Internet Censorship Supported by Both Candidates

LEHRER: New issue. New issue, and the question will be asked by Joyce Klinger (ph) of Governor Bush.

Joyce Klinger (ph)? There you are.

BUSH: Hi, Joyce.

QUESTION: Yes, hi, Governor. I\'m very concerned about the morality of our country now. TV, movies, the music that our children are--are, you know, barraged with every day. And I want to know if there\'s anything that can be worked out with the--Hollywood or whoever to help get rid of some of this bad language and the--whatever, you know. It\'s just bringing the country down. And our children are very important to us. And we\'re concerned about their education at school. We should be concerned about their education at home, also.

BUSH: Yes.

QUESTION: Thank you.

BUSH: I appreciate that question. Laura and I are proud parents of teenage girls, twin daughters, and I know what you\'re saying.

Government ought to stand on the side of parents. Parents are teaching their children right from wrong, and the message oftentimes gets undermined by the popular culture.

You bet there\'s things the government can do. We can work with the entertainment industry to provide family hour. We can have filters on Internets where public money is spent. There ought to be filters in public libraries, and filters in public schools, so that if kids get on the Internet, there\'s not going to be pornography or violence coming in.

I think we ought to have character education in our schools. I know that doesn\'t directly talk about Hollywood, but it does reinforce the values you\'re teaching. I\'d greatly expand character education funding, so that public schools will teach children values, values which have stood the test of time.

There\'s after-school money available. I think that after-school money ought to be available for faith-based programs, and charitable programs that exist because somebody has heard the call to love a neighbor like you\'d like to be loved yourself. That will help reinforce the values that parents teach at home as well.

I just--ours is a great land. And one of the reasons why, is because we\'re free. And so, I don\'t support censorship. But I do believe that we ought to talk plainly to the Hollywood moguls and people who produce this stuff, and explain the consequences. I think we need to have rating systems that are clear. And I happen to like the idea of having technology for the TV, easy for parents to use, so you can tune out these programs that you don\'t want in your house.

But I\'m going to remind mothers and dads: The best weapon is the off-on button, and paying attention to your children and eating dinner with them. And being--I\'m sorry...

LEHRER: That\'s all right.

BUSH: ... showing my peer relation.

GORE: My turn.

LEHRER: Vice President Gore?

GORE: I care a lot about this. It\'s not just movies, television, video games, music, the Internet. Parents now feel like you have to compete with the mass culture in order to raise your kids with the values that you want them to have.

Tipper and I have four children. And God bless them, everyone of them decided on their own to come here this evening. I don\'t want to embarrass our oldest daughter, she and her husband made us grandparents almost a year and a half ago. And yet, if she\'ll forgive me, when she was little, she brought a record home that had some awful lyrics in it. And Tipper hit the ceiling. And that launched a campaign to try to get the record companies to put ratings that--warning labels for parents. And I\'m so proud of what she accomplished in getting them on there.

I\'ve been involved myself in negotiating and helping to move along the negotiations with the Internet service providers to get a parents\' protection page every time 95 percent of the pages come up. And a feature that allows parents to automatically check, with one click, what sites your kids have visited lately.

You know, some parents are worried about those filters, that you\'ll have to ask your kids how to put them on there.

(LAUGHTER)

But if you can check up on them, then you--that\'s real power.

And recently the Federal Trade Commission pointed out that some of these entertainment companies have warned parents that the material is inappropriate for children, and then they turned around behind the backs of the parents and advertised that same adult material directly to children. That is an outrage.

Joe Lieberman and I gave them six months to clean up their act. And if they don\'t do it, we\'re going to ask for tougher authority in the hands of the FTC on the false and deceptive advertising.

I\'ll tell you this: I want to do something about this--respect the First Amendment--but I will do something to help you raise your kids without that garbage.

LEHRER: Vice President, all right.