Senate Votes to Ban Smut From On-Line Networks : Communications: Jail terms up to 2 years and fines of $100,000 for transmitting indecent material win approval, 84 to 16. The measure also restricts children’s access.

WASHINGTON — Amid mounting public concern over smut in cyberspace, the Senate on Wednesday approved a measure that would curb transmission of indecent material over the Internet and restrict children’s access to on-line computer services.

As part of broad legislation that would overhaul the nation’s telecommunications laws, the Senate approved by a vote of 84 to 16 an amendment that would impose prison terms of up to two years and fines of up to $100,000 for anyone who knowingly makes available over an electronic network “any obscene communication in any form including any comment . . . or image.”

The Senate also approved a last-minute provision that will require on-line computer services to restrict children’s access to so-called indecent materials, such as chat lines or photos, by requiring users to verify their age with a personal identification number.

The Senate also moved Wednesday to toughen anti-smut sanctions on other media. It increased, from $10,000 to $100,000, the maximum fine that the Federal Communications Commission could levy against broadcasters and cable TV operators for transmitting indecent material.

A final vote on the Senate’s sweeping telecommunications bill is expected today. The House is expected to pass a companion measure soon, but its version currently contains nothing about obscenity. The differences between the two versions will have to be reconciled, and the two houses will vote again before the measure goes to President Clinton.

If the various provisions are ultimately approved by both houses of Congress and signed by the President, Americans could find it harder to see titillating or violent fare on broadcast or cable television, access “blue” material with their computer modems, or send illicit messages over the Internet. The crackdown, observers say, represents the most aggressive effort by Capitol Hill lawmakers to combat smut in the electronic media in recent memory.

The Clinton Administration, the American Civil Liberties Union and computer-user groups all oppose the anti-smut efforts in cyberspace.

“When it comes to the Internet, some people act as if the Bill of Rights doesn’t exist at all,” said Jamie Love, director of the Taxpayers Assets Project, a Washington nonprofit group active on computer issues.

Critics question the constitutionality of the Senate action, saying the moves would likely be overturned by the courts if signed into law. A group of senators tried to defeat the anti-smut measures on the grounds that they were unconstitutional, but their efforts failed.

Congressional concern over computer on-line services has been fueled by the recent disappearance of a 13-year-old Kentucky girl, who was apparently lured from home by an e-mail message sent over the America Online computer network.

Although the girl was taken into custody by Los Angeles police earlier this week, her travails and that of other children have focused nationwide attention on the dangers that confront children with access to computer chat and e-mail services that can contain sexually explicit messages.

Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas, the front-running candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, ignited a national debate over sex and violence in the media last month after giving a speech in Los Angeles, where he attacked Hollywood for producing movies and music that amount to “nightmares of depravity” drenched in violence and sex.

Polls later showed that Dole struck a chord with Americans by accusing the entertainment industry of marketing images of evil to American youths in what he termed a blatant quest for profits.

Wednesday’s anti-smut efforts capped a week in which the Senate also approved a measure requiring all new TV sets to contain a computer chip that will allow parents to block out programming electronically labeled as objectionable by broadcasters.

The sex-and-violence issue has unexpectedly gained center stage in the debate over a bill that deals mainly with arcane, but important, communications issues. The Senate bill would curb federal control of cable TV rates and deregulate the local telephone, long-distance and cable industries by letting them compete in each other’s markets.

It would also do away with broadcast cross-ownership rules and remove longstanding restrictions on foreign ownership of telecommunications companies as long as other countries remove theirs.

It was unclear how the Senate’s Internet restriction might apply to a computer network that stretches around the globe and is used by millions of computer operators outside the reach of U.S. laws.

Meanwhile, broadcasters, cable operators and TV manufacturers are gearing up to fight the “choice chip” amendment passed Tuesday by the Senate, which would require a ratings system for television programs and oblige all televisions makers to add electronic blocking chips to the sets.

Cynthia Upson, a vice president at the Washington-based Electronic Industries Assn., said the industry favors a voluntary standard because putting chips into all TV sets immediately would be too costly.