WASHINGTON -- Bruce Taylor doesn't mind being the fellow who free speech advocates love to hate.
The 50-year-old former prosecutor relishes being one of the drafters of the Communications Decency Act, a spokesman for more anti-porn laws and a sworn enemy of the American Civil Liberties Union.
"We're still doing it. We're going to keep going with COPA and CIPA," said Taylor, who is the president of the National Law Center for Children and Families in Fairfax, Virginia.
"Every year we'll put a bill in there, every other year, just to keep the ACLU in business." COPA is the Child Online Protection Act, which was successfully challenged by the ACLU, and CIPA is the Children's Internet Protection Act, which the ACLU has vowed to challenge next month.
"They should send me Christmas presents instead of hate mail. I'm putting their rotten little kids through private school," Taylor says about ACLU litigators in the group's New York headquarters.
Taylor says that unlike previous years, he won't be asking Congress for more criminal laws: He's happy enough with what's already on the books and believes that since the Justice Department is now headed by Republicans, it'll do a better job defending the laws in court.
"If we get grownups in the Justice Department and the White House, maybe they'll follow the law," says Taylor -- who, like other anti-pornsters, has complained that the Clinton administration was not sufficiently serious about defending the Communications Decency Act and its progeny in court.
But if the Supreme Court rules against him on a law outlawing images that "appear" to be of nude children -- two appeals courts upheld it and one did not -- Taylor says Congress might have to step in. "If the Supreme Court says we can't have the morphed child porn law, we'll have to come up with a new plan for that," he says.
Barry Steinhardt, the associate director of the ACLU and frequent Taylor foe, says: "The Congress can keep setting up (new laws), but we'll keep knocking them down. It's not Bruce Taylor, but Congress that hasn't gotten the message yet that speech on the Internet is entitled to the highest protection."
And Taylor's quip about private schools? Replies Steinhardt: "None of the ACLU staff people working on this issue have any children in private school. My kids have all gone to public schools."
Microsoft back in court: When Microsoft and Justice Department attorneys spar in court next week, you'll be able to follow the proceedings from afar.
The DC Circuit Court of Appeals has said it will make a rare concession and allow audio of the proceedings to be webcast. You'll be able to listen in on abcnews.com and c-span.org.
The proceedings begin 9:30 a.m. EST on Monday and may continue on Tuesday morning.
Bye-bye, Harold: We've always enjoyed FCC Commissioner Harold Furchgott-Roth's blunt commentary about how the agency should stay out of micro-managing the telecom industry.
During an event this week, the economist-turned-commissioner offered his farewell advice to the FCC's new chairman, Michael Powell. The chairman's role is to "follow the law, not to go beyond it," Furchgott-Roth said.
Also: "Transparency -- the public needs to know where items are in the process. The public needs to know that decisions are made based entirely on the record before this Commission, that there aren't secret deals, that there aren't little side agreements."
Furchgott-Roth had said he would leave when President Bush named a successor.
Napster update: Being a trade association means always having to prove you're worth the checks your member companies reluctantly write every year.
By releasing the pro-Napster results of its survey this week, the Consumer Electronics Association did so.
The results, according to a CEA release, say that 61 percent of Americans surveyed "oppose laws that prevent the usage of file-sharing software such as Napster." (If you want to read the complete study, you gotta fork over $500.)
CEA represents over 600 manufacturers of audio, video and hardware products that collectively stand to benefit through increased sales if file trading continues its meteoric rise in popularity.
Briefs: Both anti-porn groups and libraries filed comments this week with the FCC about a library- and school-filtering law.... The ACLU said this week that a former high school student suspended for an Internet parody is getting damages from the school district.... The U.S. General Accounting Office suggested this week that any supposed "digital divide" will vanish over time.... The House Science Committee will meet to talk about "renewable energy" next Wednesday at 10 a.m.... The House Energy and Commerce Committee will vote next Wednesday on H.R. 90, the Know Your Caller Act of 2001; and H.R. 496, the Independent Telecommunications Consumer Enhancement Act of 2001.... A House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee will meet next Thursday at 10 a.m. to talk about "Privacy in the Commercial World."
