John McCain, the anti-porn president? That's how the Republican senator from Arizona wants to be known.
A television ad that began airing this week in South Carolina features a local congressman touting McCain's pro-life and anti-porn record, saying the presidential hopeful "voted to take pornography off the Internet."
That's true, of course. McCain chairs the powerful Senate Commerce Committee and backed a law that restricts sexually explicit material online.
But what the ad didn't say was that a federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled the Child Online Protection Act violated the First Amendment. In February 1999, US District Judge Lowell A. Reed struck down the COPA -- the sequel to the Communications Decency Act -- saying it threatened Americans' free speech rights.
PRESIDENTAL PORN: Bruce Taylor is worried about two things nowadays: Pornography and Democrats, and not necessarily in that order.
The conservative activist and veteran of countless court battles with the ACLU and "porn-peddlers" is keeping an eye on the presidential race, and is getting as jittery as Larry Flynt near a Christian Coalition convention.
"We've been in informal contact with people who work for the candidates," says Taylor, who is president of the National Law Center for Children and Families. "They know we would like them to strengthen obscenity laws and other laws that protect children."
Taylor is a little unsure about publisher Steve Forbes' commitment to ridding the Net of public prurience, but doesn't have any problems with the rest of the GOP candidates.
"I'm more afraid of the Democratic candidates only because I think they'll appoint liberal judges," he says. "I'm more interested in the candidate who will interpret laws in favor of law enforcement instead of pornography syndicates. Bradley and Gore are not in favor [of that] and that's too bad."
It's always difficult to tell whether a new government program is designed to serve the public interest or to build an expensive fiefdom for aspiring bureaucrats to rule.
SAFETY SHIELD OR BOONDOGGLE? Take this week's announcement by President Clinton that he would propose spending US$2.03 billion on computer security in his 2001 budget request next month.
That's up from $1.75 billion in the 2000 fiscal year. And that's drawing the ire of at least one devout conservative on Capitol Hill.
"I share your concern about the need to protect American lives and property from terrorist attack. However, I cannot support such a large funding request without guarantees that it is truly necessary and will not result in a system that threatens the privacy of American citizens," Rep. Bob Barr (R-Georgia) wrote to Clinton in a letter sent Friday.
Barr was thinking about a controversial plan that critics say will conduct ongoing surveillance of the Internet. The idea is that the Federal Intrusion Detection Network will track suspicious activities and possible online attacks, though the Justice Department has said it "currently" has plans only to monitor government sites.
__ JUSTIFYING YOUR EXISTENCE:__ What's a poor legislator to do when the Y2K committee he chairs becomes irrelevant?
Answer: Invent new reasons for it to stick around.
On Friday, Senator Robert Bennett (R-Utah) cautiously applauded Clinton's budget-boost designed to head off "cyber-terrorism" attacks. "This plan is a good first step toward defending the United States against 21st-century threats," Bennett said.
The explanation: Bennett is chairman of the Senate's special year 2000 committee, and now that the glitch has fizzled, he's casting about for something else that will grab headlines. Bennett appears to have settled on information warfare and hacker attacks.
When Bennett visited Network Solutions last year (Wired News accompanied him), instead of quizzing the company's chief technologist about potential Y2K snafus, he wanted to know how secure the servers were.
Then, in a press release this week, Bennett noted that "the Senate Y2K Committee held a hearing and issued reports on information attacks during its two-year study of high-tech vulnerabilities in US utilities...."
Just don't be surprised if the committee manages to reinvent itself under a different name.
WEED WEB SITES: Last summer we told you about a plan to rid the Net of weed Web sites. A bill in Congress bans online discussion of the use of unapproved drugs and even restricts links to such sites.
At the time -- August 1999 -- it wasn't clear how successful the Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act would be. It had only a few sponsors, and it was vying for space in a crowded legislative calendar.
No longer. The bill has passed the Senate and now will be debated in the House.
The House version, HR 2987, has been referred to two subcommittees and immediate action is a long shot.
But opponents are still in a huff.
"This bill would allow the Feds to pressure our US distributors to not carry our magazine, which would cost us about half our distribution," says Dana Larsen of cannabisculture.com. "It would also threaten many Web sites, including those like amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com, both of which carry hundreds of pro-pot books."
HOME WRECKING: Washington was abuzz this week with news that the Occupational Safety and Health Association said employers should be in part responsible for their employees' home offices.
The Labor Department soon backpedaled from the idea in response to public outcry, but some critics are still suspicious.
First, they said, the policy may technically still be in force. Second, according to a note from the never-saw-a-regulation-they-liked folks at the Competitive Enterprise Institute: "It is likely that OSHA will continue to pursue the policies outlined in the advisory. The concerned voices that demanded the letter be rescinded should be watchful of the agency in the months ahead."
