SRC-JEC H.C.R. 13 78(R)   BILL ANALYSIS


Senate Research Center   H.C.R. 13
78R1477 CME-DBy: West, George "Buddy," et al. (Shapiro)
State Affairs
4/15/2003
Committee Report (Unamended)


DIGEST

A 2000 sample survey of 1,501 of the nearly 24 million school-aged
children regularly using the Internet in the United States found that
approximately one out of every four children in that sample had
experienced unwanted exposure to sexual images while on-line. 

The development of the Internet is widely regarded as the most profound
change in the way people communicate since the invention of the printing
press, but as remarkable as it may be, there are risks to children that
are unique to such a pervasive and accessible medium; with the development
of newer and increasingly invasive technologies that can deliver or
disguise unwanted material through direct marketing e-mails, or "spam"
mailings, the risks are even more pronounced and difficult to detect. 

Compounding the challenge of protecting minors from inappropriate material
on-line is the fact that children often understand more about the Internet
than their parents, teachers, and other caregivers;  in addition, common
sense measures used to secure a child's environment in the "physical
world" are not feasible in  cyberspace. 

In a bipartisan effort to address these concerns, congress passed the
Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA) and the Child Online Protection
Act (COPA) and, in doing so, criminalized Internet transmission of
indecent materials to minors; however, the Supreme Court ruled in 1997
that certain provisions of the CDA were unconstitutional and in 2002
upheld a district court's temporary injunction against enforcement of COPA
on the same grounds. 

Recognizing the need to make children's on-line experiences safe,
educational, and entertaining while honoring constitutional safeguards,
the 107th Congress is considering legislation that would address specific
questions posed by the Supreme Court without  discouraging the evolution
of the Internet or violating the First Amendment. 

Modeled after existing law that regulates the identification of sexually
explicit advertisements sent via U.S. mail, House Resolution 2472 requires
the National Institute of Standards and Technology to prescribe an
electronic tag that would identify sexually oriented messages and allow
parents to use the filtering tools already available on e-mail programs to
block messages bearing the tag; the legislation is a balanced and
realistic solution to the complexities of protecting free speech and
children on-line. 

PURPOSE

H.C.R. 13 submits the following resolutions:

Respectfully urges the Congress of the United States to enact the Protect
Children From E-Mail Smut Act of 2001. 

Resolves that the Texas secretary of state forward official copies of this
resolution to the president of the United States, the speaker of the house
of representatives and the president of the senate of the United States
Congress, and all the members of the Texas delegation to the congress with
the request that this resolution be officially entered in the
Congressional Record as a memorial to the Congress of the United States of
America.