Do You Think Congress Can Devise a Law That Will Pass Constitutional Muster to Protect Children From Internet Pornography, Essay Example

In a contemporary world internet has become a necessity most of the people use every day for various reasons like work, education, or entertainment. However, apart from useful information, some internet resources provide vulgar content, which is exposed to children using the internet. On February 1, 1995, Senator James Exon appeared to be the first one to attempt regulating children’s access to sexually explicit material on the internet, thus introducing the Communications Decency Amendment (CDA). After accepting the CDA, it was made illegal to put ‘indecent’ content on the internet resources and pages where kids could potentially find it. However, it was declared to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in Reno v. ACLU in 1997, for the term ‘indecent’ was affirmed to be too vague.(Cannon, 1996) On February 8, 1996, president Clinton suggested “replacing the word “indecency” in the CDA with the definition of indecency from Pacifica.”(Cannon, 1996) However, issues still occur in courts and CDA is often declined for interfering with other laws. I think with the passage of legislation to censor the internet we have only just started the battle. I believe that Congress is capable of devising the law, which will not be misinterpreted and will successfully provide online censorship. I would suggest incorporating more vivid definition of ‘indecent’ content and clearly outlining its meaning to protect the youth of America.

References

Cannon, R. (1996). The Legislative History of Senator Exon’s Communications Decency Act. Cybertelecom. Retrieved May 6, 2009, from http://www.cybertelecom.org/cda/cannon2.htm