WASHINGTON -- The White House and the Congress have trampled on Americans' online free speech rights, a media think tank says in a report to be released Monday.
State legislators are even less friendly to the First Amendment and deserve a "D," the Media Institute charges in its 136-page annual report card that will be presented at a press conference in Washington.
As evidence, the group cites a slew of legislative and executive actions such as the CDA II, restrictions on encryption products, crackdowns on Internet advertising, and state laws restricting unsolicited commercial e-mail.
The one branch of government that the Media Institute believes stayed true to the Constitution? Federal judges, who got a grade of a B.
"The courts did a good job. The legislative and executive branches did a poor job," said Media Institute vice president Richard Kaplar.
In 1998, courts declared the CDA II, library Internet filtering, and Virginia and New Mexico state laws to be unconstitutional. One court struck down a law that makes it a crime to possess images that appear to be of naked children, even if the pictures are computer-generated.
The report says the Federal Trade Commission's actions against "deceptive and misleading" Web sites, including some privacy regulations, go too far.
State officials are particularly apt to do the wrong thing, Kaplar said. "It's amazing that they can be worse than federal executive or legislative branch officials. They've got a really long way to go."
On Internet issues, the Media Institute gave the Congress a C and federal agencies a D+.
Conservative groups say the grades should be reversed.
"If anything, the legislative branch should get a B and the judicial branch has been absolutely dismal," said Bruce Taylor, president of the National Law Center for Children and Families. "It's not just a D. They've failed to get the issue."
Taylor, a former federal prosecutor, filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the CDA II case on behalf of some members of Congress. It argued the law was a necessary measure to protect children.
He has argued that the Justice Department should crack down on Internet obscenity, which the law defines as graphic sexual material with no redeeming value. Current federal law prohibits obscenity online.
"I don't think they should give a grade for enforcing it since they haven't been in school," Taylor said.
The Media Institute also awarded grades for non-Internet related issues, such as broadcast, cable, and commercial speech topics.
The Washington-based institute advocates freedom of speech, communications deregulation, and journalistic excellence.
Contributors to the report include Paul McMasters, the Freedom Forum's First Amendment ombudsman, Richard Schmit, general counsel of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, and Robert O'Neil, director of the Thomas Jefferson Center in Charlottesville, Virginia.
