WASHINGTON, DC — Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) has introduced a new iteration of the “Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today’s Youth,” or “SAFETY” Act, reviving a number of proposals that have previously drawn fire from free speech advocates and civil liberties groups.In addition to various provisions that would increase criminal penalties for the interstate transportation (via the internet) of child pornography and civil penalties for any Internet Service Provider (ISP) that “knowingly fails to make a report” of child pornography, the bill would establish “record retention requirements” for ISPs, and a requirement to place “warning marks” on commercial websites that contain “sexually explicit material.”
In the current iteration of the SAFETY Act, the term “sexually explicit material” is defined as “any material that depicts sexually explicit conduct (as that term is defined in subsection (2)(A) of section 2256 of title 18, United States Code), unless the depiction constitutes a small and insignificant part of the whole, the remainder of which is not primarily devoted to sexual matters.”
The section of the United States Code cited in the SAFETY Act defines “sexually explicit conduct” as follows:
[Sexually explicit conduct] means actual or simulated – (i) sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex; (ii) bestiality; (iii) masturbation; (iv) sadistic or masochistic abuse; or (v) lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of any person.”
In the only statements from Smith relevant to the latest version of the SAFETY Act that have been published thus far, Smith stuck primarily to discussion of the general effort to combat cyber crime, without specific reference to the labeling provisions within the Act.
“A crime is still a crime, whether it occurs on the street or on the internet,” said Smith, according to a report on vnunet.com. “In this age of increasing digital and technological sophistication, cyber-crimes and cyber-terrorism pose a serious threat to the U.S. Law enforcement and the private sector must be prepared to deal with these crimes.”
In the section of the Act that details the labeling requirements, the bill states that “Except as provided in subsection (d), no person who operates a website that is primarily operated for commercial purposes, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, may knowingly, and with knowledge of the character of the material, place on that website sexually explicit material, and fail – to include on each page of the website that contains sexually explicit material, the marks and notices prescribed by the Commission under subsection (c); or (2) to ensure that the matter on the website that is initially viewable, absent any further actions by the viewer, does not include any sexually explicit material.”
The Act does not specify what form such “warning marks” would take, stating only that no later than 90 days after the date of enactment of the Act, “the Commission shall, in consultation with the Attorney General, establish by regulation clearly identifiable marks or notices to be included in the code, if technologically feasible, or if not feasible on the pages, of websites that contain sexually explicit material in order to inform the viewer of that fact and to facilitate the filtering of such pages.”
Under the Act, violators of the labeling requirement may be fined, “imprisoned not more than five years, or both.”
The Act also provides for a stiffer penalty – five to 15 years imprisonment – if the offender in question has a prior conviction under the new section, or sections section 1591 or chapter 71, chapter 109A, chapter 110, or chapter 117 of title 18, United States Code, or section 920 of title 10, United States Code (which is article 120 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice), or the laws of any state relating to “aggravated sexual abuse, sexual abuse, or abusive sexual contact involving a minor or ward; the production, possession, receipt, mailing, sale, distribution, shipment, or transportation of child pornography; or sex trafficking of children.”
