Although neither Hart nor Hughes has ever divulged the details of their relationship, Hughes was depicted as an adulterous bimbo. That portrayal is a far cry from the articulate and intelligent advocate for a porn-free Internet who penned "Kids Online: Protecting Your Children in Cyberspace" and has her own Web site. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of South Carolina.

Hughes successfully avoided the press in the years after the Hart scandal, married and became a born-again Christian. She reemerged in 1995 at a briefing on Capitol Hill sponsored by Enough Is Enough, a nonprofit organization opposed to porn on the Internet.

Green recently spoke with Hughes, who's now a consultant for FamilyClick, an Internet service provider that filters what it considers offensive and inappropriate. An easygoing person who laughs a lot, Hughes comes across as someone who's come to terms with the reason behind her fame but isn't trying to capitalize on it.

You've become an advocate for children's online safety, and lobbied Congress to pass the Communications Decency Act in 1995. How did you became interested in this area?

Within a few weeks of joining the staff of Enough Is Enough, I began to track a pornographer who was operating a very lucrative bulletin board service. The pornography he was marketing was prosecutable as obscenity. It was material that an adult wouldn't be able to find in an X-rated bookstore. This pornographer and others, as well as collectors of this type of pornography, were using Usenet to barter and trade and sell material. I told my boss that if this continues, and it migrates to the Web, we're going to have a problem in that material that adults can't even get on the seedy side of town at a pornographic bookstore, children will be able to get for free with a couple of mouse clicks, and I want to work on this.

How did you come to write "Kids Online"?

I was approached by the publisher.

That's flattering.

Yeah, it was. Oddly enough, I was almost finished writing it when I was approached by another publisher to write a similar book. Of course, they didn't know that I was already writing this book. There are a number of books on this subject, but I suppose the visibility that I've had and the way I've tried to position this issue was unique -- at least the publisher thought it was unique enough to turn it into a book.

Do you get paid for being on the Commission on Child Online Protection?

Oh, no. It's a tremendous amount of public service -- many of us joke about not having time for our day jobs. It's a congressional appointment and a wonderful privilege. There's a lot of work to be done. Interestingly enough, talking about money, we're all scratching our heads as to how the commission didn't receive any funding from Congress.

Do you earn a lot from making speeches?

Well, I'm not a professional speaker. It varies from nothing to about $2,000 -- which is probably the most I've ever accepted, but that's not the norm. If it's something I feel strongly enough about, money is not the issue. But if somebody wanted to pay me a lot of money, that would be great.

Let's talk about money. Do you manage your portfolio?

No. I've always had a stockbroker. I'm not very hands-on. I haven't really had the time or the interest to become an expert, and I'm just one of these people whose focus is so much on my work and my family.

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