Internet Filters Are: [Good] [Bad] [Both]

ON the surface, the fight over Internet pornography can seem upside down and backward.

In a case decided by the Supreme Court last week, the American Civil Liberties Union had argued that Internet filters are a great way to protect children from pornographic material online. But in a case decided by the Supreme Court last year, the A.C.L.U. argued against a law requiring filters in schools and libraries, and the organization attacked filters in a 1997 paper that said "rating and blocking proposals may torch free speech on the Internet."

The Department of Justice appears to be in the same bind, but in reverse: in this year's case, it argued that filters were not enough to protect children from pornography, while in the library filtering case decided last year, they argued that filters are an effective means of protecting the nation's youth.

The apparent inconsistencies came into focus when the Supreme Court - one player in the online pornography wars that has maintained a consistent stance on filters - handed down its decision in the A.C.L.U.'s challenge to the Child Online Protection Act. That law, which was enacted in 1998, would impose tough criminal penalties on individuals whose Web sites carried material deemed "harmful to minors."

The court sent the case back to the district courts to gather more facts about how filtering technology has changed since the case was first heard, and left in place an injunction blocking enforcement of the law. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, in the majority opinion, wrote approvingly of the increasing abilities of Internet filters to let in useful bits of data and keep out the naughty ones.

The court showed a similar acceptance of the prowess of filters in last year's case when it supported another law, the Children's Internet Protection Act, with its requirements of filters for almost all schools and libraries. The sticking point for civil libertarians - that adults might not be able to gain access to sites that they are legally entitled to see - was not a big problem, the court said, since the law held that adult patrons could ask that the filters be turned off.

But things aren't that simple, said Ann Beeson, who argued this year's case for the A.C.L.U. The central issue, she said is whose finger is on the mouse, the government's or the parent's.

"When a parent installs a filter that keeps a kid from seeing a bunch of sites that may or may not be pornography, that's parenting," she said. "When a government forces all adults and minors to use filters, that's censorship." So it makes sense that the A.C.L.U. would oppose filter requirements in libraries last year, and sing the praises of filters in this year's case.

The same logic holds for the White House, which said it was simply seeking the best way to keep smut away from young Internet users. "The overarching goal is to prevent children from being exposed to pornography and other indecency," said Claire Buchan, a White House spokeswoman. "And the administration has aggressively pursued a variety of ways to address that issue."

For all the fuss, however, filters alone may never prove to be the solution.

One group of technology and business leaders has been working on something they call the Accountable Net project, which envisions new tools that would help people gain control over their Internet use by blocking the unwanted materials that now plague online life.

"If we treat the entry to our computers the way we treat our own front doors and decide who to let in ourselves, we'll have a better online experience," said Susan Crawford, an assistant professor at Cardozo Law School in New York, and a participant in the project.

David Johnson, a Washington lawyer and another partner in the Accountable Net, said achieving such a goal would involve the cooperation of certain Web sites, which would voluntarily label themselves to make filtering them out more feasible. "My impression is that what they are trying to do is reach paying customers as accurately as possible," Mr. Johnson said, "like everyone else in business." Labeling, he said, could help attract the right customers and avoid inadvertently reaching the wrong ones.

Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford Law professor and an expert in the interplay of technology, law and policy, favors getting Web sites to label their wares but says that many in the continuing debate are still stuck at the poles of the argument - with one side demanding government regulation and the other insisting that government keep its hands off cyberspace. "It's not a binary question," Professor Lessig said. "It's how you marry the two to achieve a policy objective."

The notion of a blend appeals to Donald Telage, who headed a commission appointed by Congress that examined filters and other technologies for protecting children online that Justice Kennedy cited with approval. "What we need to do is find the right combination of law, business incentives and architecture" for each problem that has made the Net a less civil place, he said. "It won't be any one of them. It's a combination."