================================================================= ALAWON Volume 7, Number 31 ISSN 1069-7799 March 25, 1998 American Library Association Washington Office Newsline In this issue: (124 lines) VICE PRESIDENT ISSUES STATEMENT ON CHILDREN AND THE INTERNET; WHITE HOUSE CLARIFIES INTENT _________________________________________________________________ VICE PRESIDENT ISSUES STATEMENT ON CHILDREN AND THE INTERNET; WHITE HOUSE CLARIFIES INTENT On March 23 Vice President Al Gore issued a statement on protecting children from inappropriate material on the Internet. Although the statement is ambiguous and could be interpreted as indicating support for either Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) filtering proposal or Sen. Conrad Burns's (R-MT) local Internet use policy alternative, ALA's inquiries to the White House have indicated that Vice President Gore intended his statement to be supportive of local-level decision making. The Vice President's statement, appended in full below, is being interpreted by some technology press as supportive of Sen. McCain's bill, S. 1619, the Internet School Filtering Act, which would require libraries and schools that receive federal funds for Internet access to install software to block material inappropriate for children. The bill was approved by the Senate Commerce Committee on March 12 but with a public agreement among the senators that, if two proposed amendments were withdrawn, there would be the opportunity to work out "compromise" language before the bill went to the full Senate. One key White House staffer, Tom Kalil of the National Economic Council, has posted the following to several listservs: "Vice President Gore's statement is being misinterpreted in the press as calling for mandatory filtering. Actually, he's calling for schools and libraries to develop acceptable use policies." A CNet article on March 23, "Gore on fence about Net filtering," (see http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,20361,00.html) quotes a White House spokeswoman who said, "The legislation [Clinton and Gore] would support would not require blocking, it would just require that schools and libraries put a plan in place regarding their students and patrons accessing inappropriate material." The article goes on to say: If a community decides it wants to allow open access to all online material, "inappropriate" content included: "If their local values dictate that--then it is up to the school and community," Gore's spokeswoman added. The Vice President's statement (in full below) is also available online at http://library.whitehouse.gov/Week.cgi (look under the March 23 postings). [BEGIN GORE STATEMENT] March 23, 1998 STATEMENT OF THE VICE PRESIDENT ON PROTECTING OUR CHILDREN FROM INAPPROPRIATE MATERIAL ON THE INTERNET Message Creation Date was at 23-MAR-1998 12:42:00 THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Vice President ___________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release: Contact: Monday, March 23, 1998 (202) 456-7035 STATEMENT OF THE VICE PRESIDENT ON PROTECTING OUR CHILDREN FROM INAPPROPRIATE MATERIAL ON THE INTERNET As we connect every school and classroom to the Internet, we must protect our children from the red-light districts of cyberspace. That is why the President and I are encouraging Congress to pass legislation that would require every school and library using the e-rate to develop a plan to protect their schoolchildren from inappropriate content. The e-rate is a new federal program that provides as much as $2.25 billion a year to connect schools and libraries to the Internet. This legislation is not a "one-size-fits-all-approach" that mandates government values in our schools. Instead, our plan will empower schools to make decisions based on local values--protecting children from inappropriate material while also protecting the first amendment values we all hold dear. We must bring the combined power of parents, teachers, and technology together if we are going to protect our students in a way that will work in every community and reflect the values of each community. I call on Congress to pass this legislation which protects our children from inappropriate material on the Internet and will do more than ever before to make cyberspace a safe space for our children. [END GORE STATEMENT] _________________________________________________________________ ALAWON is a free, irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office. To subscribe, send the message: subscribe ala-wo [your_firstname] [your_lastname] to listproc @ala.org. To unsubscribe, send the message: unsubscribe ala-wo to listproc@ala.org. ALAWON archives at http://www.ala.org/ washoff/alawon. Visit our Web site at http://www.alawash.org. ALA Washington Office 202.628.8410 (V) 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, #403 202.628.8419 (F) Washington, DC 20004-1701 800.941.8478 (V) Lynne E. Bradley, Editor Deirdre Herman, Managing Editor Contributors: Carol C. Henderson All materials subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credits. =================================================================