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The National Council of State Legislatures and two Internet industry groups agree that this year's legislative sessions will yield a bumper crop of regulatory Internet bills—among them new attempts to shield children from sexually explicit material.
"I don't think, personally, that there is going to be much appetite for content-control legislation in state legislatures," United States Internet Council legislative director Mark Q. Rhoads told the New York Times January 24. Instead, he predicted, lawmakers will more likely try legislating parental empowerment to "more intelligently supervise their children's online time" through technology safeguards such as filters.
Also well aware of the constitutional quagmires into which previous regulation attempts have plunged, Paul Rusinoff of the Internet Alliance encouraged legislators to examine the Virginia Internet Policy Act, a proposed cyberpolicy that recommends "one-click-away access" to filters instead of overreaching mandates.
Posted February 1, 1999.
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