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U.S. SENATORS HILLARY CLINTON (D-NY), JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D-CT) AND EVAN BAYH (D-IN) HOLD A NEWS CONFERENCE ON THE SALE OF INAPPROPRIATE VIDEO GAMES TO CHILDREN(Political Transcript Wire) SENATORS CLINTON, LIEBERMAN AND BAYH HOLD A NEWS CONFERENCE ON THE SALE OF INAPPROPRIATE VIDEO GAMES TO CHILDREN DECEMBER 16, 2005 SPEAKERS: U.S. SENATOR HILLARY CLINTON (D-NY) U.S. SENATOR JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D-CT) U.S. SENATOR EVAN BAYH (D-IN) [*] CLINTON: Thank you all for being here. I'm here today as a parent and a senator, and along with my colleagues and so many of the advocates from around the country, we are determined to stop a situation in which video games with pornographic and violent content are being peddled to our children. Today I'm announcing, along with my colleagues, Senator Lieberman and Bayh, the Family Entertainment Protection Act. This bill will prohibit the sale of violent and sexually explicit video games to minors and will give parents the tools they need to make informed decisions. Now, as the holiday season is upon us, this is a particularly important time to raise awareness of this issue. Video games are hot holiday items, and I understand that. They are certainly entertaining and even educational in many instances. They can help our children learn. They can increase hand and eye coordination. But it is also clear that there are games that are just not appropriate for children. And busy parents are looking for some guidance all the time, but especially during this hectic holiday season. Now, as you can see from the posters that we have displayed here, many games contain content that is deeply disturbing. It's almost routine in popular games for players to spray other people with Uzis, to drive over pedestrians, to kill police officers, to attack women, and in some cases even to engage in cannibalism. Players commit gruesome acts like these using top-of-the-line graphics in stunningly realistic detail. Now, it is up to adults whether they wish to expose themselves to this type of violence and pornography. But we have 40 years of research to tell us that violent media is bad for our children. CLINTON: According to the most comprehensive statistical analysis yet conducted, violent video games increase aggressive behavior as much as lead exposure decreases children's I.Q. scores. And I want people to think about that. Everybody knows lead poisoning is bad for children. Well, I want everybody to know that exposure to violent video games is also bad for children. There was testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee in 2000 that playing video games -- violent video games -- accounts for a 13 percent to 22 percent increase in teenagers' violent behavior. Yet we know that such games are easily accessible. A recent study by the National Institute on Media and the Family found that children between the ages of 9 and 14 were able to purchase M-rated video games nearly 50 percent of the time. Furthermore, nearly a quarter of retailers didn't even understand the ratings they were supposed to enforce. And only half of the stores surveyed train employees in the use of the rating. Well, we need to do better, and that's why we're introducing the Family Entertainment Protection Act. And let me be very, very clear: This legislation is not about government censorship or regulation of content. Quite simply, it is about protecting children and empowering parents. We need to treat violent video games the way we treat tobacco, alcohol and pornography. We know that these products are damaging to children, and we need to give parents the tools to keep them out of kids' hands. If you put it just really simply, these violent video games are stealing the innocence of our children. And it is certainly making the job of being a parent even more difficult. So the time has come to put on the brakes and to just insist that parents know what material is in the video games their children play and to pass laws with real teeth that will send a clear message that we really do mean business. CLINTON: I'm pleased now to introduce Norman Rosenberg, who is the president and CEO of Parents' Action for Children, a nonpartisan network of parents founded by the actor and director Rob Reiner. Parents' Action for Children mobilizes parents to stand up for policies that put children and families first. And Mr. Rosenberg has certainly done that in his 30 years of advocacy on behalf of children's welfare. He first came to Washington in 1977 when he fought for the rights of children with disabilities. He's a native New Yorker and brought up in New York City, graduate of the State University of New York at Buffalo and a former professor in SUNY-Buffalo's School of Law, where he taught family law and juvenile justice. And finally, what makes him even more qualified to be here today is he is the father of twin boys, just like Senator Bayh. So Mr. Rosenberg looks at the effect of violence and pornographic video games on children in a very personal way. So please join me in welcoming Norman Rosenberg. Norman? NORMAN ROSENBERG, PRESIDENT AND CEO, PARENTS' ACTION FOR CHILDREN: Thank you, Senator Clinton. As the senator says, Parents' Action for Children is an organization which is seeking to have parents heard by decision-makers around issues of critical importance to them, critical importance to child development, family stability and family well-being. As I have traveled around the country in connection with my work, talking to parents about a range of issues, I have found few that get parents as angry and as frustrated as the assault on them and their children from violent, racist and sexually explicit video games. Kids love video games, there's no question about it. As the senator said, my 11-year-old twin boys love them and they play them. In limited doses, and if you're careful about the content of these games, many of them are just fine. What's not fine, however, is when young kids are allowed to play games that glamorize and reward violence against women, hate crimes, murdering of police officers. And it's certainly not fine that young kids can walk into major retailers across the country and easily purchase games no matter how old they are -- 10-year-olds, 12-year-olds, 14-, 15-year-olds. As an organization founded, as Senator Clinton said, by a filmmaker -- and somebody who cares very deeply about freedom of expression and the protection of the First Amendment -- we approach this issue, nevertheless, with a great deal of enthusiasm and vigor. ROSENBERG: Video game producers have every right to manufacture and to sell their games. But just as we don't allow children to buy cigarettes or alcohol, as a society we simply cannot turn away when the product in question is violent video games, games that researchers increasingly showed are very, very closely linked to aggressive and antisocial behavior of all kinds. Manufacturers and retailers take the position that parents are responsible for monitoring what their children do. Well, as parents, of course we take that responsibility. But it's very clear that we can't do it alone. The Family Entertainment Protection Act gives parents the tools they need to do their job. It bans the sale of violent games with ratings of "mature," "adult only," or "pending ratings," to our kids. And it establishes a meaningful ratings system for parents to use so that they can judge the content of those games. No parent can know what their children are doing every hour, every minute of the day, especially given the realities of life in this country with parents working so hard to make ends meet. If the culture around us allows kids to easily purchase video games that are full of hate, extreme violence, graphic sexual content, we as parents are forever going to be in the position of having to fight against our own culture. We need to feel that our society is working for us, not working to undermine us. Parents' Action for Children thanks Senator Clinton, Senator Lieberman and Bayh for answering the call of America's parents for government policies that help parents raise our kids. On behalf of our parent members, we pledge our support for passage of this very important legislation. Thank you. CLINTON: Thank you very much, Norman. ROSENBERG: And it's, I understand, my pleasure to introduce... CLINTON: Go ahead, yes. ROSENBERG: Oh, you're welcome to do it. CLINTON: No, no, go ahead. (LAUGHTER) ROSENBERG: ... Senator Lieberman, a great parent and a great champion of this issue. LIEBERMAN: Thanks very much, Doctor. I apologize for my voice. I'm fighting with a cold. LIEBERMAN: I'm delighted to be here. And I particularly want to thank my colleague and dear friend Senator Clinton for taking the leadership on this very, very important issue -- important to America's children, America's families and America generally. Because remember that we are not only here trying to protect our children from the impact of the most violent and over-the-edge video games, we are trying to protect the rest of society from antisocial behavior that those children stimulated by those games may carry out against others. This is a real problem. It's a real problem in another way. I was just part of an announcement a few weeks ago with a group that did a survey, actually sent in juveniles as testers into major retailing establishments to see if they could buy video games that were clearly rated as unobtainable and unacceptable by them. And the rate in most of the stores of their ability to do that was jarring. In other words, it's all too easy to do it. So this proposal, this Family Entertainment Protection Act, speaks to a very important need and does it in a very reasonable way. It takes the industry's own rating system, the video game industry's own rating system, which is one of the most comprehensive out there, and simply says to retailers in America, you've got to live by that rating system. And as Dr. Rosenberg said, people say it's up to the parents. Of course it's up to us parents. But it's also up to the retailers, as it is up, hopefully, to the video game producers to show some sense of limits about what they produce. And that's the simple and common-sense intention of this legislation, to say to retailers: If you're selling video games that, because of their violence or sexual content, are rated by the industry itself as unacceptable for children, to our children, then you're going to be fined. We're going to put some teeth into the rating system. LIEBERMAN: I know people will always say, as Senator Clinton said, that this is somehow an abridgement of constitutional rights. This is not at all a curtailment of our First Amendment. It is a protection of our first priority, which is America's children. I am delighted to be part of this introduction. Again, I thank Senator Clinton. I thank the parents' groups that are here. I want to give a special welcome to April Delaney (ph), who, with her husband John, were neighbors and remained dear friends of my wife. And neither the Delaneys (ph) nor the Liebermans have twins. (LAUGHTER) But we do have a lot of children. (LAUGHTER) Thank you very much. CLINTON: Our other co-sponsor... (CROSSTALK) (LAUGHTER) LIEBERMAN: Together we will introduce the great senator from Indiana, and a great dad, too, Evan Bayh. BAYH: Thank you. CLINTON: Father of twins, sure enough. BAYH: That's probably the most important credential I've got, Joe, so thank you for that. I am so pleased to join with my colleagues who I've known for so many years and have had the pleasure of working with on so many issues, but none more important than the one we've gathered to advocate today. Let me just begin by observing that, very often around here, we come to podiums like this to discuss with you the economic prosperity of our country or the importance of restoring our nation's finances. And those things are important. Very often we come to press conferences like this to talk about our nation's security and what we need to do to protect ourselves in a dangerous world. That, too, is vitally important. But all of those things will lack meaning if we allow ourselves to become a nation that is not also healthy and decent and the kind of place in which we can raise our children to share our values. And that is all too often in peril today by the proliferation of these graphic, violent video games. And we've heard discussed by academic experts and my colleagues the evidence. Forty percent of kids as young as 9 can go into these stores and buy videos that involve assassinations of political figures, shootings of police officers, dismemberment of other human beings, degrading behavior toward women. Of course this has an effect on children who are 9, 10, 11 years old. We know that it does, and the scientific evidence is now backing that up, in places like Iowa, Indiana University's medical school, Harvard, many other eminent institutions. And as you heard my colleagues mention, the voluntary system just isn't working well enough. Fifty percent of retailers don't even train their employees in what the system requires. BAYH: And as we've said, the problem isn't when parents go in, it's when the kids go in by themselves and they can get their hands on this kind of thing. Senator Clinton mentioned this as particularly topical, and it is. Fifty percent of video games are purchased between Thanksgiving and Christmas -- half. So it's an important time for us to elevate the public's consciousness -- parents, producers, retailers, all of us -- about getting our act together to do right by our children. Let me just conclude by summarizing, I'll tell you what I think, at the bottom line, this really is all about. We decided many years ago that pornography, graphic sexual content, was bad for our kids, and it is. The time has come to conclude that graphic violence is also bad for our children, because we now know that it is. This is not about the censorship; it's about empowering parents to make the right decisions for our kids. And the final thing I'd say, as both Joe and Hillary mentioned, is that, look, the First Amendment protections lie at the heart of our country and must not be sacrificed. But they must not also become an altar upon which our children's innocence is sacrificed. This legislation today protects both of those values in a way that is good for America. And that's why I'm proud to be here with my colleagues to do something about that. And I thank them both for their leadership in this important area. I'm now privileged to introduce Dr. Michael Rich, who is the director of the Center of Media and Child Health at Children's Hospital in Boston. He's also a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. In our part of the world we kind of refer to that as the Indiana University of the East. (LAUGHTER) So, Mike, we're grateful to you. And he's going to discuss with us, you know, some of the evidence here, the real evidence about the impact of violent video games on children. Doctor, thank you. MICHAEL RICH, DIRECTOR, THE CENTER OF MEDIA AND CHILD HEALTH, CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL, BOSTON, MA: As a pediatrician and as a parent, though not of twins -- I apologize, I'm the odd man out -- I thank the senators for having the foresight to pull this bill together and introduce it. RICH: With the Family Entertainment Protection Act, Senators Clinton, Lieberman and Bayh have recognized a clear and present public health threat and have had the courage and compassion to create a child-protection law for the new information age. Health researchers have long recognized the influence of electronic media on children and adolescents. Hundreds of studies conducted in disciplines ranging from public health to developmental psychology to criminal justice have shown again and again that children's exposure to violent media is associated with increased fear and anxiety, desensitization to the suffering of others, and a significantly greater likelihood of becoming violent themselves. The effects are particularly profound in children, who, early on, are developmentally incapable of distinguishing fantasy from reality and who are constantly learning about the world and how to succeed in it from whatever source they're exposed to. Media, which they use for more time each day on average than they are in school, are an important window on the world for the developing child. Research has shown again and again that witnessing violence is the single strongest predictor of becoming violent yourself. Interactive electronic games are a relatively new technology, and there is limited, but growing, research on them. Much of the research we have over the past 50 years has been done on the effects of viewing television. Is playing a video game the same as watching television? No. Video games take the experience one step further, placing the player in a kill-or-be-killed environment. The player not only witnesses violence, but is trained and rewarded for doing violence. Like flight simulators for pilots, video games place their players in virtual realities, teaching and rehearsing them over and over again in the acts that they need to master in order to survive and thrive, all in the name of entertainment. Psychologists call such repetitive actions, where behaviors are done again and again with rewards for success, behavioral scripts. They are rehearsing the way they're going to live their lives. Whether the user is learning to fly or learning to kill, he or she has the opportunity to do it again and again until it becomes reflexive, efficient and unemotional. More than 30 years ago, the U.S. surgeon general reviewed the scientific research to date at that time and reported that violence viewed on television contributed to violent behavior in children. This was followed 10 years later by a similar study for the National Institute of Mental Health that made the same findings. RICH: The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry put together in the year 2000 a very rare consensus statement -- trying to get doctors to agree is a work onto itself. But that statement said that the conclusion of the public health community, which they represented, based on over 30 years of research, is that viewing entertainment violence can lead to increases in aggressive attitudes, values and behavior, particularly in children. Its effects are measurable and longlasting. We're fortunate to live in a time and a society that are guided by reason, compassion and the rights guaranteed by our democracy. Learning from the findings of health research, we try to raise our children to be healthy and safe, giving them milk to grow strong bones, de-leading our homes, and teaching them of tobacco's dangers. However, research has shown a stronger correlation between viewing violent media and aggressive behavior than exists between calcium consumption and bone density, between lead ingestion and lower I.Q.s, between passive smoke and lung cancer. Now, as a doctor, all of those things I accept as fact, and I guide my patients and their families on behavior consistent with those facts. But until now, we as a society have not recognized or responded to the powerful effects of violent media, and we have an ongoing epidemic of violence and more children on psychiatric medications than ever before in history. This is not the first attempt to create legislation to protect children from violent electronic games. Parents and citizens across the country have recognized the problems and have attempted to craft policy to reflect and respond to this concern. Cities such as Indianapolis and St. Louis and states from Washington to Illinois have passed laws to restrict violent video game sales only to adults. To date, each has been ruled unconstitutional on the basis of the First Amendment. Yet, our society has decided to restrict children's access, limiting sales to those over 18. There's far more scientific evidence of the damage caused by violent media to the physical, mental and social health of children. In order to prevail, however, it is clear that more sophisticated and focused research on the damage caused by violent media to the physical, mental and social health of children is necessary. The Children in Media Research Advancement Act sponsored in part by some of the senators with me here today will provide for such research, and should be passed into law. Just as science has guided us to incorporate infant car seats, safety belts and bicycle helmets into our children's lives, these senators have shown the foresight, compassion and leadership to give parents and other caring adults the tools and the power to choose what their children will be exposed to and to learn from. RICH: Freedom of speech is, as we have all said, a core tenet of our society and is to be protected at all costs. But freedom from fear, especially for those who are most vulnerable, is equally central to a compassionate society. The Family Entertainment Protection Act does not censor video games. It simply limits their sale to those who are old enough to make a mature decision on the risks and benefits of playing the game. Without infringing on game creators' freedom of speech or their ability to profit from their creations, this act will restore to parents their ability to protect the health and social development of their children so that they can grow up healthy, safe and free. Thank you. CLINTON: April Delaney, who's already been referred to, is the director of government relations at Common Sense Media. April? APRIL MCCLAIN-DELANEY, DIRECTOR OF GOVERNMENT RELATIONS, COMMON SENSE MEDIA: Hi. I'm April McClain-Delaney. I am the director of the Washington office for Common Sense Media. With 3 million Web users on our commonsensemedia.org Web site, we rate for age appropriateness all forms of media for children. We're the leading nonpartisan nonprofit in the United States looking at these issues and improving media lives. Common Sense Media is very excited and pleased to support this legislation, which we find vital in the well-being and health of our nation's children. We commend Senators Clinton, Lieberman and Bayh for taking this important legislation action. In general, we look at this as a common-sense approach to promote informed decision-making by our parents. And in so doing, they are able to figure out what they want in their own home and able to look at these video games individually as a family. We and our colleagues have consulted with constitutional experts across the country in helping draft this legislation. We believe it protects the cognitive, social, emotional and physical well-being of the children in America. MCCLAIN-DELANEY: We think that this legislation is also narrowly tailored and carefully drafted, so that it fits the purpose of protecting the compelling state interest of the nation's children and well-being. I might add that this legislation does not -- I repeat -- does not restrict adults from buying this or various video gamers from producing it. It only limits children from buying it who are under the age of 17. We commend and support gamers having the ability to distribute and create these games and to fulfill their creative visions. However, like those who have spoken before, we believe that there are several and serious health implications, including impacts on the cognitive and social and psychological impacts of kids. Having said the foregoing, we think media is fun. We like media and we like video games. And we have compiled at the back of the room a list of the best out there. We think that you can go out and find age-appropriate video games for your children and that they will, in turn, be approved by those parents in the household. At the end of the day, we don't think this is a Republican issue, a Democratic issue; it's a bipartisan issue. And at Common Sense Media, we think this is about being kid-partisan, respecting First Amendment freedoms and cherishing those things that we hold dear, but also looking out for the health and safety and welfare of our children in this country. Thank you. And we have additional information at the back of the room. CLINTON: Thank you very much. And, April, aren't these some of the recommendations that you make, right here, for videos that families can trust? MCCLAIN-DELANEY: We have several recommendations. And then we also kind of talk about some of the ones that we felt maybe were "M" or "O" in classification. CLINTON: So I guess to sum it all up, what our bill does is to make it a federal misdemeanor to sell or rent or attempt to sell or rent to a minor any video game that is rated "Mature" or "Adults Only" by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board. Whoever violates this statute shall be fined $1,000 or 100 hours of community service for the first offense and $5,000 or 500 hours for each subsequent offense. And the people responsible under this law will be the store managers, those who are responsible for training and supervising employees in the local store -- not the clerk, not the part-time high school student who is on duty when somebody comes in to buy. This goes to the people at the retail level who are responsible for what happens in their store. So we're very committed to this. We're going to work hard on it. But more than that, we just want to send a message this holiday season, so that retailers can begin to do this on their own, so that we don't have 50 percent of kids inappropriately being able to buy "M" or "AO" video games when they really shouldn't. So we'd be happy to take any of your questions about this. QUESTION: How are you going to deal with the problem of several courts in several states that ruled these laws unconstitutional, saying they (OFF-MIKE). Is there something in your law that (OFF- MIKE) CLINTON: Well, you know, as someone said earlier -- and I'm sure that both Joe and Evan may want to comment on this -- is that our bill puts teeth into the standards that have already been set by the industry. The industry has already said it will live by these standards. And yet we're finding that they are not endorsed. And we believe that if we put this authority into the hands of parents to make informed decisions, which is an approach we think the Supreme Court has in the past and would in the future approve, then in order for that to be possible, for them to be empowered, you have to get assistance at the retail level. So we don't see this as a constitutional issue. We're aware of the fact that some of the statutes, as they were drafted and defended, have been enjoined. There hasn't been a final decision yet. But certainly we think that our bill gets around the constitutional problems, because it doesn't impinge First Amendment rights of either adults or those who produce video games. It just holds adults to a standard to enforce the very criteria that were used to determine which of these games are appropriate for kids. CLINTON: Joe, do you want to take this? LIEBERMAN: I would just first add a note of -- if I can say -- irony at the beginning. That is, generally speaking, courts in America have not been hesitant to uphold laws that limit children's access to pornography. It is very ironic that these courts -- two courts -- have now struck down attempts to limit children's access to violent materials, which is, arguably, at least as harmful. But the more direct answer is I think the one that Senator Clinton gave, that this is -- in fact, we can talk a little legal lingo here. When it comes to the First Amendment, courts generally apply strict scrutiny tests, and you've got to narrowly tailor the restrictions. These restrictions are very narrowly tailored. And, in fact, there are no restrictions on free expression. The restrictions are simply on the sale of this material to minors. And the final word is there has not been a final court decision, certainly not by the Supreme Court. There is, as Dr. Rich, Dr. Rosenberg have indicated, a growing body of scientific evidence about the connection between the playing of violent video games and violent behavior. And I'm confident that the proposal that we are making here today, therefore, is constitutional. MCCLAIN-DELANEY: At Common Sense Media, we did look at this issue. There are eight states which have passed legislation and given jurisdictions on this. It's pending. There are eight states that have introduced legislation. Eight states have passed it, as well as the District of Columbia. The three injunctions in question are pending. But they are preliminary. And if I say preliminary, a full hearing with all of the health evidence. And I agree with Senators Clinton and Bayh that I think when the health evidence is out there, all the compelling evidence is there, that there is a growing body in support of this. BAYH: Thank you, April. Joe and Hillary have touched upon this. This is a case where the courts need to catch up with the scientific data. It is simply not sustainable to say that we're going to treat graphic sexual content one way but graphic violent content another in light of developing evidence that they both have harmful effects for children. That's the bottom line here, and that's why I think ultimately we'll prevail. QUESTION: Ms. Delaney brought up the point about this being a kid-partisan issue. I'm just wondering, is there any members of the Senate -- I was wondering why there aren't any Republican members of the Senate (OFF-MIKE) CLINTON: Well, we expect to pick up cosponsors on both sides of the aisle. We wanted to get this introduced before we ended the season, particularly because it is the holiday season and this information, we believe, is helpful to parents so that they are vigilant about the decisions that they make with respect to buying the right kind of video games for their children. But we'll be pushing very hard on this after we come back after the 1st of the year. QUESTION: Could you talk about the use of the bully pulpit to send a message (OFF-MIKE). Senator Lieberman, you've been holding these press conferences for 10 years and the games get worse and worse. How effective is this (OFF-MIKE) (CROSSTALK) LIEBERMAN: I'd say this. In fact, the number of games that have gotten better has gone up, in my opinion, and that's what most of the experts who look at this. There are a lot of very good, enjoyable, challenging video games out there. But the bad ones have gotten worse, and the "worse" in part is because the technology of video games has been much improved, so the games are much more lifelike. LIEBERMAN: The other fact, sadly, is that, you know, just as there can be -- there are all kinds of competitions. When you get into this niche where you're competing for over-the-edge video game experiences, people keep one-upping each other. So, as Senator Clinton said, and I've seen some of these out this year, some of the games are actually featuring cannibalism now. It's just really unbelievable. So I'd like to think that one thing the bully pulpit does is to educate parents. And I think Senator Clinton wanted to do this announcement now because this is the time when most parents are buying video games for their kids -- and to keep in mind that a lot of these games, most of them, are great, but some of them are really threatening to our kids and others who interact with the kids. Maybe I'll put a final word in for the bully pulpit. The ESRB ratings system itself was a reaction to an early round of, shall I say, sermons from the bully pulpit. And it is a good ratings system -- so good that we're prepared to hold retailers accountable to it. QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) in regards to the Patriot Act? (LAUGHTER) LIEBERMAN: That's A.O. rated. (LAUGHTER) CLINTON: Thank you all very much. END |