Commission on Online Child Protection
Has No Funds or Home
When it met for the first time in early March, the Commission on Online Child Protection, charged by Congress to find ways to prevent minors from accessing harmful material online, realized it has no funding and no federal agency to serve as its host.
When the commission was established with the passage of the Child Online Protection Act last year, the Associated Press reported March 10, lawmakers failed to appoint any members until just two days before it was due to go out of business. Congress then reauthorized the group for another 12 months but neglected to order the Commerce Department to fund it, as the law required.
Concerns over money problems so dominated the meeting that the 16-member panel spent most of its time wondering “how it was that we could do what we were charged to do since we were not provided with any funding to do it,” member C. James Schmidt, a professor at the San Jose State University School of Library and Information Science, told the AP.
Posted March 20, 2000.
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