Story: House Telecom Subcommittee Holds Hearing on CIPA and E-Rate, 4/4/01.

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House Telecom Subcommittee Holds Hearing on CIPA and E-Rate

(April 4, 2001) The House Commerce Committee's Telecom Subcommittee held a hearing titled the "E-Rate and Filtering: A Review of the Children's Internet Protection Act" on Wednesday, April 4. Proponents and opponents debated the merits of a bill that has already become law.

Last year, the Congress passed, and President Clinton signed, legislation containing the CIPA. The statute requires schools and libraries receiving e-rate subsidies to use filtering technologies on computers with Internet access that are used by children. The ACLU and American Library Association have filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the CIPA as applied to libraries.


	Rep. Chip Pickering (R-MS)

Hearings on legislation are usually held before legislation is enacted. Nevertheless, this hearing gave proponents and opponents of the CIPA another opportunity to state their views. Rep. Chip Pickering (R-MS) and Rep. Steve Largent (R-OK) argued that the statute is necessary to protect children, and that it is constitutional. Reps. Pickering and Largent, along with Rep. Ernest Istook (R-OK), and former Rep. Franks (R-NJ) were the leading proponents of the CIPA in the 106th Congress.

On the other hand, Rep. Jane Harmon (D-CA) said that "I am not sure that these tools should be mandated by the government." Rep. Roy Blount (R-MO) said that "there are good arguments on both sides."

Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), the new Chairman of the Telecom Subcommittee, presided. He stated that "taxpayers should not be required to fund obscenity or child pornography or any means of accessing it; nobody should be able to use publicly funded library computers to access obscene pictures or child pornography; and libraries should be responsible for protecting children from this material and other material which is harmful to them. Period."

Marvin Johnson of the ACLU verbally sparred with Reps. Pickering and Largent. He testified that the statute is unconstitutional, that filtering does not work, and that pornography does not harm children.

One librarian (Laura Morgan of the Chicago Public Library) testified in support of the bill, and argued that men who view pormography at the public libraries create a hostile environment for the women who work in or use the libraries. Another librarian (Carolyn Caywood of Virginia Beach's library system) testified that local libraries, not the federal government, should set Internet access policies.

Two representatives of companies that provide filtering software testified that filtering does work, as did Bruce Taylor, of the National Law Center for Families and Children.