WorldCom ordered to block child-porn sites
By The Associated Press
09.20.02
HARRISBURG, Pa. — A judge's order requiring telecommunications giant WorldCom to block five Internet child-pornography sites from its subscribers is the first use of a unique state law designed to force Internet service providers to remove offending sites.
Montgomery County Senior Judge Lawrence A. Brown, sitting in Norristown on Sept. 18, ordered WorldCom Inc. of Mississippi to deny access to five child-pornography Web sites.
The sites, found in July by an agent with the Attorney General's Child Sexual Exploitation Unit, used WorldCom as a provider.
They showed nude males and females believed to be under age 18 in sexual poses, according to an affidavit filed by an investigator. One site also advertised "Lolita Videos," using a slang word for young girls.
Attorney General Mike Fisher had sought the ruling in a petition to the judge on Sept. 17.
The ruling was the first in Pennsylvania since legislation was passed in April that lets law enforcement officials block child porn from Internet providers.
No other state has a law similar to Pennsylvania's requiring ISPs to disable access to child-pornography sites, although at least three — Arkansas, South Dakota and South Carolina — require ISPs or computer technicians to report child pornography they discover to authorities, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
"It is a form of government-mandated filtering, and that is a first in the United States — government-mandated filtering on the ISP level," said Jonathan Zittrain, a Harvard University law professor and co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society.
Fisher spokesman Sean Connolly said his office had worked cooperatively with ISPs to block access to about 200 sites since the law first went into effect in April. WorldCom was the first company to refuse initially.
A letter to the state attorney general's office released by WorldCom officials on Sept. 19 indicates that the company said it would block access to the site only after receiving the court order. Nevertheless, company spokeswoman Sudie Nolan pledged cooperation with authorities investigating child pornography.
"WorldCom is absolutely opposed to child pornography and will as always work with law enforcement and comply with this order," Nolan said.
The ruling won't remove the sites from the Internet or block access via other service providers.
And although the ruling only affects Pennsylvania, WorldCom will have to block those sites from all of its subscribers, owing to technological limitations.
The new law has raised First Amendment concerns from some civil liberties groups specializing in the Internet.
Of particular concern, said Lee Tien, a lawyer with the California-based Electronic Freedom Foundation, is the lack of an adversary when the attorney general goes into court seeking to have an Internet site blocked.
"Especially when speech is under stress, especially in times of war or other crisis, it's very easy for the government to come in and make some strong statements about all sorts of speech that needs to be suppressed," Tien said. "The way this procedure works, no one speaks for the site that's being blocked. No one is saying that affidavit, those facts being submitted are wrong. There's no one that speaks for the speech."
Zittrain, the Harvard professor, said technology developed to help comply with the law could make it easier for other forms of filtering to take place. For instance, he said, a copyright-infringement victim might someday demand that an Internet service provider block access to a site containing the copyrighted material.
"The technology that may develop to be responsive to this request is going to be a Swiss army knife capable of being deployed in a lot of other areas," Zittrain said.
Connolly said the attorney general's office had received no objections to the law on free-speech grounds. "We believe this is a good law that protects children from sexual exploitation and we will defend it in court against any challenges," he said.