For Immediate Release August 18, 2003	Contact: Clyde Ensslin or Ranjit de Silva, 202-482-7002

TODAY'S INTERNET BLOCKING AND FILTERING TECHNOLOGY CAPABLE OF MEETING NEEDS OF MOST EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS, NTIA REPORT SAYS Internet blocking and filtering technologies available today have the capacity to meet most, if not all, of the needs and concerns that educational institutions have relative to protecting children from obscenity, pornography or other harmful content, according to a report prepared for Congress by the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). Commenters who filed letters with NTIA expressed an "overwhelming satisfaction with the development and effectiveness" of Internet child safety policies, the report says. Mandated by Section 1703 of the Children's Internet Protection Act of 2000 (CIPA), the report says that educational institutions would benefit from greater awareness of the technology products available and would also benefit from more training. Educators often do not know how to disable blocking and filtering technology, the report says. NTIA made two recommendations to Congress in the report: 1) technology vendors should offer training services to educational institutions on specific features of their products; and 2) CIPA's definition of "technology protection measures" should be expanded to include additional technologies in order to encompass a wider array of technological measures to protect children from inappropriate content. The full text of the report, and letters filed by commenters, are available at the NTIA's Web site at http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/ntiageneral/cipa2003/index.html. ###