Computer Pornography
 CMU'S RIMM WON'T TESTIFY AT SENATE

    Researcher's name removed from hearing witness list

 by Lillie Wilson

 Marty Rimm, Carnegie Mellon University's embattled chronicler of
 cyberporn, won't testify at Monday's US Senate Judiciary hearing on
 children and computer porn after all.

 Washington sources close to the committee said Rimm's name was removed
 from the hearing witness list after recently published attacks on
 Rimm's research methods, which the committee felt had discredited the
 study and cast doubts on the ethics of its author.

 Sen Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, called the full judiciary committee
 hearing to address the need for his pending bill, the "Protection of
 Children from Computer Pornography Act of 1995", which would make it a
 crime to knowingly transmit pornographic images to minors.

 Grassley had publicly cited Rimm's 85-page study, _Marketing
 Pornography on the Information Superhighway_, to support his
 legislation.

 Deen Kaplan, a leader of the anti-pornography National Coalition for
 Children and Families who had appeared on ABC's "Nightline" defending
 the study, was also dropped from the witness list, one Washington
 source said.

 The Rimm study was published by the Georgetown Law Journal, a
 publication of Georgetown University Law School, where Kaplan serves
 as a member of the law review.

 The Rimm study -- which did not undergo peer review -- claimed, among
 other charges, that "83.5% of all images posted on Usenet are
 pornographic".  The survey had, in fact, targeted private on-line
 bulletin boards that billed themselves as pornographic or adult -- not
 bulletin boards selected at random.

 Carnegie Mellon has meanwhile launched its own investigation.  As
 "truth and integrity are fundamental" to university research, Provost
 Paul Christiano is about to convene a committee "to examine in more
 detail the issues that have been raised about the study", a recent CMU
 announcement read.

 "They'll be investigating the ethical concerns about the study, and
 the way it was done", CMU spokesman Don Hale said.

 Rimm, a computer science researcher who wrote the controversial study
 last year as a CMU undergraduate, recently hired a lawyer, Hale said.
 The lawyer's name was not available.

 The study, which was highlighted in Time magazine's recent cover story
 on computer pornography, had initially been hailed by a number of
 anti-pornography crusaders, including the Christian Coalition, legal
 scholar Catharine A. MacKinnon and Grassley.

 Grassley's hearing Monday is now slated to include 10 witnesses to
 testify on "Cyberporn and Children: The Scope of the Problem, the
 State of Technology, and the Need for Congressional Action".

 The list includes three parents, an assistant general counsel for a
 commercial on-line service, and a self-described "victim".

 -- Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Saturday, July 22, 1995, p.A1