Fear of the Internet and Effects of Columbine

A. Cyberphobia and Censorship

Perhaps the clearest example of how government officials fear new technology is cyberspace. Fear of the Internet should not surprise anyone familiar with the history of the over-regulation of new technology. History confirms that the development of new technology leads to censorship.⁶³ Shortly after Guttenberg invented the printing press around 1450, the Archbishop of Mainz created the first censorship bureaus and the Venice Inquisition issued the first list of banned books.⁶⁴

The Supreme Court denied First Amendment protection to film in 1915 in part because they feared it would be a particularly effective way of corrupting youth.⁶⁵ It was not until 1952 that the Court extended First Amendment protection to film.⁶⁶

One legal commentator describes the pattern and contagiousness of censorship as "the culture of regulation."⁶⁷ This culture of regulation has marshaled its forces on the Internet in numerous ways.⁶⁸ Perhaps the foremost of these assaults was the ill-conceived Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA). Two provisions of the Act prohibited the online communication of "patently offensive" and "indecent" speech.⁶⁹ Legislators enacted the CDA as part of what Mike Godwin has termed the "Great Cyberporn Panic of 1995."⁷⁰

The Supreme Court struck the provisions as violative of the First Amendment in Reno v. ACLU.⁷¹ The Court noted the speech-enhancing nature of the Net, writing that every individual can become both "town crier" and "pamphleteer."⁷² The Supreme Court also determined the law to be unconstitutionally vague in part because it failed to define either "indecent" or "patently offensive."⁷³ The Court wrote, "[t]he general undefined terms 'indecent' and 'patently offensive' cover large amounts of nonpornographic material with serious educational or other value."⁷⁴

Even though the High Court recognized that the government has an interest in protecting minors, it determined that the "CDA effectively suppressed a large amount of speech that adults have a constitutional right to receive and to address to one another."⁷⁵ The Court noted that speech on the Internet was entitled to the highest degree of First Amendment protection, or as much protection as the print medium.⁷⁶

Even after the demise of the CDA, Congress showed continued interest in regulating the Internet.⁷⁷ Congress immediately drafted a somewhat narrower CDA-type law called the Child Online Protection Act (COPA).⁷⁸ The American Civil Liberties Union challenged COPA in federal court and obtained a preliminary injunction.⁷⁹ The case is currently before the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

Internet indecency laws have also proliferated in state legislatures. Federal courts have struck down several of these laws.⁸⁰ In addition to Internet content laws, such as the CDA and COPA, federal and state legislators have proposed a variety of measures to require filtering at public libraries and schools.⁸¹ Last year, three states passed filtering bills and sixteen others considered them.⁸²

The tragic school shooting in Columbine has only intensified efforts at filtering legislation.⁸³ In May 1999, nearly every person who testified at a Senate Commerce Committee cited the Columbine tragedy as evidence that filtering was essential.⁸⁴ A representative of the Southern Poverty Law Center testified that "the two youths who opened fire . . . may well have been inspired, in part, by neo-Nazi propaganda they encountered on the Net."⁸⁵ The chairman of the Anti-Defamation League said that "the Internet offers both propaganda and how-to manuals for those seeking to act out fantasies of intolerance and violence."⁸⁶

Senator John McCain, introducing a filtering bill titled the Children's Internet Protection Act, said, "[n]o issue is more important to America than protecting our children."⁸⁷ Some of the filtering bills require schools to prohibit access to obscene, indecent or "inappropriate" materials.⁸⁸

The constitutionality of filtering measures in public schools is not settled. One federal court struck down a public library filtering policy that mandated filtering on all terminals for all patrons, both adults and minors.⁸⁹

B. Responses to Columbine

Public school shootings in Jonesboro, Arkansas, Springfield, Oregon, Paducah, Kentucky, Pearl, Mississippi, and particularly Littleton, Colorado, have devastated the American psyche and profoundly affected our public schools.⁹⁰

Since Columbine, numerous school officials have enacted policies that restrict student expressive conduct. School officials have tightened dress codes, enacted school security measures and even clamped down on student artistic work.⁹¹ Various school districts have adopted so-called "zero tolerance" policies that empower school districts to hand out extreme punishments in disciplining students.⁹²

School officials in Missouri suspended a student for his comments about Columbine in an Internet chat room.⁹³ A student in North Carolina was suspended for typing "the end is near" on a computer screen in his high school.⁹⁴

The actions of certain school officials can only be classified as post-Columbine hysteria. Even the executive director of the American Association of School Administrators admits that many of the examples of school discipline have been violations of students' constitutional rights.⁹⁵

The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts published a paper that criticized school officials' "quick-fix" security measures.⁹⁶ One commentator describes school officials' post-Columbine actions as a process of "silenc[ing] the weird."⁹⁷

Fear of the Internet has caused administrators to restrict e-mail access,⁹⁸ block access to "controversial material,"⁹⁹ punish students for anything that they somehow construe as a threat, and require filtered access to all computers.¹⁰⁰ The atmosphere of Columbine even caused a Georgia middle school student to drop his lawsuit over his suspension for an offensive website.¹⁰¹

These two elements, fear of the Internet and the sensational media coverage of Columbine, have led school officials to clamp down on student use of the Internet even when the material is created off campus.