AIDS Treatment News #229, August 18, 1995

In a move that may bode well for AIDS educators and activists, the House of Representatives acted in late July to block Senator James Exon's (D-NE) "Communications Decency Act." Exon's measure, an amendment to the telecommunications deregulation bill, contained sweeping language barring "obscene," "indecent" or "harassing" communications online or via phone or fax. Observers feared it would block online distribution of AIDS prevention information as well as bar activist phone/fax "zaps" of drug company and government officials. (See AIDS TREATMENT NEWS #227, July 21, 1995, for a detailed discussion of the amendment's implications.) Exon's measure breezed through the Senate, but the House -- perhaps spurred by Speaker Newt Gingrich's opposition to the Exon amendment -- took a directly opposite tack. It voted 420 to 4 to add to its version of the telecommunications bill an amendment sponsored by Reps. Christopher Cox (R-CA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) specifically designed to counter Exon. The Cox-Wyden amendment would protect from liability any online service (such as Prodigy or America Online) that voluntarily restricts access to materials considered obscene or objectionable while specifically barring the Federal Communications Commission from regulating the Internet or online services.

Complicating things, though, is an additional amendment successfully offered by Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL) that would modify obscenity laws to "criminalize some forms of online speech," according to a WASHINGTON POST account. The apparent conflict between the two amendments as well as the clear conflict between the House and Senate bills will have to be resolved in a House-Senate conference committee. The date for that meeting and the membership of the conference committee will be determined after Congress reconvenes in September.