Michigan May Outlaw Anonymity Online

John Q .Public writes "The Detroit Free press is reporting in this article attempts by Law enforcement in Wayne County and the Michigan State Legislature to require ISP's doing business there to verify all e-mail addresses with valid phone numbers or credit cards. One free ISP already is willing to log all phone numbers for access by the police." That free ISP is K-Mart's BlueLight.com, which is just, in their words, "being a good corporate citizen." I'm sure they'll be very successful at identifying everyone except the criminals.

Comments

What exactly are we trying to solve here?

[locutus074]

While I find the idea of kiddie porn as revolting and disgusting as the next person, this is simply going too far. The slippery-slope implications of something like this are enormous.

I wonder... is this really that much different from someone using an anonymous postal dropbox, and paying cash for it? If the MI police force gets their way, where will it end? I'm simply at a loss for words.

The Misanthropic Bitch has an interesting essay about why laws against child pornography are exactly like 1984 . Unfortunately, I feel that it's nearly impossible to have a civilized discussion about child pornography since emotions tend to run so high on this issue. "We have to do this for the children! Save the children! Won't somebody please think about the children?"

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