Date: Tue, 4 Jul 1995 01:31:33 -0500 (CDT)
From: David Smith 
Subject: File 4--pro-exon transcript (fwd)

Computer underground Digest    Sun  Aug 13, 1995   Volume 7 : Issue 67
                           ISSN  1004-042X

Beverly LaHaye Live
"A Ministry of Concerned Women for America"
Monday, June 12, 1995
As heard on KCIS AM-630
Seattle, Washington

BEVERLY LAHAYE: BL

JIM WOODALL: JW

PATRICK TRUMAN: PT

BL:

Pornography is an $8 billion a year industry with more outlets in America than there are McDonald's. But now they've gone high-tech in their attempts to reach a wider audience. Our guest today has valuable information on how you can protect your family. So stay with us.

[Intro music]

BL:

And thanks to the Information Superhighway, pornography could be invading your home without you even knowing it. The challenge for parents today is finding ways to keep their children from being exposed to these vulgar influences.

JW:

Here today with us to give us some helpful advice is Patrick Truman, he's the director of government affairs for the American Family Association.

BL:

And welcome Patrick Truman to our program today.

PT:

Thank you, Beverly and Jim.

BL:

It's a delight to have you; I can't say it's a delight to discuss what we have to discuss, but we're happy to have you here to talk about it.

PT:

Thank you, and I think it's an issue that parents need to know about.

BL:

Absolutely. Any parent that hears about this - and many for the first time - are just appalled that this has been going on _in their homes_ and they've had no idea. Well, let's start at the beginning here; is computerized pornography really that big of a problem, and how widespread is it?

PT:

Well, it's a very big problem; I would say this. I spent seven years at the Justice Department in the office that prosecuted pornography. And earlier this year, we got lots of pornographers, the big names; Al Tumbarger in jail, Farris Alexander, Ruben Sturman, etc., many of them are still out there, a lot of work needs to be done; but a few months, Beverly, Senator Exon introduced a bill to control pornography on the Internet, and I didn't know anything about the Internet. So I took it upon myself to learn how you get this stuff, so that I could help craft the bill because I had met with him, and said I would. But, when I found out how easy available [sic] it is to anyone with a computer, even children, I realized that everybody we did for seven years at the Justice Department was for naught; the future of pornography isn't the seedy, smut-filled shops; it is your home computer.

BL:

And how many homes have computers, how many children today are computer smart?

PT:

Much better than their parents...

BL:

That's right! And they know how to get at that, and they teach one another. Well, we all hear about the development of an information superhighway, and do you expect that this will become a bigger issue in the days ahead?

PT:

Yes, and I think it's a much bigger issue than people are aware of today, I mean, the people who understand the computer are for the most part all on the Information Superhighway. If you have a rudimentary knowledge of computers, it's very easy to get on the Information Superhighway, and what is that? Well, it's a highway, literally, from your computer to _every other computer in the world_. A pedophile who would sexually molest a child, his computer is similarly equipped; a pornography shop in the Netherlands is similarly equipped; it's just a means of getting anywhere in the world, via computer, which is hooked to a phone line.

BL:

What kind of pornography is really available through the Internet?

PT:

Well, I was shocked. I've been in the worst pornography shops in Manhattan, downtown New York, on investigations, and anything I saw there was available on the Internet. And it's not only pictures, which come to your screen in television and movie quality - and of course if you have the right equipment, you can print it off on your color printer - but it is also videotapes, it is sexual sounds, it's hard to believe that people would record sexual acts and put them on the Internet, and you can download them, you can bring them to your computer if your computer has sounds, which most do; it is anything. Animal sex, group sex, Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler all have areas on the Internet where you can dial in and look at all their pornographic images.

BL:

You know we've just recently heard in the news some examples of what's happening to children as a result of this kind of porn on the computers.

PT:

Children are being solicited by computer, and the one way they do it, the pornography's available, the kids download or take from the Internet this computer pornography, and then they talk back and forth with the person who put it up there, and pretty soon the person says, "Hey, I've got a whole collection, would you like to come over to my house, and you can have whatever you want." The kid gets there, and he's molested.

BL:

You know, a real example, is just recently, Daniel Montgomery, a 15-year-old boy from Seattle, Washington believed he might be gay, and through America OnLine, an interactive Bulletin Board Service, he began chatting with a homosexual man in San Francisco. And when this man sent him a _bus ticket_, Daniel then ran away from home and was missing for _two weeks_, and was found by the police and returned to his parents, this last week; and this is because of the computer!

PT:

Yes. And this is just a reported case. How many go unreported?

BL:

Yes! Well, we've got another example, a 13-year-old little girl named Tara Noble is presently missing from Louisville, Kentucky and police believe she left to meet someone she was chatting with through America OnLine. This man left sexual [sic] explicit messages for Tara, inviting her to come and live with him.

PT:

See, you're identifying a problem that is very much related to pornography, it's these obscene conversations that you can have - worldwide conversations, you can talk to someone in Australia, in the Netherlands, wherever, and have a _terrible_ conversation. There are no age limits. And, uh, it's all...

JW:

Pat, address that person that's listening right now that says, well, I may have a home computer, but I don't have access to that, I don't have a modem, or, so, why, how's that going to affect my family. Why should I care?

PT:

Well, of course, even if your computer is not equipped, your neighbor's computer probably is, your school computer is, I had a high school librarian in Seattle, Washington call me the other day because she dialed in, to - you can get what's called the Internet Yellow Pages, you buy it, and it tells you how to get to all these locations, and if you dial in the location they tell you for US Government, Executive Branch, Clinton Cabinet, you dial that in you get obscene work, after obscene work, after obscene work. She said, I was getting this for the kids! It is so available, but, to address someone's home computer, uh, I used to say, just watch whatever your kids are looking at there, but now, after being aware of what's on the _Internet_ and how people will _solicit_, and try to _take_ your _kids_, put all this vile pornography on, _I_ tell parents, _don't_ have that computer located in a place in the house where you can't readily see it, and _don't_ have it near a phone line, because this is all transacted by plugging your computer into a phone line. And every computer is equipped with that. But don't have it near a place where you can plug it in unless you, as the parent, move it to that location. But if you have this in your kid's room, in your den, in the basement, and you're not there, your kids can likely get this material. And here's what's important; the pornographers and the people who talk this way, obscene ways on the computer, they want it that way. They _want your kid alone_.

JW:

And isn't that kind of normal? I mean, if you're going to use the computer to be isolated someplace, is that, is that normal?

PT:

Well, perhaps. People don't have it in their living rooms. I would suggest the kitchen's a fine place for it. Unfortunately, until we get this problem solved, and you're not allowed to _have_ this material...

BL:

But see now the parent who doesn't have a computer in their home still can't rest at ease, because, what about their child's friends?

PT:

That's right.

BL:

And they go over to Johnny's house to spend the afternoon, and Johnny's got a computer and knows how to enter all this, and here these two boys _play_ with this kind of _porn_!

JW:

That, and the fact they can print it out, and take it to school and distribute it to their [sic] kids!

BL:

Well, the porn industry says the first amendment guarantees their right to sell and distribute this kind of material; would you address that for a moment, please?

PT:

Well, when I was at the Department of Justice, I think we convicted, had 120 conventions, and they all said the same; I have a right to distribute this. And they can say that in jail today. But the fact is the Supreme Court has said that hard core pornography - that is, the material that is, uh, well, I don't want to be very explicit here, but hard-core showing sex acts, or lascivious exhibition of the private parts of an individual, that is not protected speech. That is not protected speech. It never has been, and I believe it never will be. Our constitution doesn't provide protection for that, and it doesn't provide protection for child pornography. But you know, it isn't just this hard-core material, or child pornography that is available on the Internet. Material that is soft-core is very attractive to children; Playboy magazine, they know that, Playboy knows that, and they put theirs for free to the kids on the Internet. Not just the kids, but to anyone, but they know it's the kids that are getting it.

BL:

It was Attorney General Janet Reno who tried to undermine the Federal law against child pornography; do you think we can expect to see the Clinton Administration's help on this issue?

PT:

Well, actually, on this issue of computer pornography, in the effort to draft a good law on Capital Hill, the Clinton administration has a correct position. And I attribute that to the staff of my old office, I don't take credit, but the staff lawyers there who have taken this issue on and forced this position in the Justice Department, and I credit all the people who blasted Janet Reno a year ago when she tried to undermine the child pornography - she's learned her lesson, Beverly, and your group is as much involved as anyone else.

BL:

Well, we did some programs on it here...

JW:

So you're saying that Janet Reno's position is solid on this.

PT:

Absolutely solid. Now they haven't done many cases, and I think they can be faulted for that, although I am assured they will do cases, but I'm really looking for getting the right law so that when the right people who are very aggressive on this issue get back to the Justice Department - I hate to say Republicans, since it isn't only Republicans - but if the [sic] Republican administration got in, I think you'd see that war on pornography start again. And this is the future of the pornography industry; it is the Internet.

BL:

Has anyone prosecuted a computer pornography case yet?

PT:

Yes, there is one case, that this Clinton administration under Janet Reno has prosecuted, down in Memphis, Tennessee. They used the current law, which doesn't specifically spell out the computer pornography is illegal, it just prohibits hard-core pornography, and the distribution of hard-core pornography, and that law was used, and in fact, just recently, the - it's a husband and wife team that were [sic] putting pornography on the Internet. The husband got three years, the wife got two years and three months. So it's serious business. But that's only one case; I'd like to see hundreds.

BL:

Now, I know our listeners are saying, well, if this is out there, can't we do something about it? Isn't there legislation that is going to protect our families? You mentioned Senator Exon has proposed a bill to regulate computer pornography, and you made a comment. Talk to us a little bit about the Senator's bill.

PT:

The Senator would, his bill would do two things, supposedly; it would eliminate hard-core pornography from the Internet altogether; and it would prohibit any pornography, hard or soft, from going to _children_. But the reason I criticized the Exon bill, and I've worked with his office since he first introduced it, is that he would give immunity from prosecution from the major pornography _profiteers_, and so - it's a little difficult to explain, but his bill - and I'll be happy to do it, should you want that - but his bill wouldn't get the job done, it would be useless, I think.

BL:

Then we want something that would get the job done. How about Senator Cote's bill, he's got a proposed bill, is that right?

PT:

That's right, Senator Dan Cotes, pro-family champion, his is the pro-family champion, and it is as worthless as Senator Exon's bill. I've analyzed it, the Justice Department has analyzed it, they've analyzed it correctly, he does the same thing, and you have to understand how the Internet works in order to understand why they're both bad bills.

JW:

Well, why don't you take a second, can you tell us how that works?

BL:

We don't want to leave our listeners right now in a state of confusion...

PT:

Well, the pornography that is available on the Internet is mostly free, in a manner of speaking. That is, someone with a computer scans into that computer - and that's a term many people don't understand, but if you have a scanning machine, looks like a Xerox machine - and you put on that Xerox machine, essentially, the pornographic image. And that will put it into your computer. And then from there they put it on the Internet. They send it from their computer onto a specific location in the Internet, the pornographic locations, and there's hundreds of them. So now it is on the Internet. Now, if I wanted to pull that off, I could do that. But to do that, I have to have access to the Internet. You buy access to the Internet, with companies like America OnLine, Prodigy, CompuServe, Netcom. Those are the four biggest companies out there. I have Netcom. So I subscribe to Netcom. Now they charge me a fee, based on the amount of time I use their service. And all their service does is provide access to the Internet. So if I want to get on my computer, and I click on Netcom, all of a sudden I'm on the Internet. And then I just merely go to one of the hundreds of locations where there's pornography, and I click on it, and it comes right to my computer screen. The person who put that on the Internet didn't charge for it. But _Netcom_, or America OnLine, or these others, _will_ charge you for the amount of time that you view it. Or, if you would like to keep that image, you can press a button and it comes directly into your computer, and then at any time in the future you can draw it back. But it takes several minutes...

BL:

So it stores it right there...

PT:

It stores it right there. But it takes several minutes to store it. So, I may pay in a month $50, $75 to Netcom, if I were interested in pornography, just to view it. Some people spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars viewing it, and some of those people are children.

JW:

And you're saying that the people that are making the biggest money off of this are the providers of the online services.

PT:

The access providers. Yes. And as I told someone recently in a letter, it used to be the names of the biggest pornographers in the world were like Ruben Sturman, who was identified by the Attorney General's commission as the top pornographer profiteer, the pornographer profiteers today are the people who give you access to the Internet, Internet [sic]. And they know that material's there, they know that's why thousands and thousands of people subscribe every month to their services, that is in order to get pornography. So the pornography profiteers today are the access providers, like Netcom, CompuServe, etc.

BL:

So you, ah, as I understand it, you would like to have legislation that really goes after _them_, who are providing it.

PT:

I would like legislation that merely says that those who provide the pornography, or facilitate that, are guilty. And so that would have to be not only the person who puts that pornography from his collection on the Internet, but the access provider who gives access to that material. They knowingly participate in this crime, and they should be prosecuted.

JW:

Are there technological ways for them to provide that service, in order, to, to keep that stuff from being on their network.

PT:

_Yes_, there is, and it's sad to see someone from the pro-family movement arguing the case that there isn't. [Typist's note; Orrin Hatch?] But for example, the University of Chicago, and their computers, which are used on the Internet for storage of material, they have found this kind of material, and they have blocked it up. They will not store any pornography. Prodigy has blocked out anti-Semitic comments in their chat lines. Well, if they can block out words that are offensive to words, they can block out obscene words as well.

BL:

Sure they could, yes...

PT:

And in any event, just recently, in the last month, there's a development - and people in these companies have made a big deal about it - that you can buy software as a parent that will block this material from coming to your personal computer. So these access providers now say, if you don't like it in your home, go buy something for 50 bucks that enables you to block it out. And my position is, if you don't, we don't like it. So _you_ provide the software that prevents it from coming into my home, or to _every other_ home, unless someone subscribes to it. And then if it's illegal material, you shouldn't get it.

BL:

You know, Mrs. LaHaye, this sounds very similar to, up in New York, um, if you order cable television, in your package are some of those pornography providers for your television. And there's legislature being discussed right now that would prevent them from doing that, because people don't want to have to just have it, their choice is, they have pornography or they don't have cable. And what some pro-family groups up there want to do is get that stuff off the basic package, so they don't have to deal with it, and I think that's a logical argument.

PT:

Exactly right. But now, what some are arguing, is that these access providers shouldn't be held liable, criminally liable, if they didn't create the material, or if they've failed to block it - where does this come from? I mean, if this is material that is harmful to our kids, where do they get the right to distribute it? The porn shop of old is going to disappear. The porn shop is now going to be the computer in your home. And we'd better make laws that prevent the access providers from profiting off of it. Give them incentive like we do in the current Federal child pornography law. In 1988, Ronald Reagan proposed a law to Congress that prohibited child pornography by computer. He didn't provide any defenses to these companies. And these same companies, like Netcom, or America OnLine, when they hear about child pornography that's available on their services, they block it, or they report it to authorities. And why do they do that? The deterrent effect of the law. They don't want to be held liable for distributing child pornography. So it's very difficult to find child pornography out there. Now, you can find it. But these access providers don't know about it. And why should we tell them with hard-core pornography or even soft-core pornography, well, we defend you, you don't have any liability.

BL:

Isn't it a shame - I mean, I guess I'm an idealist - that something so helpful and so new and high-tech as the computer and Internet, that is serving well many people for good, has now, pornography has found a way to use _it_, to bring in the evil and this deterioration of our society.

PT:

It is terrible, and I've heard these access providers and others who use the Internet say, well, if you tamper with it, by trying to restrict pornography, you'll harm the _freedom_ which is on the Internet. But what I think is a better response is that the more the Internet becomes a red light district, the more polluted it becomes, the less parents will want their kinds on it. I wouldn't want my child on it.

BL:

No, I wouldn't either... well, Patrick Truman, thanks for being with us today, to try to explain a very difficult situation and one that a lot of families don't understand just yet. So I trust that this few moments of describing it has been of great benefit to our listeners. Thanks for being with us.

PT:

That's for having me.

BL:

You know, Concerned Women for America, is really trying to fight against this kind of immorality, and we stand for decency for the family, and you know down on Florida, our grass-roots leaders for CWA formed a group called Citizens Opposing Pornography, so we are out there on the front lines.

JW:

Well, all over America, our volunteers have targeted bookstores, X-rated bookstores, topless bars, other adult-type business, and they've been involved in the front lines of fighting against this type of thing that invades communities.

BL:

And here in the national office, our legislative staff are up on Capital Hill encouraging Congress to pass legislation that will _really_ protect our families and our children.

JW:

And we put together an information packet that we're calling the [sic] Protecting Family Decency. And we'd like to share that with you today, absolutely free, all you have to do is call 1-800-527-9600.

BL:

You know, this packet will give you information that will help you protect your family from all types of pornography, and it will give you specific suggestions if you have a home computer and how to protect your kids. So the Protecting Family Decency packet gives vital facts on how the porn industry is taking advantage of computers right in your home to spread their evil message.

JW:

It also gives you action items and steps that you can take to make sure this kind of material doesn't come into your home. So call us right now at 1-800-527-9600 and ask for our free Protecting Family Decency packet. And now with today's commentary, here's Beverly LaHaye.

[begin editorial music]

BL:

Modern ministers have developed a new theology. They say sin isn't wrong, it's simply genetic. Anglican Bishop Richard Halloway believes the Church should not condemn affairs; he claims that adultery is caused by our genetics. The Bishop's theology bears a striking resemblance to homosexual's [sic] search for a gay gene. And the Justice Department is studying the brains of prison inmates. They are trying to find a biological link to violent crime. Doug Walston, a genetic researcher, finds this trend very alarming, and claims that we should _stop_ this before it gets out of hand. But it's already out of hand! Genetics has become the modern-day scapegoat for sin! But God does not accept man's excuses for sin; theologians, psychologists, and activists try to hide sin behind a genetic code, but God still says, the wages of sin is death. But there is a way of escape. God loved us enough to offer his son in payment for our sin. He has offered us salvation and freedom from sin. All we have to do is repent and accept it. The world tries to justify sin through genetics, but God brings us his justification by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ. This is Beverly LaHaye, in Washington.

[end editorial music]

JW:

Thank you, Mrs. LaHaye. You know, despite what they say, pornography is _not_ a victimless crime. Families are being torn apart; the innocence of children is being violated; women are being raped; and this is because of pornography!

BL:

And that's why Concerned Women for America is working hard to stop these obscene influences. And when you receive your free Protecting Family Decency packet, you'll be able to speak out against pornography, even in your computers, along with us.

JW:

[pitch for donations, reiteration of packet offer]

BL:

Now let's face it Jim: pornography is destroying many, many young people in America today. And we want to fight against it. Well, our thanks to Patrick Truman for helping to draw attention to this very critical issue. Tomorrow, we'll talk about more ways to defend your family against this high-tech abuse of morality and decency. You won't want to miss it. From our nation's capital, I'm Beverly LaHaye.

JW:

And I'm Jim Woodall.

BL:

Thank you for joining us today.

[End music and standard "out" talk by Janet Parchell - "Help make sure your Christian Values are represented here in our nation's capitol"]

BL:

Thanks to computers, pornography is more available now than ever before. Does your child have access to porn? Find out tomorrow.

[End music climax and ends]

BL:

It's been said that anyone with a home computer and access to the Internet has a porn shop in their home. Tomorrow, on Beverly LaHaye Live, we'll show you how to protect your family from these immoral influences.