Exon’s proposed national legislation does have a possible silver lining. It can be used to perform some judo and achieve needed unification of varying state laws on adult materials.
Predictor: Rose, Lance
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 essay for ISPworld, Internet law expert Lance Rose writes about Sen. James Exon’s proposed Communications Decency Act: ”Exon’s proposed national legislation does have a possible silver lining. It can be used to perform some judo and achieve needed unification of varying state laws on adult materials. The recently modified bill actually contains a first feeble stab at this – a provision that would make the proposed federal decency legislation override conflicting state laws. This would help online services gauge the legality of carrying adult materials according to a single federal legal standard, instead of shifting laws of 50 states. Other such unifying provisions could be added to the Exon bill if the compromising with opposition groups continues: any online service charged with violating the decency law could be sued only in its own state, instead of any state where the police feel like taking them to court. In online obscenity cases, the ‘community standards’ used to determine whether the charged content is obscene would be based on the online service’s own community, instead of the complaining party’s own land-based community, which might be thousands of miles away. And an online service could be charged only once for a given set of practices – multiple prosecutions would not arise just because the claimed violating materials were distributed by the online system to multiple states or complainants.”
Biography:Lance Rose, a lawyer, earned a high profile for his expertise in Internet issues in the 1990s. He wrote “Netlaw: Your Rights in the Online World” (1995). (Legislator/Politician/Lawyer.)
Date of prediction: May 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Controversial Issues
Subtopic: Jurisdiction/Control
Name of publication: ISPworld
Title, headline, chapter name: Legally Online: Power Grabs on the Internet
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.boardwatch.com/boardwatchOnline/1995/may95/bwm50.htm
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Smoot, Barry