The original Communications Decency Act rode through Congress by virtue of being attached to another bill that was virtually assured of passing. In late June 1998, the same technique was used to attempt to pass legislation that would require public schools and libraries to use filtering software on computers used to access the Internet.
The mandatory filter legislation, authored by Representative Ernest Istook, Jr. (R-Oklahoma), was attached to a House Appropriations Committee US$81.9 billion education, labor, and health and human services budget bill. All appropriations bills must pass by September first of each year to keep government funded into the new fiscal year. When Istook amended the budget bill in subcommittee, there was no opposition.
Civil liberties experts say that such political maneuvering, while common, poses a significant threat. “This is a very old tactic that’s used to insulate something that could have difficulty standing on its own,” David Sobel, of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) told the New York Times. “Whenever one of these bills gets tied to something else it is cause for concern because the focus of the debate gets lost.”
Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) sponsored similar legislation in the Senate. The McCain bill would require schools and libraries that receive federal funding to install filtering software on all computers used by children.
McCain insists his bill, the Internet School Filtering Act (S. 1619), is not censorship. “This is not about dictating morals to consenting adults. If adults choose to view certain activities on the Web—as long as those activities are not illegal—then that is their business. This is about protecting our children,” McCain said in his testimony on the Senate floor in mid-July 1998. “It is our duty, as both parents and policy makers, to ensure that when parents are unable to monitor their children’s Internet activities, the schools and libraries to which we entrust their care do monitor such activities through the use of an effective filtering system,” McCain concluded.
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