Schools Censor Starr Report

The U.S. Congress, which has voted in the past to keep indecent and harmful material off the Internet, has voted to place on the Internet a report so full of sexual content that it is being censored by schools and libraries across the country. \n The report on President Clinton by special prosecutor Kenneth Starr is replete with references to oral sex and breast fondling. It relates an incident in which the President supposedly placed a cigar in the vagina of Monica Lewinsky and then put it in his mouth. Nonetheless, Congress overwhelmingly voted to put all of this on the Internet. \n As a result, there is consternation all over the country. \n In Montgomery, Ala., public library director Juanita Owens said that children caught reading the report will be asked if their parents know what they are doing. In Birmingham, Ala., any youths caught viewing the report on public library computers will be asked to leave the Web site. In Mobile, Ala., filters at public libraries automatically will substitute "XXX" for any word considered inappropriate. \n In Seattle, where a company reviews thousands of new Web sites every day for school districts in and around Spokane, Wash., the government site with the Starr report didn't win approval. Officials decided the allegations in Starr's report were just too spicy for teenagers to read. \n School districts that subscribe to the monitoring service can override the decision and gain access. Some school officials said they were hoping for a site with a tamer version of the report to which students can be directed. \n It is ironic that Congress placed on the Internet the kind of material many of its members considered indecent only a few years ago when it approved the Communications Decency Act, said Bob DeStefano, CEO of Sound & Vision Media, a New Jersey Internet strategist and software development company. Most of the Communications Decency Act, signed into law in 1996, was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. \n In a sense, then, Congress voted to distribute pornography online, DeStefano said. \n It's a decision that may have had more to do with politics than principle. For example, Sen. John Ashcroft, a conservative Republican from Missouri who has made family values a big part of his campaigns, said he favored putting the Starr report on the Internet. Of course, he added, there should "appropriate warnings and safety devices for children, if necessary."