The explosive growth of the Internet over the past several years has enthralled millions of people with the promise of bringing all corners of our ever-shrinking world to the fingertips of anyone with a computer. By allowing the average person to surf through a seemingly endless library of information, the Internet, for many people, is the embodiment of the Information Age. However, as with all new technologies, fear tempers the great wonder of the Internet. Probably, this same fear struck the literate few who marveled at Gutenberg's printing press and then feared the development of newspapers and the spread of books containing dangerous thoughts.

The very same rural elementary school teacher who finds it thrilling that his Midwest students can experience New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Louvre in Paris, France without ever leaving their classroom, and the mothers and fathers of those students who welcome such learning opportunities, may fear that his students and their child may suffer if they have exposure to the darker pages of the Net. Media coverage often makes it seem as if this fear centers around the exposure of young people to sex and pornography. Whether it is prurient photographs or the unchecked lure of pedophiles, sexual exposure, for many, poses the biggest Internet threat. But the fears go well beyond sex and pornography.

The recent suicide of thirty-nine members of the Heaven's Gate "UFO cult" in California uncloaked some of those other fears in the "technophobic." Because the cult members were professional web page designers, and because they purportedly used their own web page to recruit new members, the bizarre suicide has fueled new calls to "regulate" information available on the Internet. This fanned the flames of censorship already lit by growing reports that militias and "hate groups" frequently use the Internet both to recruit new members and to spread "dangerous propaganda" or impart technical information that "ordinary" people should not be allowed to know, such as instructions on how to build bombs.

"This is not part of their First Amendment rights," California Senator Dianne Feinstein told a Senate Committee on censoring the Internet, "[t]his is the difference between free speech and teaching someone how to kill." (Phoenix Gazette, May 12, 1995)

The fear that young people might be "brainwashed" by dangerous information is enhanced by an amorphous belief that an attractive web page lends credibility to its owner, even to fringe groups like cults and "militias" whose goals are shared by very few. "Somehow the slick design of Web pages -- so easily accomplished with a few dabs of Java [a computer language] and a cursory knowledge of the computer language called HTML -- adds credence to outlandish ideas." (New York Times "CyberTimes," March 30, 1997) Ray Hyman, a psychologist at the University of Oregon, agrees. "The Internet aggravates the problem of what I call information pollution. Much of the stuff you find is nonsense, but because it comes off the computer it has the mark of being credible." (New York Times, March 28, 1997)

Experts are spilt on the efficacy of fringe group recruiting on the Internet. In addition to the ability to "present bizarre messages in a mainstream way," (USA Today, March 28, 1997 "Cybercults Earn Money, Recruit on Web"), many people feel that the target audience of the Net is particularly susceptible to fringe group recruiting: heavy Internet users are stereotyped as young, disenfranchised males who lack social skills.

Others disagree. Jonathan Steuer, president of Cyberorganic Corp., believes the Web is "a lousy medium for [a cult or militia] sales pitch. Cults need to keep people isolated from other ideas, and the Internet puts you in continuous access with thousands of other ideas." (Boston Globe, March 29, 1997)

Effective or not, the call for regulating cult and militia activity on the Internet is growing. Although opponents argue that the causes of seditious militias and cults are societal, those in favor of censorship note that the Net makes the dissemination of dangerous information infinitely easier. Where a lone militia group before could spread a bomb-making recipe to a few dozen people at the most, or a book on making bombs might circulate to but a few from a public library, the Net allows the same "dangerous" information potentially to reach millions. Censorship, the argument goes, is needed to keep this from occurring.

Fear of sedition, anarchy, and the like, however, are not unique as the next millennium approaches. In America, society and the legal system have grappled with such issues since before Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence and colonial residents took up arms against the English King. Revolutionary firebrand John Adams, after becoming President, failed to veto the Sedition Laws which members of his political party then used in their efforts to stop the election of Jefferson as President.

Many other countries already have laws in place "regulating," meaning censoring, information available on the Internet. Canada, for example, has made it illegal to spread "hate propaganda." Germany has banned neo-Nazi proselytizing in all forms. Consequently, German Internet "surfers" in theory should not access web pages containing anti-Semitic or Nazi propaganda. (Human Rights Watch, "Silencing the Net: The Threat to Freedom of Expression On-line") "It is your country [the United States] that is the odd man out . . . not the rest of the world," noted Maxwell Yalden, chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. (USA Today, May 11, 1995)

Four main arguments have arisen against censoring the Internet. One, a social argument, asserts that censoring the Net would reduce the information available to the level of a "child's reading room." If all potentially dangerous or "offensive to someone" information is removed, the Internet will be reduced to a plain vanilla junior high school newspaper. This social attack dovetails in the second argument against censorship: the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution forbids it as a matter of law. The third deals with the rationale underlying the First Amendment, that in general opinions formed after immersion in the marketplace of competing ideas provide a populace with the best means of making informed decisions. (In that regard, "Pornography Drives Technology: Why Not To Censor the Internet," 49 Fed. Comm. L.J. 217 (Nov. 1996) makes interesting reading.) The fourth deals with practicality: since the creators of the Net designed it to withstand worldwide calamity, such as nuclear war, how can one country pragmatically stop its citizens from viewing anything anyone puts in the net in some other country?

To discuss in-depth all four issues would transcend the scope of this article. Suffice it to say that, although nations such as Canada and Germany forbid the dissemination of "hate speech," it is unlikely that the United States government legally could ban web pages containing cult proselytizing, militia propaganda, or the distribution of recipes for armaments.

The United States Supreme Court unanimously rejected a Minnesota statute attempting to ban "hate speech" in R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377 (1992). That statute regulated speech that might "cause anger, alarm or resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender. . . ." Although the Court unanimously found the statute unconstitutional, the members disagreed as to why. A majority felt the statute impermissibly allowed the government to "take sides": for example, a white supremacist's anti-black speech would be banned by the statute, but speech attacking those who are anti-black would not be. A plurality of the Court found the statute to be unconstitutionally vague and over broad: that is, a person reading the statute would not be able to tell what speech was impermissible. Consequently, people would refrain from engaging in constitutionally protected speech for fear that they might be prosecuted under the statute. Under the holding in this case, militant hate speech and cult propaganda cannot be banned.

Even if some citizens and government officials want only the military to know the "secret" of how to make a bomb, it is likely that not even "bomb recipes" could be legally banned from the Net any more than they can be banned from inclusion in library books. In the case of Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969), the Supreme Court held that speech can be restricted only when it is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action." Distributing a bomb recipe does not pose the imminent threat required by the First Amendment. As one commentator has noted, "[t]he Internet is not a crowded room," and unlike yelling "Fire!" in a movie theater there is no clear and present danger from disseminating information on the Internet. (Dallas Morning News, May 12, 1995)

Although some kinds of speech is morally repugnant, the heart of the First Amendment has usually been found to protect one's right to express such beliefs (as distinguished from acting on those beliefs). If the Internet had been around during the Revolutionary War, classic American manifestos like Thomas Paine's Common Sense likely would have been banned by many of today's movements to curb militia Net activity.

John Adams and his friends would likely have invited Bostonites to the tea party via the Net, with the Colonial governor clamoring to shut the Net down. Paul Revere, in rousing the citizens against the British Army, would likely have used the Net and not just rode his horse through the town, and his friends would have used the Net and not just hung lamps in the window of the Old North Church. Classic works of literature like Nabokov's Lolita, Nin's Delta of Venus, and D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterly's Lover likely would not pass muster either, if "offensive" were the standard used to permit posting something on the Internet. Nor, for that matter, might The Pentagon Papers, if "subversive" were the test.

Many countries, including China, North Vietnam, and South Korea, all ban so-called "subversive" web sites. However, when the government begins to "take sides" in the battle of ideas then, as the Supreme Court recognized in R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, our liberty is threatened and, as the Court concluded, we all lose out.

Because it would be illegal (and probably unwise) for the government to restrain free expression on the Internet, it is useful to examine what methods exist to protect children from the very real dangers of the Net. Everyone would agree that children are not truly capable of judging the competitors or their wares in the marketplace of ideas. The simplest answer is to prevent children from using the Internet at all. However, forcing children to forego the many advantages that the Internet possesses is no real "solution." A true solution must protect a child from potentially harmful material, but also must allow the child to utilize the benefits of the Net. Some argue, and many agree the argument is convincing, that parents and not government have the primary right and accompanying responsibility to determine what their children see and when and how they see it.

Two potential technological solutions exist to aid parents: "filtering" software and "watchdog" software. Filtering software allows parents, on their own initiative, to block their children's access to whatever web sites the parents deem inappropriate. Watchdog software (currently used mostly in the corporate setting) does not block access: rather, it keeps a record of whatever information has been displayed on a computer. The record can be used by a parent or teacher to insure that children are not accessing forbidden websites.

Concerning legal solutions, some commentators have advocated a "contract" paradigm. By allowing market forces free reign, Internet service providers will develop that cater to "family" programming. All who sign up for such networks can contract not to publish certain material on the network (in effect, a commercial network that has already "filtered" out offensive material). A provider who breaks the contract would lose its audience. Anyone who breaks the contract can have his membership revoked, can be subjected to stipulated damages, or can be sued for breach.

In sum, although the Internet holds much promise, a kind of danger abounds as well, the danger that comes from conversing with someone who has offensive ideas. Although the free exchange of information that the Internet represents creates danger it is precisely the ease with which information can be disseminated on the Net that makes it so wonderful. The Internet is the world's largest soapbox, and we should hesitate before regulating it. As the three-judge panel in American Civil Liberties Union v. Reno, 929 F. Supp. 824 (E.D. Pa. 1996), that recently held part of the federal Communications Decency Act unconstitutional, wrote: "Just as the strength of the Internet is chaos, so the strength of our liberty depends upon the chaos and cacophony of the unfettered speech the First Amendment protects." On June 26, 1997, the United States Supreme Court affirmed the lower court's decision declaring the Communications Decency Act unconstitutional. Although the Court appreciated the law's purpose of protecting children from indecent material, "[t]he interest in encouraging freedom of expression in a democratic society outweighs any theoretical but unproved benefit of censorship." In a separate opinion Justice O'Connor, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist, compared the Act, which made it a crime to use a computer to transmit or display indecent material in a manner available to a person under 18, to a law "that makes it a crime for a bookstore owner to sell pornographic magazines to anyone once a minor enters his store." "Content on the Internet is as diverse as human thought," noted Justice Stevens in the Court's main opinion, holding that the overbreadth of the Communications Decency Act threatened to stifle constitutionally protected speech. The Supreme Court, in its ruling, has helped to ensure that such diversity will continue to blossom and that, as the internet continues to grow, our freedom of speech will not atrophy in response. The Supreme Court's prior rulings dealing with censorship of other forms of "offensive" speech can be expected also to remain the law in the United States.