What was lost: That the bill should have been introduced at all is a loss of innocence for the internet and shows that long-standing forces in favor of censorship generally have taken their intolerance to the new medium. The American Library Association, one of the groups who brought the challenge to the Philadelphia Court, publishes a "Banned Books Resource Guide" listing 800 titles that were challenged in 1993-94.
Why the bill is unnecessary: Self-censorship is already used by online service organizations, sometimes to ridiculous extents. America Online, for example, did not allow use of the word "breast" at first, even in connection with articles on breast cancer. Now they provide software tools that allow parents to control their children's access. Prodigy, another one of the more conservative online providers, requires activation by the household account holder (who must have a credit card and presumably is an adult) in order to obtain access to Usenet newsgroups. Another new software program, SurfWatch, allows parents and educators to block unwanted
Internet material. There will probably be a dozen or more tunable filters that one can obtain, each endosed by the group of your choice, Christian Coalition, for example, if you want it.
Why the bill is dangerous: The proposed law would impose a single national standard on digital transmissions, with the FCC as the arbiter of decency. Assuming that could be accomplished, given the Internet's global reach, it would replicate and expand the problems experienced by broadcasters. While Justice Brennan lamented the Court's becoming "an unreviewable board of censorship for the 50 states," that is precisely the role the five members of the FCC have been cast in. The landmark 1973 Miller v. California ruling allowing local community standards to determine what is offensive could backfire in the case of the internet. There has already been a conviction in the bizarre case of a California couple whose restricted, adults-only bulletin board was accessed by a postal inspector in Tennessee. The postal inspector, using an assumed name, paid a subscription fee to join the bulletin board and downloaded digital images of sexual activity that did not violate the community standards of California. But a jury in Tennessee found their sensibilities were violated and voted to convict. The case is on appeal, and unless it is reversed, Tennessee juries or whoever constitutes the lowest common denominator, may define the community standards for all of cyberspace.