By DAVID G. SAVAGE, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTONIn the past 20 years, the Supreme
Court has quietly changed the face of many American cities.
Redlight districts of Xrated theaters, massage
parlors and topless night clubs, which had flourished
under the 1st Amendment's guarantee of free speech, suddenly withered
when the Supreme Court ruled in 1976 that cities could use
their zoning power to keep out sexoriented businesses. The
impact can be seen from the revival of New York City's Times
Square to hundreds of cleanedup downtowns across the
country.
These days, however, redlight districts are coming
backon the Internet. Their fate comes before the Supreme
Court this week as the justices consider the
constitutionality of the Communications Decency Act, which
went on the books last year. First Amendment activists have
called the matter "the first freespeech case of the 21st century."
A worldwide electronic hookup, the Internet is a unique
medium that allows for an instant exchange of ideas and
information. Its users, now estimated at 51 million in
the United States and Canada alone, say it should be free of
government censorship.
"The future of the Internet is at stake in this
case," said Jerry Berman, director of the Center for Democracy and
Technology and a leader of a freespeech coalition of
computers users, librarians and university professors.
"It must be free, open and accessible to all."
But antipornography activists protest that the
Internet is becoming an open sewer. With only a few clicks or
keystrokes, they say, the World Wide Web can become the
Wide World of Sex, with brightly lit photos of nude models
beckoning the screen scroller to come in for a look.
Commercial computer services usually demand that users
pay by credit card, which generally excludes young people.
But some user groups offer free access to an array of graphic
pornography involving sex with animals, children and
scenes of torture. And no one stands at the door to keep out kids.
"Any child with a computer can access vile pornography in
a matter of seconds. And once they have seen it, it can never
be erased from their minds," said Donna Rice Hughes, a leader
of a Fairfax, Va.based antipornography group known as
Enough Is Enough.
A decade ago, Rice herself was imprinted on the national
consciousness when her affair with thenSen. Gary Hart of
Colorado derailed his presidential campaign. Now married
with two stepchildren, she has become a national
spokeswoman for a women's group that helped persuade
Congress to pass the Communications Decency Act, which
President Clinton signed into law last year as part of
the bill deregulating the telecommunications industry.
The law makes it a federal crime, punishable by up
to two years in prison, for anyone to "use an interactive computer
device to send [or] display . . . to a person under years
of age 18" any image or communication that "in context depicts or
describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by
contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory
activities or organs.
The law deems these communications as "indecent." It
also punishes even more extreme pornography that would be
considered "obscene."
The measure shields Internet transmitters who take
"reasonable, effective and appropriate actions" to restrict
access by minors, such as requiring a credit card or "adult
access code."
Antipornography activists say the new law simply brings
the computer world into line with the laws governing other
American vices, such as smoking, drinking alcohol or
gambling.
Generally, these activities are regulated so that they are
available to adults but not to minors.
Cyberporn cuts the other way. Everyone agrees that the
young are more adept at "surfing" the Internet than most
adults; even if their parents are not aware of how much pornography
is on the Internet, the kids are.
In defense of the law, Clinton administration
lawyers say the Internet's vast potential as an education and
information tool "will be wasted" if pornography flourishes.
Parents will banish the service, the administration's brief
to the high court argues, "because they do not want their children harmed
by exposure to patently offensive sexually explicit material."
"Congress could direct purveyors of indecent
material away from areas of cyberspace that are easily accessible to
children . . . just as cities could direct adult theaters away from
residential neighborhoods," the administration maintains.
But these arguments have been flatly rejected in the
lower courts, and most legal experts think they will fail in the
Supreme Court as well.
First of all, the computer users have challenged
only the ban on "indecent" communications, not on "obscene" ones. The
high court has made it clear that obscenity is not protected by
the 1st Amendment.
As an aside, it is also not clear that the Justice
Department will aggressively use the criminal law against obscene
transmissions over the Internet.
While prosecutors have gone after those who traffic
in child pornography, department officials say no one has been
prosecuted yet for obscenity under the 1996 law.
"It is a matter of resources. It's a small unit at
Justice, and most U.S. attorneys don't want to do these [obscenity]
cases," said Robert Flores, who until last month was deputy chief of
the Justice Department's division on child exploitation and
obscenity.
Why, then, is it important to have a new criminal
law that also bans "indecent" transmissions over the Internet?
Because it sends a message to Internet carriers that they need to screen
their own material, Flores said.
"Most of them don't want to become purveyors of porn,
and this [law] would encourage them to take independent steps
to clean it up," Flores said. "You don't have to be a rocket
scientist to look at a user group like
'alt.sex.pedophilia' to figure out what you are dealing with."
But the freespeech coalition says the government has no
business sending such messages through criminal laws. It also
says the law as written unconstitutionally threatens to
punish rather tame transmissions, such as paintings of nude
models or foul language used in a novel.
"The act by its term applies to the speech of
libraries and educational institutions, speakers hardly likely
to be found selling pornography," said Washington attorney
Brian Ennis in a brief for the freespeech coalition. Because
these groups could not be sure a minor was not receiving the transmission,
he argued, the law acts "as a complete ban" on a whole range
of speech that is protected.
In the end, the computeruser groups say it is up to
parents, not them, to police the Internet. Parents who are worried
about their children tapping into pornography should buy
software to filter it out, they say. For example, Microsoft Systems
sells a program called Cyber Patrol that blocks access to
transmissions that feature pornography or profanity.
"The real tragedy of this act is that it could lull
parents into a false sense of security," Ennis said. Even if U.S. law
made it illegal to transmit pornography over the Internet, that
would not stop a company based in Amsterdam or Asia from sending out
such material, he says.
The law has yet to go into effect. A federal judge in
Philadelphia blocked it last February, and a threejudge panel
struck it down in June as unconstitutional.
The justices will hear arguments Wednesday in the
case of Reno vs. ACLU, 96511, and hand down a decision by July.
* * *

About This Series

The Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear
arguments in a landmark lawsuit over the
Communications Decency Act, a law passed last year
that would sharply limit "indecent" communication
over the Internet computer network. A fourpart series
beginning today will examine some of the issues.
* Today: When Congress passed the CDA in
February 1996, it was immediately challenged as an
unconstitutional restriction on free speech. The federal
courts so far have agreed, barring enforcement of the
law. Civil libertarians say nothing less than the future of
the Internet is at stake, while CDA supporters say
they're only trying to protect children.
* Monday: The CDA is mainly aimed at online
pornography, which supporters of the law say is ubiquitous on
the Internet and far too accessible to children. What is
the true scope and scale of the Internet sex business? Who are the
people involved?
* Tuesday: Critics of the CDA say parents worried about
what their children are seeing online can use filtering
software that blocks access to certain Internet sites. And many in the
business support a movietype rating system for the World
Wide Web. But filters and ratings are now creating
controversies of their own.
* Wednesday: The effort to regulate the Internet
underscores one of the most fascinating and difficult aspects of
the new medium: It threatens to render traditional notions of
legal jurisdiction meaningless. How can a state, or even a
country, control a global information network? And if it
can't, is the nationstate itself obsolete?

Copyright Los Angeles Times