Copyright UPI 1992. Reposted with permission from the ClariNet Electronic Newspaper newsgroup clari.news.sex. For more info on ClariNet, write to info@clarinet.com or phone 1-800-USE-NETS. From: clarinews@clarinet.com (GREG HENDERSON, UPI Supreme Court Reporter) Newsgroups: clari.news.sex Message-id: Subject: Supreme Court lets stand 'dial-a-porn' restrictions Keywords: supreme court, legal, sexual issues, social issues, sex, human interest Date: Mon, 27 Jan 92 14:06:56 PST WASHINGTON (UPI) -- The Supreme Court Monday allowed the government to require adults wanting to take part in ``dial-a-porn'' telephone dialogue to first take a series of steps meant to keep children from joining in the sexually explicit conversations. The court, without comment, refused to review a law passed by Congress in 1989 that allows for civil and criminal penalties on any provider of legal but ``indecent'' sexually related telephonic messages who does not take specified steps to help ensure minors are not using the service. The so-called dial-a-porn companies, now operating nationally with ``900'' and other prefixes that can cost consumers $2 or more per minute, claim the congressional restrictions violate their First Amendment free speech protection. The 1989 amendment to the Communications Act of 1934, named for Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., its author, criminalizes ``indecent communication for commercial purposes'' available to anyone under 18 years of age. It allows a waiver for those agreeing to abide by a ``presubscription'' procedure. Federal Communications Commission regulations that accompany the amendment require either that payment be made in advance of a conversation by credit card, that an authorized access or identification code be given prior to the message, or that a ``descrambler'' be needed to hear a message. In addition, any dial-a-porn service that still uses a telephone company to do its billing collection can only be used by a consumer who has first requested access to the service in writing with the telephone company. Many of the dial-a-porn providers, however, now do their own billing and have installed their own operators who ask for credit card information or require an access code before a call is placed. The Helms amendment followed similar efforts by Congress that were struck down as unconstitutional, and followed complaints by some constituents that minors were running up massive telephone bills making such calls. A federal district court in New York struck down the 1989 law as a violation of the First Amendment and an illegal prior restraint on protected speech, and issued a nationwide injunction on its enforcement. But the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last July reversed the ruling and upheld the law. Dial Information Services Corp. of New York, leading a suit by providers of the sexually related telephone services, argued that the ``presubscription'' procedure violates free speech because it is not the ``least restrictive'' means by which the government could protect children. Telephone companies have the technology to provide voluntary blocking of such numbers, requiring only a request from the parents in a household that no access be provided to the numbers. But the 2nd Circuit said voluntary blocking ``would not even come close'' to restricting access to most minors. It cited a study of the New York area that showed most parents either did not know of the free option or failed to exercise it. Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, the nation's largest homosexual legal rights advocacy organization, filed a friend-of-the- court brief asking that the Helms amendment be struck down. ``The phone services under attack here facilitate people's choice to engage in such protected speech and association in the privacy of their own homes and over their own telephones,'' the group wrote. ``Such speech is not the mere 'indecent' sexual banter that the government seeks to portray, but to the contrary serves important functions for many gay, disabled, and otherwise isolated individuals relating to the exchange of information, the pursuit of companionship, entertainment, and risk-free sexual satisfaction in the midst of the AIDS crisis.'' The groups said many people now substitute the telephone calls for risky sexual encounters that could expose them to the virus that causes AIDS -- but only because they can remain anonymous. ``To require (some) individuals to submit a request in writing to the telephone company -- revealing themselves to a mammoth and impersonal corporate institution -- prior to the delivery of such services would effectively deter people from engaging in admittedly protected speech,'' Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund wrote. The four dial-a-porn companies that challenged the law also claimed it should be struck down because the classification of ``indecent'' communication is unconstitutionally vague. But the Bush administration, in its brief to the high court, said the FCC has clearly defined ``indecent'' as it relates to these cases. The FCC defines indecent as ``the description or depiction of sexual or excretory activities or organs in a patently offensive manner as measured by contemporary community standards for the telephone medium.'' ------ _91-697 Dial Information Services Corp. of New York, et al., vs. William P. Barr_, attorney general of the United States