A

Information-Gathering Sessions of the Committee

PLENARY MEETING OF JULY 17-19, 2000

National Research Council
2001 Wisconsin Avenue
Green Building
Washington, D.C.

Monday, July 17

Presentation of Charge
     Dean Hoffman, U.S. Department of Justice
     Linda Roberts, U.S. Department of Education

Panel: Considering the Extent of the Problem
     David Finkelhor, University of New Hampshire
     Michael Marshall, Microsoft (retired)
     John Rabun, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
     Jeff Richards, Internet Alliance

Primer on the First Amendment
     Geoffrey Stone, University of Chicago

Panel: First Amendment Perspectives
     Bruce Taylor, National Law Center for Children and Families
     Robert Flores, National Law Center for Children and Families
     Elliot Mincberg, People for the American Way
     Marvin Johnson, American Civil Liberties Union
     Paul McMasters, The Freedom Forum

Tuesday, July 18

Panel: Technological Issues
     Milo Medin, Excite@Home
     Paul Resnick, University of Michigan
     Bhavani Thuraisingham, MITRE

Panel: Library Perspectives
     Marilyn Mason, Independent Consultant
     Carol Roddy, Ohio Public Library Information Network
     Judith Krug, American Library Association
     Walter Minkel, Cahners Business Information
     Caroline Ward, Ferguson Library and outgoing president of American Library Association Services for Children

Panel: School Perspectives
     Lynne Schrum, University of Georgia
     Linda Braun, LEO: Librarians and Educators Online
     Carrie Gardner, Milton Hershey School
     Maribeth Luftglass, Fairfax County Schools

Panel: Community Perspective
     Robin Raskin, Family PC
     Parry Aftab, Cyberangels
     Bruce Watson, Enough Is Enough

PLENARY MEETING OF OCTOBER 18-20, 2000

Georgetown Holiday Inn
Mirage Room II
2101 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C.

Wednesday, October 18

Panel: Perspectives on Child Development
     Jeff McIntyre, American Psychological Association
     Mary Anne Layden, University of Pennsylvania

Demonstrations: Sexually Explicit Material on the Internet (closed session)

Panel: Understanding the Obscenity Statutes

Governmental Perspectives
     Terry Lord, Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, U.S. Department of Justice
     Kenneth Neu, Federal Bureau of Investigation
     Daniel Armagh, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

Nongovernmental Perspectives
     Rob Showers, Gammon & Grange
     Beth Farber, Federal Public Defender
     Robert Peters, National Obscenity Law Center, Morality in Media
     Jon Katz, Marks & Katz, LLC

Questions for the Panels

• Given a policy to prosecute obscenity cases, what factors determine whether or not to pursue a case? How does the exposure of a minor to obscene materials affect a decision to prosecute?
• How are community standards for determining obscenity set?
• Would a case of Internet obscenity be prosecuted differently from one associated with a neighborhood bookstore? Why or why not?
• How has policy regarding enforcement of obscenity laws changed over the years at the local, state, and federal level?
• What approaches would be most effective in dealing with online obscenity? (to include but not be limited to any or all of the following: technological tools such as filters, community practices, legislation or regulation)

Thursday, October 19

Panel: Perspective of ISPs (general purpose, family friendly)
     Steve Ensley, American Family Online
     Mike Chilton, Dotsafe
     Ginny Wydler, America Online

Questions for the Panel

• How do you decide what is appropriate material for minors to access? How does this differ by age?
• Please comment on the exposure of minors to sexually explicit material online by source, i.e., explicitly sought, inadvertently accessed, or pushed actively by another party.
• How do you limit exposure for minors to sexually explicit material online? What strategies or tools appear most successful? What strategies or tools have limited success? Why?
• Is there a "range" for access for minors? How is it determined?
• What approaches would be most effective in limiting the exposure of minors to sexually explicit material on the Internet?
• Unsolicited or bulk e-mails are sent to minors' accounts but may contain links to sexually explicit sites. How might these mailings be eliminated or better targeted to adults?

Panel: Perspectives of Education Associations
     Julie Underwood, National School Boards Association
     Arthur Sheekey, Council of Chief State School Officers

Questions for the Panel

• What are your primary concerns about the exposure of minors to sexually explicit material online?
• How are your members responding to the issue?
• How should the risk of exposure to inappropriate sexual content be balanced against the risk of denying access to helpful or educational material that might be inappropriately blocked?
• What approaches to limit the exposure of minors to online sexually explicit material are appropriate for schools, communities, libraries, and families?

Panel: Perspective of Teenagers
     Brittany and Yves, Teenangels, New Jersey, with Parry Aftab, Cyberangels
     Alex, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Alexandria, Virginia

Questions for the Panel

• Do you think that adults (parents, teachers) understand enough about the Internet to provide supervision?
• How easy is it to circumvent actions intended to prevent someone from reaching sexually explicit material online?
• What do you think are the best ways to protect minors from inappropriate Internet content?
• Have you ever seen pornography online? How did it happen? For instance, was it sent to you? Did you accidentally access a message containing a link? Did you mistype a URL and get an adult site?
• What have you done when you have gotten sexually explicit material online? Have you told anyone? Who? What happened?
• Do you think you get a lot of bulk or unrequested e-mails containing sexually explicit material?
• Have you ever been made uncomfortable by someone in a chat room or by an Instant Messenger message? What happened? What did you do?
• Do you know how to protect yourself when you go online? Where did you learn these rules?

Discussion of COPA Commission Report (closed session)

Friday, October 20

Panel: Adult Entertainment Industry Representatives
     Danni Ashe, Danni's Hard Drive
     J.T. Edmond, Flying Crocodile
     Gloria Leonard, Free Speech Coalition
     Larry Lux, Playboy Online
     Gerard Van der Leun, Penthouse.com

Questions for the Panel

• What is your perception of the issue of minors' exposure to sexually explicit material online? How are your members/clients responding to the issue? How broad is your membership base compared to the universe of providers of such material?
• What are the most appropriate means for distinguishing between adults and minors in an online context?
• How should/can the current regime of limiting the exposure of minors to sexually explicit print and TV and movies be extended to the Internet domain?
• What are the most appropriate approaches to limit the exposure of minors to online sexually explicit material? What strategies or tools appear most successful? What strategies or tools have limited success? Why?
• Unsolicited or bulk e-mails are sent to minors' accounts but may contain links to sexually explicit sites. How might these mailings be eliminated or better targeted to adults?
• What approaches would you like to see adopted or developed to limit the exposure of minors to online sexually explicit material?
• What technologies might better target likely audiences for adult entertainment?

Overview of Bertelsmann Report, Protecting Our Children on the Internet
     Jack Balkin, Yale University

PUBLIC WORKSHOP OF DECEMBER 13, 2000

Georgetown University Conference Center
Salon H Meeting Room
3800 Reservoir Road, N.W.
Washington, D.C.

Note: The proceedings of this workshop are summarized in an NRC report entitled Nontechnical Strategies to Reduce Children's Exposure to Inappropriate Material on the Internet: Summary of a Workshop (National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, Board on Children, Youth, and Families and Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, Joah G. Iannotta, ed., National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 2001).

Non-Technical Strategies That Can Be Used to Protect Children on the Internet: What Are the Roles of Policies, Parents, Schools, Libraries, and Communities?
     Linda Roberts, Director, Office of Educational Technology and Senior Adviser to the Secretary, U.S. Department of Education
     Anne Thompson, Program Commissioner, National PTA

Questions for Discussion

• How does one define non-technical strategies for protecting kids from inappropriate material on the Internet?
• What non-technical approaches are used in the home, classroom, and community settings?
• What is the role of parents in making non-technical strategies effective, and what do parents need?
• How effective have current policies been in encouraging schools and communities to develop non-technical strategies?

An Extended Panel on Bringing Developmental Considerations to Bear on the Impact of Inappropriate Material on the Internet

Part I: Effects of Exposure to Pornographic and Other Inappropriate Material on the Internet
     Jane Brown, Professor, School of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
     Joanne Cantor, Professor, University of Wisconsin, Madison
     Ed Donnerstein, Dean and Professor, Department of Communication, University of California, Santa Barbara
     Moderator/Discussant: Sandra Calvert, Committee Member and Professor of Psychology, Georgetown University

Issues for Discussion

• What types of inappropriate material do young people encounter, and how do they come in contact with it?
• What is the potential impact on children of viewing sexually explicit and other forms of inappropriate material in the media?
• Is impact dependent only on the type of material or also on the source (e.g., static image on the Internet, picture from a magazine, active images from television)?
• What are the limits of this research, and to what extent can we make comparisons among the effects of viewing different types of inappropriate material (e.g., sexually explicit vs. violent vs. hate speech)?

Part II: Developmental Considerations for Determining Appropriate Internet Use Guidelines for Children and Adolescents
     Patricia Greenfield, Professor, Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles
     James Youniss, Professor, Life Cycle Institute, Catholic University of America
     Dorothy Singer, Senior Research Scientist, Department of Psychology, Yale University, and Co-director, Yale University Family Television Research and Consultation Center

Issues for Discussion

• How are emotional, cognitive, social, and moral development affected by the media landscape created by children's access to and use of the Internet?
• What types of material may be harmful according to children's growth and developmental needs, and how may harmful effects change with age and developmental milestone?
• How do parents and educators balance giving young people the responsibility of exploring the Internet with protecting them from material that may be disturbing?
• How should developmental issues shape non-technical strategies to protect kids from inappropriate material, and what non-technical strategies will most benefit children's development?

Push and Pull on the Internet: Children's Use and Experiences
     Don Roberts, Thomas More Storke Professor, Department of Communication, Stanford University
     Sarah Keller, Assistant Professor, Health Communication, Department of Communication, Emerson College
     Moderator/Discussant: Janet Schofield, Committee Member, Professor of Psychology and Senior Scientist at the Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh

Questions for Discussion

• How are children using the Internet, in what settings are children logging on, and are there differential patterns of use according to age, gender, and ethnicity?
• What are children's experiences while online, both positive and negative?
• How are children pulled into material that they might not otherwise view, and what effect might this have?
• How are young people driving their experiences on the Internet, and how can young people be encouraged to stay in charge of their online experiences?

Innovative Approaches and Existing Efforts to Use Non-Technological Strategies to Protect Children on the Internet
     Laurie Lipper, Director, The Children's Partnership
     Kathy Boguszewski, Instructional Technology Consultant, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
     Mary Dempsey, Commissioner, Chicago Public Library
     Nancy Willard, Director, Responsible Netizen Research, Center for Advanced Technology in Education, University of Oregon
     Eileen Faucette, Founder and Coordinator, PTA Live Online
     Moderator/Discussant: Winnie Wechsler, Committee Member

Questions for Discussion

• What are some of the non-technological strategies that might be used by educators, librarians, parents, and local communities to ensure children's safe and appropriate use of the Internet?
• What types of inappropriate material do these strategies address, and how do they protect against the potential harm this material might cause?
• Who has been responsible for implementing and monitoring these approaches?
• How can these approaches be tailored to different venues (e.g., home, school, library)?

Bridging Research, Policy, and Practice
     Ellen Wartella, Dean and Professor, College of Communication, University of Texas, Austin
     Laura Gurak, Associate Professor, Rhetoric; Faculty Fellow, Law; and Director, Internet Studies Center, University of Minnesota
     Betty Chemers, Deputy Administrator, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

Questions for Discussion

• What research is needed to develop new non-technical strategies for protecting children from inappropriate material on the Internet?
• Are regulations needed to protect children on the Internet, and what policies might encourage children to use the Internet in safe and appropriate ways?
• How should nonprofit organizations, educational institutions, government agencies, and parents be working together to create a safe environment for kids to use the Internet?
• How should we be thinking about linking research, policy, and practice?

PLENARY MEETING OF MARCH 7-9, 2001

Excite@Home
450 Broadway
Redwood City, California

Wednesday, March 7

Basic Concepts in Information Retrieval
     Nick Belkin
     David D. Lewis
     Hinrich Schutze, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University
     David Forsyth, University of California, Berkeley
     Ray Larson, University of California, Berkeley, School of Information Management and Systems

Issues for Discussion

• Stability of content categorization
• Automatic text categorization
• Machine-aided text understanding
• Vision and image recognition
• Search engine technology

Filters
     Susan Getgood, Surf Control Inc.
     James Wang, Pennsylvania State University
     Bennett Hazelton, Peacefire

Questions for Discussion

• What techniques can be used to identify sexually explicit material?
• How do filter vendors select the content they screen?
• What flexibility do their products offer?
• What is involved in circumventing the filtering provisions?
• How is the performance of a product measured? (rates of false positives, false negatives)

Authentication and Age Verification
     Eddie Zeitler, Lambert and Associates
     Fred Cotton, Search.org
     Deirdre Mulligan, University of California, Berkeley

Business Models

Models for Kid-Friendly and Kid-Safe Internet Businesses
     Brian Pass, MediaOne
     Irv Shapiro, Edventions Inc.

Questions for Discussion

• What are the primary challenges of building a business based on the idea of attracting kids to safe and appropriate Internet content?
• What is the business case for firms operating in this space?
• What role do responsible adults (parents, teachers, librarians, and so on) play?
• How do you deal with the issue of inappropriate material?

Business Models Based on Advertising and Ad Tracking
     Chris Kelly, Excite@Home

Questions for Discussion

• How do business models based on the sale of Web advertising work?
• What techniques are used to filter out those with a low probability of buying from those with higher probabilities of buying?
• What drives the cost structure of such businesses?

Thursday, March 8

Rights Management Technology
     David Maher, Intertrust Inc.
     John Blumenthal, @Stake Inc.

Issues for Discussion

• The technology of digital rights management systems
• Infrastructure needed to support rights management systems
• Application of rights management systems to restricting distribution of material

Usenet Newsgroups and the World Wide Web
     Dan Geer

Developmental Progression and Sexuality
     John Gagnon, SUNY Stony Brook
     Pepper Schwartz, University of Washington
     Elizabeth Casparian, Independent Consultant

Questions for Discussion

• How does developmental progression affect the appropriateness of exposing a minor to sexually explicit material?
• What types of material may be harmful according to children's growth and developmental needs, and how may harmful effects change with age and developmental milestone?
• How should developmental issues shape efforts to protect kids from inappropriate sexually explicit material?

Approaches to Regulating Sexually Explicit Material on the Internet
     Larry Lessig

.xxx domains (by videoconference)
     Donald Eastlake, Motorola

Public Testimony from Birds of a Feather Session with the 2001 Conference on Compters, Freedom, and Privacy, by Videoconference

SITE VISIT TO AUSTIN, TEXAS, APRIL 3-4, 2001

Attendees from the National Research Council
Linda Hodge
Marilyn Mason
Herb Lin (staff)
Daniel Llata (staff)

Tuesday, April 3

Pflugerville: John Connally High School
     Session with teachers, administrators, school librarians, and technologists
     Session with students

Cepeda Branch Library
     Session with librarians and technical managers
     Session with youth group leaders, teachers, and program directors

Open Session at the Courtyard Marriott Hotel North
     Parents and PTA members
     School board members
     Other adults

Wednesday, April 4

Visit to Settlement Home
     Panel session with students
     Panel session with teachers and school administrators

SITE VISIT TO GREENVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA, APRIL 17-18, 2001

Attendees from the National Research Council
Father William J. Byron
Linda Hodge
Bob Schloss
Herb Lin (staff)
Daniel Llata (staff)

Tuesday, April 17

Mauldin Middle School
     William Harner, District Superintendent
     Session with students
     Session with teachers and school administrators

W. Jack Greer Library of Mauldin
     Beverly James, Executive Director of Greenville County Library System
     Session with librarians and technical managers

Phillis Wheatley Association
     Session with youth group leaders
     Session with students

Open Session at W. Jack Greer Library of Mauldin
     Boards of Trustees, Greenville County Library System
     Representatives of School District of Greenville County
     PTSA representatives

Wednesday, April 18

Greenville Senior High Academy of Academic Excellence
     Ginger Stuart, Interim Principal
     Session with students
     Session with teachers and school administrators

SITE VISIT TO SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, APRIL 26-27, 2001

Attendees from the National Research Council
David Forsyth
Geoffrey Stone
Gail Pritchard (staff)
Joah Iannotta (staff)

Thursday, April 26

Utah Education Network (UEN)
     Sessions with UEN administrators and technologists

Meeting with Paula Houston, Complaints Ombudsman, Obscenity and Pornography, Office of the Utah Attorney General

Salt Lake City Library
     Session with librarians and technical managers
     Session with Library Teen Advisory Panel

Open Session at Salt Lake City Library

Friday, April 27

Tooele High School
     Sessions with students
     Session with teachers and school administrators

SITE VISIT TO SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, MAY 2-3, 2001

Attendees from the National Research Council
Linda Hodge
Janet Schofield
Winnie Wechsler
Herb Lin (staff)
Gail Pritchard (staff)

Wednesday, May 2

Rancho Bernardo High School
     Session with students from the high school
     Session with students from Bernardo Heights Middle School
     Session with high school teachers, school administrators, and school librarians

Casa Familia Community Program
     Session with Casa Familia staff
     Session with Casa Familia students
     Session with Casa Familia youth group leaders, instructors, and technical managers

El Cajon Library
     Session with librarians and technical managers

Open Session in El Cajon Library Community Room

Thursday, May 3

Lincoln High School
     Session with high school students

SITE VISIT TO BLACKSBURG, VIRGINIA, MAY 8-9, 2001

Attendees from the National Research Council
Dick Thornburgh
Sandra Calvert
Linda Hodge
Robin Raskin
Herb Lin (staff)
Gail Pritchard (staff)

Tuesday, May 8

Blacksburg Middle School
     Session with students
     Session with teachers and school administrators

Christiansburg High School
     Session with librarians and technical managers
     Session with instructional supervisors and teachers of technology courses

Blacksburg Electronic Village
     Discussion with director

Wednesday, May 9

Blacksburg High School
     Session with teachers and school administrators
     Session with students

SITE VISIT TO CORAL GABLES, FLORIDA, MAY 31-JUNE 1, 2001

Attendees from the National Research Council
Nick Belkin
Herb Lin (staff)
D.C. Drake (staff)

Thursday, May 31

Coral Gables High School
     Session with students (mostly juniors and sophomores)
     Session with teachers and school administrators

Boys and Girls Club, Kendall Branch
     Session with students
     Session with administrators and instructors

Open Session at Coral Reef Senior High School
     PTA representatives
     Other parents

SITE VISIT TO REDDING, SHELTON, BRISTOL, KENT, AND HAMDEN, CONNECTICUT, JUNE 1-2, 2001

Attendees from the National Research Council
Dan Geer
Linda Hodge

Friday, June 1

Joel Barlow High School in Redding, Connecticut
     Panel session with parents and community members

Shelton Intermediate School in Shelton, Connecticut
     Session with teachers, school administrators, librarians, technical man-agers, and resource officers
     Session with middle school students

Bristol Board of Education Offices in Bristol, Connecticut
     Session with principals, teachers, public librarians, students, and technical managers

Open Session at Kent Center School in Kent, Connecticut
     Session with local education policy makers and parents

Saturday, June 2

Connecticut State PTA Office
     Session with parents