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Some religiously based organizations have joined the fight, including the American Family Association Law Center, the National Family Legal Foundation, and the Religious Alliance Against Pornography. Other groups find themselves trying to defend traditional values on such a wide range of issues that they inevitably have to pick and choose.

POLITICS AND PORN

Evangelicals and liberal First Amendment advocates are drawing different lines in the sand over the Thomas trial and its implications for pornography.

To "Village Voice" columnist Nat Hentoff, former Attorney General Edwin Meese's Justice Department set the stage for the Thomas prosecution by shopping around obscenity cases until it found a community likely to convict. Hentoff notes that the California-based Thomases were convicted in Memphis.

"Hard core is legal in some jurisdictions," Hentoff told CHRISTIANITY TODAY. "I think it should be in all, as disgusting as it is." He urges a free standard for computer networks. "If this so-called electronic superhighway is to be of use for free speech, it should be considered a common carrier," like telephone companies.

People making their living off the information superhighway fear being held responsible for what users of their systems do, actions that may be beyond the reach of system administrators. Karl Denninger, administrator for MCSNET, a Chicago computer uplink to Internet, says the Thomases should have been forewarned that they should not sell accounts in conservative Memphis or be prepared to face the consequences of possible prosecution.

"If there is no way for me as an operator of this kind of system to ascertain ahead of time whether or not it is legal to deliver that information … what option do I have?" asks Denninger. "The only one that's immediately obvious is to pull access to all that material. The problem with that is it's impossible."

MCSNET does not carry Internet groups consisting of hard-core pictures because of their content and concern over copyright infringement. Furthermore, individuals using MCSNET must specifically request available adult services or their accounts will not be enabled to receive them. Though there is a small amount of policing that network administrators can do on their systems—such as canceling accounts of people who place inappropriate messages in general computer news groups—not all administrators avoid the material like Denninger does.

Despite his precautions, Denninger worries that local administrators such as himself could still be held liable, whereas phone companies and large computer networks that may be just as involved get off scot-free because of their size. If the Thomases' convictions stand, he predicts, the large online vendors will have to patrol their systems to keep out any potentially explicit material.

The U.S. Justice Department is not offering any consolation to nervous network administrators, though. "We've gone after computer bulletin board pornographers before and have been successful, and we'll still go after them" in the future, Justice Department spokesperson John Russell told CT.

"I don't know if we're sending a message," says Russell. "It's a matter that violated the obscenity laws that we have. Whether it's a deterrent … that's not for me to say."

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September 12 1994, Vol. 38, No. 10