I am deeply proud to have served as the Chairman of this distinguished Commission. The Commission has struggled with a difficult and multi-dimensional problem and has emerged with thoughtful and constructive unanimous recommendations that will serve as a blueprint for future action. Each Commissioner has approached the hard work of the Commission with enormous seriousness, collegiality, good will, high energy, and intelligent engagement. It has been, for me, a moving experience to serve with these Commissioners, and I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to facilitate in the Commission's efforts.

The Commission's recommendations not only reflect the will of the Commission but also represent the distillation of an enormous amount of material with which the Commission was presented over the last six months. Our hearings, held in Washington, D.C., Richmond, Virginia, and San Jose, California, were instructive -- there was a great deal to learn about the various technologies and methods studied by the Commission. Commissioners closely questioned witnesses, brought to bear their own rich expertise, and most importantly focused intensely on the questions presented to the Commission by Congress. Our conversations were always constructive, and often animated, and yet a spirit of public service punctuated every meeting.

This discussion is clearly not over. The work of this Commission shows that people holding widely-divergent political points of view can reach consensus as to the strengths and weaknesses of technologies and methods that may help protect America's children from accessing "harmful to minors" material on the Internet. It is my hope that this conversation, held so effectively and with such genuine thoughtfulness among the Commissioners, will continue in many places and among many different groups. The Commission has recommended that the online industry in general have a conversation about the necessity for and efficacy of labeling and rating systems (which may have significant synergistic effects with other technologies), and that the adult content industry in particular have a conversation about regulating itself. These conversations are fundamentally important, and all of us will be well served by continuing constructive exchanges of ideas in the same spirit in which the Commission operated.

I want to take this opportunity to thank my chief of staff, Kristin Litterst of Dittus Communications and her team for their dedication. She was the backbone of this Commission and I owe her an immense debt of gratitude. I would also like to express my gratitude to Network Solutions, Inc for its support of Ms. Litterst and her staff. Finally, I wish to thank David Johnson and Susan Crawford, my counsel, of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, for their never-ending wisdom and the river of creative ideas they supplied to the Commission. The efforts of Mr. Johnson and Ms. Crawford were pro bono contributions to me. This support was facilitated by Mr. Lloyd Cutler, founder of that firm, resulting from our discussions of the importance of the COPA challenge.

In the pages that follow, each COPA Commissioner has been afforded an opportunity to provide their individual personal view of the work of this Commission and the position they would have taken if acting alone. The range of views these statements reflect render our unanimous recommendations all the more remarkable.