The Philadelphia-based district judges appeared anxious to hastenthe end of the Communications Decency Act case, which nearly all observers expect will go to theSupreme Court regardless of their decision. Final arguments have been moved up to May 10 from June 3 as originally scheduled.
To help speed the proceedings, lawyers representing both the Justice Department and the lead plaintiffs--theAmerican CivilLiberties Union and the AmericanLibrary Association--agreed today todecline their right to call witnesses in response to testimony. That procedure had been scheduled forApril 26.
"We thought it wasn't necessary to call witnesses back to testifybased on the testimony we heard over the last few weeks," said ChristopherHansen, legal counsel for the ACLU.
ACLU and Justice Department attorneys will present written final briefs to the court onApril 29 and then present final arguments May 10. Attorneys believe that the process will move quickly.
"I think that we're talking closer to two weeks as opposed to two years,"said DavidSobel, legal counsel with the ElectronicPrivacy Information Center, a free-speech organization. "I think it's been pretty clear in terms of the interest thatthe judges have expressed in the issue, and in moving the dates forward thatthey recognize the need to come to a decision."
Although the ACLU argues that the Communications Decency Act isunconstitutional under the First Amendment, neither the ACLU nor the Justice Department lawyers addressed the fundamental constitutional issues raised by this case, instead focusing on practical and technological questions.
In addition to a primer on how to use the Net and an overview of thediversity of the Internet community, the plaintiffs' case boiled down to twopoints: that the Net is so enormous and various that it would be impossiblefor a government agency to monitor adequately and that such supervision isrendered unnecessary by the existence of filtering technology that lets parentsdo it themselves.
The plaintiffs called ten witnesses to back up its points:
--Ann Duball, CEO of parental control software company SurfWatch
--Scott O. Bradner, senior technical consultant at Harvard University
--Professor Donna Hoffman from Vanderbilt University
--Robert Cronenberger, director of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
--Bill Burrington, assistant general counsel and director of public policy for America Online
--Stephen Donaldson, president of Stop Prisoner Rape
--Andrew Anker, president and CEO of HotWired
--Howard Rheingold, well-known author on the nature of cyberspacecommunities
--Barry Steinhardt, associate director of the ACLU
--Albert Vezza, associate director of the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
The government called only two witnesses, one of whom was Special AgentHoward Schmidt of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. In testimony Friday, Schmidt,pointed to sites that contain sexually explicitcontent and showed the court how easy it is to access them.
Dan Olsen, professor of computer science at Brigham Young University, was the lastwitness to testify, outlining his theories for new technology not yetcreated but theoretically possible, according to Olsen, that would help tocensor Internet content. Olsen suggested that Webmasters could embed a tag inthe Web site address based on the content provided; if browsers wereconfigured to read the technology to read the tags, the browsers could beprogrammed to block sites with questionable content.
While Olsen's proposal is similar to the PICS rating system alreadyintroduced and endorsed by Microsoftand Netscape Communications, Olsensaid that enforcement of the system would require an "Internet-wideagreement" to adopt the system as a universal standard.
"Theproblem with the technology is the technical issuedoesn't answer the bottom-line question, which is: 'How is indecency going tobe defined and how does a content provider determine what is and what is notillegal?'" Sobel asked.
That question is the one that no one has wanted to answer sincePresident Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act on February 8. TheCommunications Decency Act, which included as Section 507 of the telecommunications legislation, specificallyoutlaws the transmission of material "patently offensive" to minors.Violators face up to two years in prison and $250,000 in fines.
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The Net testifies at CDA trial
Abortion provision of CDA under attack
Indecent is in, obscene is out
Censoring cybersmut: what happens now?
Will you be censored?
Browsers to help parents monitor Net
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