Much of the pornography business has now gone on-line because of easy access and the difficulty of tracing both users and distributors. The Telecommunications Bill of 1996, signed into law February 8, will help fight pornographers and pedophiles who prey on children who use personal computers. Unfortunately, attempts to regulate and outlaw pornography within a community are frequently criticized as censorship and violation of the First Amendment right to free speech. In fact, the American Civil Liberties Union has already filed suit seeking to strike the entire section of the Telecommunications Act banning dissemination of pornographic materials to minors. That position is a misunderstanding of our Constitutional and of Supreme Court decisions.
Obscenity is defined as the illegal form of pornography.
Citizens of these areas have obviously found the existing definitions clear and the laws enforceable. 2 Obscenity and child pornography are protected free speech under the First Amendment. Neither English common law nor the framers of the Constitution intended to protect obscene materials that exploit and degrade women and children. Like most Constitutional amendments, the First Amendment's free speech and press Clauses were designed specifically to prevent political oppression but to preserve the moral and physical environment essential to a democratic order and have easily coexisted with laws protecting freedom of speech and press for more than 200 years. For similar reasons, the First Amendment also does not protect many less offensive forms of expression including libel, slander, false advertising, perjury and conspiracy.