At the request of the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, attorney Paul Cambria, the Genral Counsel for the Adult Freedom Foundation, today is providing supplemental testimony to his live appearance.
Cambria was the first and only representative of the adult entertainment industry to testify at the January 19 committee hearing on “protecting children from the internet.”
During the hearings, Cambria had also volunteered to return before the committee and update Senators on issues that they have expressed concerns about.
Cambria’s supplemental testimony, including recent developments, appears below:
During the hearing before the Committee on January 19, 2006, Senator Pryor commented, “in terms of the user’s age verification, you wouldn’t be opposed to that, it sounds like.” Misapprehending the point, I responded, “absolutely not,” and pointed out that in the past twenty-five years there had been only three cases of underage performers in the adult entertainment industry, and all three had government-issued proof of age.
Of course, Senator Pryor was referring to Internet user age verification--not performer age verification--an entirely different issue requiring a different response. While I am obviously in favor of verifying the ages of performers (as are my clients and the adult entertainment industry at large), I do not agree that Internet user age verification is a practical or effective solution at this time.
As the Supreme Court emphasized in Ashcroft v. America Civil Liberties Union, 542 U.S. 656, 667-68, 124 S.Ct. 2783 (2004), use of filtering software is preferable to employing age-verification systems. Indeed, Congress’ own Commission on Child Online Protection researched ways to protect children online and concluded that end-user filters are more effective than age verification requirements. See, Commission on Child Online Protection (COPA), Report to Congress, pp. 19-21, 23-25, 27. Further, age-verification requirements will not affect the substantial amount of explicit content coming from overseas. Rather, American adults will be burdened with credit card access hurdles that only encourage content providers to locate offshore to avoid costly age-verification obligations.
I favor the Supreme Court’s perspective: the evidence shows that end-user filtering is more effective than age-verification, and less burdensome on First Amendment rights. As the Court observed on this point:
One argument to the contrary is worth mentioning--the argument that filtering software is not an available alterative because Congress may not require it to be used. That argument carries little weight, because Congress undoubtedly may act to encourage the use of filters. We have held that Congress can give strong incentives to schools and libraries to use them. United States v. American Library Assn., 539 U.S. 194, 123 S.Ct. 2297, 156 L.Ed.2d 221 (2003). It could also take steps to promote their development by industry, and their use by parents. It is incorrect, for that reason, to say that filters are part of the current regulatory status quo. The need for parental cooperation does not automatically disqualify a proposed less restrictive alterative. Playboy Entertainment Group, 529 U.S., at 824, 120 S.Ct. 1878. (“A court should not assume a plausible, less restrictive alternative would be ineffective; and a court should not presume parents, given full information, will fail to act”). In enacting COPA,Congress said its goal was to prevent the “widespread availability of the Internet” from providing “opportunities for minors to access materials through the World Wide Web in a manner that can frustrate parental supervision or control.” Congressional Findings, note following 47 U.S. C. § 231 (quoting Pub.L. 105-277, Tit. XIV, § 1402(1), 112 Stat. 2681-736). COPA presumes that parents lack the ability, not the will, to monitor what their children see. By enacting programs to promote use of filtering software, Congress could give parents that ability without subjecting protected speech to severe penalties.
Ashcroft v. ACLU, 542 U.S. at 669, 124 S.Ct. 2783. (emphasis added)
Parental supervision and end-user filtering are the most effective options. The adult entertainment industry would welcome the opportunity to work with Congress, the Department of Justice, and the major Internet service providers and filtering software companies to devise effective and constitutional methods of protecting children online through filtering and parental supervision.
Notably, many adult websites already self-rate for use in conjunction with popular filtering software programs. Many of these companies self-rate under the auspices of the Internet Content Rating Association (“ICRA”). The ICRA is an international, non-profit organization with a goal of making the Internet safer for children through self-rating of website content. Self-rating of websites started in 1996, when the Recreational Software Advisory Council developed the “RSACi” rating system for nudity, sex, language, and violence. In 2000, the ICRA substantially expanded the scope of self-rating with the unveiling of a more comprehensive, international rating system intended to work hand-in-hand with parental filtering systems.
Today, working cooperatively with many of the world’s major Internet companies - AOL, AT&T, Verizon, Microsoft, T-Mobile - the ICRA operates a free self-rating system that meshes with its own free ICRAplus parental filter and other popular filtering systems to give parents effective means to control their children’s access to content on the Internet. More information about these important parental control efforts can be found at www.icra.org.
Significantly, since the Committee’s hearing on January 19, 2006, I have met with ICRA representatives and key self-rating and filtering experts on behalf of the Adult Freedom Foundation to discuss an even more aggressive industry self-rating program. These discussions continue to develop, and I would be happy to report back to Chairman Stevens and the Committee on our progress.
