Some examples from the pro-CDA amicus brief filed on April 29 by
Morality in Media, the National Law Center for Children and Familes,
the Family Research Council, Enough is Enough!, and the National
Coalition for the Protection of Children and Familes: (all typos mine)

  In their zeal for unfettered freedom to distribute all material,
  however pornographic, without any consideration for the larger
  audience of children online, Plaintiffs urge this Court, in effect,
  to surrender the legislature's compelling interests in protecting
  children in favor of the economic interests and ideological wishes
  of computer indecency providers...

  Internet technology will no doubt continue to flourish undaunted by
  the presence of the CDA.

  Adults should [not have] a protected right to use the Internet's
  public forums to indiscriminately post patently offensive
  pornography within the instant reach of children from coast to
  coast... These 'porn pirate' customers have polluted cyberspace with
  the toxic pornography that the CDA seeks to control.

  There is no constitutional right to distribute bestiality or other
  pornography that is harmful to minors or indecent in the immediate
  presence of minor children.

  The CDA regulates "how" the Plaintiffs may distribute their indecent
  computer speech. It does not regulate "what they may say..." The CDA
  is a valid, content-neutral time, place, and manner regulation...

The DoJ's brief ain't nearly as flowery as Taylor/Cleaver's, though it
also paints the Net as a den of cyberinquity. Citing honorary
net.mascot Sen. Exon: "sexually explicit material, ranging from
Playboy and Penthouse to more hardcore material 'is only a few clicks
awqy from any child with a computer.'"

The DoJ continues:

* Plaintiffs' arguments are based on unfounded speculation. They have
reduced the indecency standard to speech on any subject that someone,
in some community, might find offensive -- reading out of the standard
entirely its requirements that the speech's context be considered and
that the speech be "patently" offensive, and, in some instances, even
ignoring the requirement that the speech describe or depict "sexual or
excretory activities." Indeed, plaintiffs presented testimony that
went so far as to suggest that parts of the Bible might be convered by
the indecency standard. That is plainly not what Congress intended in
enacting the CDA, nor does it comport with the definition of indecency
as developed by the courts or the [FCC].

* Plaintiffs' flawed analysis of the "indecency" standard is based not
only on a misreading of the cases applying the indecency standard, but
of the obscenity standard... Plaintiffs' theory is that, unlike
obscenity, the indecency standard does not include the requirements that
material, as a whole, appeal to the purient interest or lack serious
literary or artistic value.

* The specific examples of speech that plaintiffs cite do not support
their vagueness claim. Indeed, several of the examples plaintiffs put
forward as potentially indecenct speech are simply frivolous...
Plaintiffs' suggestion that parts of the Bible or the works of
Shakespeare might be considered indecent are specious.

* AOL apparently understands what "offensive" sequally explicit
graphicsal images or vulgar language are when "policing" its own
members but, though staffed by 20 lawyers in its General Counsel's
office, is unclear as to what material [is patently offensive under
the CDA].

* Plaintiffs' baseless interpretation of the indecency standard was
also evident in the testimony of Andrew Anker. He testified that
HotWired is concerned that EVERY word, EVERY picture, and EVERY icon
on its Web site would be covered by the CDA, including words like
"the..." He also testified that indecency may cover a picture... of a
home because "the homeless may find homes indecent."

* On pervasiveness: "Very young children have ready accessibility to
home computers and easily connect to the Internet in order to do
homework assignments, or simply for recreational purposes... Second,
as a technological matter, the essential 'pervasiveness' of the online
medium was confirmed by the testimmony of several of plaintiffs' own
witnesses before the Court."

* Dr. Olsen's expert qualifications on ALL the technical matters
materially at issue in this case were established by abundant evidence
of record. As an Ivy-League educated Ph.D. in the field of computer
sicence, now embarking on being Director of Carnegie Mellon's Human
Computer Interaction Institute (a "respected research center and
institution," [according to the deposition of Donna] Hoffman), Dr.
Olsen has brought to this case his expertise in Internet protocols and
naming conventions, along with a number of other associated areasa
including experience working with online library collections, for
example.

* This Court need only imagine, if not take judicial notice, what is
learned in the instant that a young boy or girl, or even a teenager,
is taring into some of the images brought to this Court's attention in
the hearings. The CDA addresses a far more pernicious danger to minor
children on the Internet than George Carlin's monologue of dirty words
did on daytime radio."

* How often, if ever, it may be necessary to use patently offensive
sexual or excretory language or pictures in order to produce
educational, medical, or artistic works cannot be known with
certainty, but these arguably impermissable and certainly rare
applications of the indecency standard can and should be considered to
be beyond the legitimate [scope of the CDA]...

* Plaintiffs' fears that the CDA is targeted at, and could be used to
prosecute, all manner of literary, artistic, scientific, political, or
health-related speech related to sexuality is based on a fundamental
misreading of the indecency standard... At best, any alleged "chill"
on such speech would be "incidental" to carrying out the legitimate
purposes of the Act and thus insufficient to constitute irreparable
harm.

* In conclusion: Weighed in the balance, the governmental interests at
stake here are far greater. The Court can see the serious problem of
the easy availablity of patently offensive sexually explicit mateiral
online. The Court can also see that the primary purveyors of this
mateiral -- the substantial number of adult Web sites -- can comply
with the CDA's requirements that access to minors be restricted
through the use of a credit card of [sic] adult access code. Moreover,
the Court can also see that adult verification technologies have been
developed to facilitiate adult access verification. If the statute is
enjoined on its face, an important incentive for such providers to
protect access to minors will be removed... Finally, there is a
paramount interest in protecting minors from access to patently
offensive, sexually explicit materials.; For this reason, defendants
urge the Court to consider an appropriate construction of the Act so
that it may remain in force to serve the important purposes to which
it can constitutionally be directed.

Above taken from Defendants' post-hearing memorandum of points and
authorities.

-Declan

declan@eff.org