology's self-confessed preliminary analysis.
4. Mike Godwin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation has written a short description of the difference between obscenity and indecency.
5. Some relevant cases
   • FCC v. Pacifica Foundation , 438 U.S. 726 (1978)
   • City of Renton v. Playtime Theaters, 475 U.S. 41 (1986).
   • Sable Communications v. FCC, 492 U.S. 115 (1989)
   • Fabulous Associates v. Pennsylvania Public Utility Com'n, 896 F.2d 780 (3d Cir. 1990).
   • Alliance for Community Media v. FCC, 56 F.3d 105 (D.C. Cir. 1995) (en banc), cert granted, 64 U.S.L.W. 3347 (U.S. Nov. 13, 1995) (No. 95-124).
     • The Alliance's press release about the granting of cert.
     • Mayer, Brown & Platt's analysis of the significance of the case.
   • Action for Children's Television v. FCC, 58 F.3d 654 (D.C.Cir. 1995) (en banc), cert. denied, 133 L.Ed.2d 658 (1996).
6. The Litigation
   1. The ACLU's description of the plaintiffs.
   2. The ACLU et. al's complaint.
   3. The ACLU's brief.
   4. The Justice Department's brief.
   5. ACLU v. Reno, Civ. Act. No. 96-963, 1996 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1617.
7. The University of Pennsylvania's cautionary statement on the CDA.
8. Programs that offer parental control. In visiting these sites, consider what they demand from the user: Does the system use "blocking" to screen out "bad" sites; or "validation" to permit access only to "good" sites. Who controls blocking/validation: the product supplier or the user? How would you use this product in a family with many children of different ages?
   • Bess, the Internet Retriever. You might also want to look at the kid-friendly interface.
   • Cyber Patrol
   • Net Nanny
   • Net Shepard
   • SurfWatch

Doing:

• Following up on our class discussion:
  1. Point every browser you use regularly at the snoop program to learn how much information your browser discloses about you.
  2. Input the results of this (if any) to altavista (below):
     
     Search the Web Usenet and Display the Results in Standard Form in Compact Form in Detailed Form
     
  3. Report the results of this experiment to the class mailing list by 12 noon on Monday.
• You should have emailed me your proposed paper topic by now.

Optional

• Here's another snooper [added 4/7/96]
• The MIT W3 Platform for Internet Content Selection [added 4/2/96]
• An account of America OnLine's inconsistently applied attempts to enforce `deceny'.
• The text of the Oklahomans for Children and Family OCAF White Paper on Internet Pornography: "The Agincourt Project". See also their , promise to encourage prosecution of small fry and an unsympathetic account of the project and an "action page" devoted to fighting the OCAF.
• The text of the Citizen's Internet Empowerment Coalition's (CIEC) challenge to the CDA. Also, instructions on how to become a plaintiff in the CIEC lawsuit.
• "Banned Bookmarks". One persons's list of sites that may be affected by the CDA.
• A patently offensive page, complete with a plea for any minors viewing it to "click here" to report the author to the FBI.
• 24 Hours for Democracy. A protest against the CDA scheduled for Feb. 22, 1996.
• A useful set of CDA-related links.
• Banned books On-line
• New Age Comstockery: Exon vs the Internet, Robert Corn-Revere's Cato Instutite Policy Paper (June 28, 1995). Although the CDA was much amended after this was written, the paper has lots of useful historical information.
• Washington State's erotic music law.
• Nudes from USC!