“Obviously I had not researched the story enough,” Rovner admitted to her great credit. “I am new to the world of cyberspace.... I have a computer coach, but even he is behind on the Internet. Yes, I violated a cardinal rule of journalism—I didn’t know enough about what I was writing about. And I certainly wasn’t thinking censorship. Mea culpa. I am a staunch supporter of the First Amendment, as all journalists are or should be.” And yet Exon cited “Molesting” on the Senate floor to justify his repressive, cyberspace-oriented change in the existing Communications Decency Act. “Argghh,” went Rovner. Even more significantly, Exon, as noted earlier, failed to grasp the difference between the Internet and television. Children wouldn’t just flick on a computer and see a Madonna look-alike climaxing with a German shepherd. They would have to _look_ for pornography. And the industry was ready to work on software, such as SurfWatch, to help parents keep their kids out of pre-designated areas of the Net. Nothing would be foolproof or teen-proof, of course. Brilliant technologists had designed the Internet to survive 100-megaton H-bombs. “The Net,” said the hacker John Gilmore in an oft-repeated quote, “interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.” Parents’ best response would be at home. Mothers and fathers shouldn’t expect Uncle Sam to play nanny. As Steve Case, president of America Online, noted in connection with his company, parents should never turn their children loose in a city of millions of people. And I believed that the same held true of the Internet. Why should parents count on _everything_ being constantly under control. Put the Net on a leash short enough to suit Exon, and the pornography would still persist—encrypted and on non-Net bulletin boards if nothing else—but legitimate users would suffer. Some Internet providers might even shut down to avoid legal liabilities. Moreover, in an era of global commerce, Washington shouldn’t put America at such a disadvantage. The losses in trade and jobs eventually would reach the billions, given the estimated hundreds of billions of Net-generated business.