As a mother, I am concerned about my child having access to pornographic or otherwise inappropriate material on the Internet. However, my personal belief is that it is impossible to regulate the Internet without infringing on the liberties of the First Amendment. Simply put: one person’s definition of inappropriate or pornographic material may be totally different from another’s. It must be made clear that although I am neither totally for nor against censorship, I do not wish to have a limit set on what I can and cannot access determined by someone else’s values.

Although people on both sides of this debate passionately defend their views, they both seem to be concerned with the protection of our children. I’m sure both sides would agree that something needs to happen. It seems clear to me that allowing government regulation of the Internet will prove to be futile. Perhaps Mr. Exon’s idea of requiring some form of adult identification would be successful. The plan would have to be implemented carefully in order to protect the confidentiality of the adult’s identity. However, we need to acknowledge the fact that no amount of censorship is fool proof. I think it is extremely dangerous for us to assume that if we begin controlling what people read or see, our children will be safe from pedophiles and the like. It is going to take a lot of time and brainpower to find a surefire way to protect our children as well as our First Amendment rights. Let’s start by recognizing the fact that the protection of our children begins with us.

Gary Chapman, director of the 21st Century Project, submits, “Trying to locate illegal or offensive data on the net would be harder than trying to isolate two paired words in all the world’s telephone conversations and TV transmissions at once,” (132). The Internet is an enormous “entity” that is growing rapidly. Even if we could regulate Internet activity in America, we can’t regulate informat

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