Patrick Leahy: “last night the Senate passed, by unanimous consent, the Hatch-Leahy PROTECT Act providing important new tools to fight…”

“last night the Senate passed, by unanimous consent, the Hatch-Leahy PROTECT Act providing important new tools to fight child pornography. I want to take a moment to speak about the passage of this important bill and the effort that it took to get to this point. Although they have recessed subject to the recall of the Speaker of the House, I also want to implore the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives not to miss this important opportunity to pass such important bipartisan legislation as this. In April, I came to the Senate floor and joined Senator Hatch in introducing S. 2520, the PROTECT Act, after the Supreme Court's decision in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (``Free Speech''). Although there were some others who raised constitutional concerns about specific provisions in that bill, I believed--and still believe-- that unlike the Administration proposal, it was a good faith effort to work within the First Amendment. Everyone in the Senate agrees that we should do all we can to protect our children from being victimized by child pornography. That would be an easy debate and vote. The more difficult thing is to write a law that will both do that and will stick. In 1996, when we passed the Child Pornography Prevention Act, ``CPPA'', many warned us that certain provisions of that Act violated the First Amendment. The Supreme Court's recent decision in Free Speech has proven them correct. We should not sit by and do nothing.…”