[The day before the CDA decision came down, I interviewed David Crane from Sen. "CDA II Real Soon Now" Coats' office and Noah interviewed Donna Rice-Hughes. Recall Coats was the chief GOP sponsor of the original CDA. Here are excerpts. --Declan] *********** http://www.pathfinder.com/news/netdecency/rice.html Interview with Donna Rice-Hughes, Enough is Enough The Netly News June 26, 1997 [...] Q: WHY DO YOU SAY THERE IS SO MUCH MISUNDERSTANDING ABOUT THE CDA IN THE INTERNET COMMUNITY? I think there's been a lot of misinformation about what this is all about and what the CDA would do if it is upheld. I think there have been some scare tactics, quite frankly, and that's why you have people concerned about speech. This is an area that the public hasn't had to understand the nuances of until now. You have a lot of people who have been using the Internet for years for the contructive purposes for which it was designed. Now it's becoming more commercial and you have pedophiles, pornographers and people who are just posting their private collections of pornography and polluting it, exploiting that technology. A few bad apples are spoiling it for everyone else. If it wasn't for that then we wouldn't be having this problem. Long before any of this it would have been great if the Internet community had said, "Hey, don't pollute this technology," and had imposed their own controls. But that didn't happen and it isn't happening. *********** http://www.pathfinder.com/news/netdecency/crane.html An Interview With David Crane, Legislative Assistant to CDA Cosponsor Dan Coats The Netly News June 26, 1997 [...] Q: WOULD YOU DO ANYTHING DIFFERENTLY? CHANGE THE WORDING OF THE CDA? I don't think so. One of the frustrations we experienced has been the tremendous amount of debate that has centered around the indecency standard -- and the portrayal of those who oppose it as a broadcast standard. The very federal statute we amended was a dial-a-porn statute. It was telephony, which is inherently an interactive method of communication. Despite representations to the contrary, there was a tremendous dialogue with representatives of the computer industry. We tried to strike the best balance we could. Q: YOU TOLD ME EARLIER THAT INTERNET USERS DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT THE CDA REALLY IS ALL ABOUT. What Congress said was you're only held responsible for "knowing" violations. At that point you become responsible to solve that problem. You can't be held liable for unknowing violations. That's a distinction that's been lost in the politicking over this issue. And that's unfortunate. This is new technology and evolving technology. That's why Congress was careful not to codify a specific method of preventing access for children. What's effective today may not be effective tomorrow. We tried very much to have the CDA be flexible and be a living statute, one that would provide for advanced technologies and more restrictive technologies over time. Q:CAN YOU GIVE ME SOME EXAMPLES? A good example is PICS [a framework for Internet rating systems]. Look at the PC Week editorial. Q:THE ONE YOUR BOSS WAVED AROUND THE SENATE FLOOR? The industry has waved around PICS and said that's a solution. But what's the incentive -- for someone who's providing pornography on the Internet -- to subscribe to PICS? You're asking him to limit his potential marketplace in a voluntary way. That doesn't work. The need for the CDA is you want to say: Yes, apply technology, but you must restrict access to pornographic materials for children. If you don't do it, you'll be subject to prosecution. Q: WHAT WILL YOU DO IF THE SUPREME COURT STRIKES DOWN THE CDA? If the Supreme Court strikes down the CDA, we'll acknowledge that the current composition of the court is saying we don't have it right [to pass such a law] and we'll go back and operate on the precedent that was established and try again. The final verson of the CDA -- the compromise that was struck in the conference committee -- was passed overwhelmingly. There's precedent to this: the dial-a-porn law. It took several attempts before it was upheld by the Supreme Court. I think that everyone involved -- from the ACLU to a lot of the reporters on the Internet -- has misrepresented the CDA in many respects. Saying that it is a ban on indecency, that adults wouldn't be able to communicate with each other. That's patently wrong. Q: YOU SOUND LIKE YOU FEEL OUTGUNNED. The newspapers have a vested interest. Every major newspaper editorialized against the law during drafting and afterward. You're not going to be a darling of the media. The media likes to portray this as a free speech issue. This is part of the process. Q: SO NOW THE PRO-CDA FORCES ARE THE UNDERDOGS? One of the virtues of the Internet is the free flow of information. But only part of the information is being put out and that's unfortunate. This representation by opponents of the CDA that considerations of the unique nature of the Internet were not taken into account or that members and staff didn't understand the Internet or that somehow Congress didn't like the Internet or saw great danger beyond this issue -- all that is simply not true. There was consultation with the computer industry at every step of the way. We wanted to create a living law -- a flexible law -- that could grow as technologies evolved. ------------------------- Declan McCullagh Time Inc. The Netly News Network Washington Correspondent http://netlynews.com/