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Supreme Court To Review Child Online Protection Act
Samer writes: "Reuters is reporting that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal by the DoJ on the Child Online Protection Act of 1998. The story quotes the acting Solicitor General as saying that adult verification services, which cost the user money, represent an acceptable "price to pay for protecting children from the harmful effects of graphic pornographic images"."
That is an education issue. If people would be more open about sex, rather than being embarassed about it, children would know and understand about these things. Of course, people's embarassment stems from their parents own mishandling of the whole sex things. Do bear in mind that for a long time in the west and still in most of the world, children would share a room with their parents and babies were still being born. Were our ancestors all "screwed up" by this constant intrusion of sex into their lives?
In addition, it's often felt that pornography portrays an unhealthy sexual relationship, and should not be shown to people too young to understand the fantasy element of it.
How do you define an "unhealthy sexual relationship"? In many cases, people will invoke religious principles to define it. Well, not everyone shares those morals. Many people will grow up and spend a period of their life having meaningless sexual relationships. And there's nothing wrong with that (though it's not a lifestyle I subscribe to myself). And then, many "Christian" families are having "unhealthy sexual relationships", staying together "for the children" in the face of no love, spousal abuse, extra-marital affairs. What's going to affect a child more, 30 minutes of video or 18 years of constant exposure to the interaction of their mother and father (or surrogates)
Children shouldn't be allowed to see porn, just as children should not be allowed to see violence. Most can't deal with it
What's to "deal with"? So there's a man and a woman having sex on the TV screen? Big deal. If you have passed puberty, it'll get you horny. So what? Whaen you're going through puberty, drying paint will get you horny.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to be showing porn to my daughter after dinner. And I will probably do my best to avoid her being exposed to the stuff (including controlling her internet access until she's old enough). But if she happens to come across some while browsing around, I will sit her down and explain it to her, not have some screaming fit about it.
And yes, I am posting anonymously, not because I am ashamed of what I have to say, but I am concerned about the way some people may respond to this posting. If you have something to say, you can say it on Slashdot.
R
How trustworthy are these electronic age verification services? I have a feeling that the attourney general's office will be none too swift in prosecuting the fraudulent ones.
Besides, when I search for porn, I want to be as anonymous as possible. Verified Age means verified identity-- and verified identity is more harmeful to privacy than even the most insidious doubleclick cookie.
"But right now, I wouldn't even be able to let him go to the library alone because there are no controls installed there."
It's called "letting go". It's called "trust". If you teach your kids right from wrong, spend time with them, and show them how to do things the right way, there's a good chance they'll pick up on it.
But kids will be kids. They will get in trouble. They will do things they're not supposed to do. It's their way of exploring their environment and their society.
I remember when I was in middle school, we had an overnight party - there were maybe 8 of us there, all good, decent, upstanding kids. One of my friends "smuggled" one of his dad's pr0n videotapes out of the house, and we watched it. It was one of those "No! Turn it down! Joe's parents might hear us!" things. We knew it was "morally objectionable" to society, but we didn't know *why*, as society deigned to "protect" us from it. We watched it anyway. And you know what? Other than the shock factor, we weren't impressed. It didn't scar us for life, make us drop out of school, or turn us violent. It didn't turn us into womanizers or leches.
But these are the things that kids do. If something is "forbidden", or if they're "protected" from it, it just makes them more curious, if only to know *why* they're being protected from it. They'll find out about it eventually, whether it be from you as their parent, from their peers, or on their own.
Kids are also a lot smarter than we give them credit for. If they're determined enough (and kids can be VERY single-minded) they *will* find a way around any barriers thrown in their way.
The bottom line is that no matter how much you want to protect and shield them from everything "bad" in the world, you have to let kids be kids, and learn how to deal with these types of things on their own. Guidance is OK, but in some cases, the kid is going to go contrary to what *you* would want them to do. It's natural and perfectly normal. It's how they learn to deal with their world.
As long as you have taught them right from wrong, you've done your job. Now you have to trust them enough to let them go.
>Isn't it amazing that the generation that
>campaigned for youth rights in the 60's when
>THEY were teenagers are now voting republican
It sounds like you think the whole generation consisted of hippies.
It isn't so. They were in the minority then, just like the geeks are in the minority against
things like the MPAA and RIAA control.
In 20 years, the next generation will be blaming
YOU for turning around and voting for Disney.
Geeks are so vocal about reform that the record could make it look like this generation was aligned. But the truth is, most people are NOT EVEN AWARE OF THE PROBLEMS.
In the 60's the hippies were definitely in the minority, and any viewpoint not in line with the government or with popular opinion was forcibly rejected.
And you're blaming these people for the laws being passed today? Quit looking for someone to blame for your problems and start writing letters and campaigning.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
"Now that eighteen-year-olds have the right to vote, it is obvious that they must be allowed the freedom to form their political views on the basis of uncensored speech before they turn eighteen, so that their minds are not a blank when they first exercise the franchise. And since an eighteen-year-old's right to vote is a right personal to him rather than a right to be exercised on his behalf by his parents, the right of parents to enlist the aid of the state to shield their children from ideas of which the parents disapprove cannot be plenary either. People are unlikely to become well- functioning, independent-minded adults and responsible citizens if they are raised in an intellectual bubble."
American Amusement Machine Assoc. v. Kendrick No. 00-3643 (7th Cir., March 23, 2001). http://laws.findlaw.com/7th/003643.html
You still have to register for the draft at 18, though. (Although they're afraid of you might have a gun they didn't give you. After columbine and such they have metal detectors in school because they EXPECT kids to be violent psychopaths, complete with McCarthy style witch-hunts against nonconformist. Fun.)
Isn't it amazing that the generation that campaigned for youth rights in the 60's when THEY were teenagers are now voting republican, trying to censor the internet (the "free love" communes), strip-mining the environment (flower power), fighting a war on drugs (they're upset they didn't use the next generation's supply back in the 60's?) and generally being the same hypcritical pricks their parents were? (No real suprise here, although finding them retroactively defending nixon is kind of amusing.)
When did the phrase conservative replace the phrase "old fogey"?
Oh well, another 20 years and they'll start to die off en masse. (And they expect US to fund social security for them, after they looted the thing to fund Reganomics when they all became yuppies back in the 80's. Right.)
Rob
It harmful if they're coerced into participating against their will (or before some arbitrary age limit,) but I can't buy the argument just just surfing for free drivel and eye-candy is harmful.
Either the kid is too young and their eyes will glaze over at the boring crap (face it, if you're not interested, its boring crap,) or they'll get pissed off at this getting in the way of their pokemon web site.
If they're old enough to say "Hey dude, lets do some serious damage to my ol' man's MasterCard..." they're old enough to watch two people having sex. Its better than having them learn about where to buy guns.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-1408.ZS .html is the reference. Turns out that the law is written specifically to allow arrest, but not require it. Further, it's worth noting that there is no mention of the woman "mouthing off" or otherwise resisting the arrest. Therefore the Supreme Court ruling was appropriate that the officer was within the law and that the law doesn't violate the 4th amendment (because the 4th amendment doesn't explicitly define warrantless arrests as "unreasonable search and seizure".
On the other hand, it does seem to be pretty obvious that if statues are written so that it is up to the officer to decide in such cases whether an arrest is warranted or not, it leaves lots of opportunity for abuse of the law to harass citizens. But since that wasn't the question the Supremes are supposed to be addressing, it didn't get addressed.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
The general thought in the past, and still held by many mental health professionals,
is that the viewing of sexually explicit material before the child is ready can lead to various mental and sexual problems.
This is borne out by several case studies of young children who are scarred by
viewing their parents having sex. Said children do not
yet have the mental capacity to deal with this, and often think of
the act itself as a violent assault. In addition, it's often
felt that pornography portrays an unhealthy sexual relationship,
and should not be shown to people too young to understand the
fantasy element of it.
I do agree with this ideal. Children shouldn't be allowed to see porn, just as
children should not be allowed to see violence. Most can't deal with it -
they don't have the knowledge or experience to deal with it
as it actually is.
Having said that, the responsibility is on the parents to ensure
that their children are not viewing this stuff. Don't make it
harder for adults to get to it - educate parents on the problems
involved. Make them responsible, not everyone else.
The Supreme Court also did not overturn the states' medical marijuana initiatives. They just said that, even in the lack of state law, the federal law still applies because it does not make an exception for medicinal uses. Now, I disagree with what happened, but it's difficult to see what else they could have ruled, given federal law. Yes, they could have thrown out the law, but, well, as a precedent that would have meant throwing out a lot of other laws. (Like, for example, a bunch of laws regulating business dealings and medicine sales.)
The federal law has to be changed or repealed.
Please bear with me, and I assure you I am not trying to troll.
I understand that our society has deemed it inappropriate for "children" under the age of 18 to view sexually explicit materials. But would someone please explain to me why? Apart from taboos handed down from previous generations, has their been any solid evidence that viewing porn is bad for anyone, even those under 18? Or 12, for that matter? What exactly is expected to happen if some 9 year old comes across "Girls Gone Wild"?
There seems to be so much hyperbole on this issue that no one asks the obvious question here. Namely: What are we protecting children from, and why? I can't help but wonder if the net is going to cause us to rethink our social mores (again), this time in regards to kiddies looking at porn.
- Rev.--
A few years back, the Supreme Court wrote the opinion in ACLU v. Reno, slam dunking CDA, with wonderful broad-sweeping language regarding freedom of speech and the Internet. Now, in part, based upon this language, the Third Circuit has enjoined enforcement of "Son-of-CDA" as an obvious impingement upon freedom of expression.
Unfortunately, at least four Justices (necessary to hear the case) do not think that the Son-of-CDA case is just Reno redux, but raises new significant issues worthy of review by the court. This could not mean that they simply want to say First-Amendment-uber-alles again -- these justices want to pull back. How far they want to pull back remains to be seen, and whether they can get the key fifth vote from Scalia (a surprise in First Amendment cases to date) is yet another thing.
But Scalia has "evolved" since Reno, and not in a good way. His jurisprudence has become far more political, far more results-driven and far less principled in these past years. He may be willing to change his stripes on points of principle in order to achieve a "politically correct" pro-censorship result.
Grump.
Like I said, the news is not great. The best we can hope for is a 5-4 decision to affirm, simply restating the law we already have at hand. What is worse, our pro-first-amendment allies must once again split on the virtues of private censorship as an alternative to government regulation, bringing up some old uglies once again.
The Washington Post which has the story, with a quick review of the laws and issues, here.
Best Slashdot Co
> Now if we could just get past the general subjugation of women thing....
I dunno about the subjugation thing - a gender-based 500% pay differential doesn't sound like subjugation to me.
Which reminds me, when I was in college, the feminist contingent was always ranting about how "women only make 67% of what men make".
Of course, when you normalized out age and education levels, it was more like 95%, but the truth never got in the way of a good headline-grabbing statistic.
But I'd say that with a 500% pay advantage over males, the obvious solution to the "gender gap" is to have bigger domestic pr0n industry!
And while I'm just whorin' for (+1, Funny) points with that thought, it reminds me that with the amount of bandwidth required for streaming video - in all seriousness, I'm in favor of the widespread adoption of streaming pr0n. The more there is, the cheaper bandwidth costs will be for everyone.
Pr0n. It does a network good.
I'd rather have my child viewing a video of a tired and overworked "actress" frantically rubbing her clit so that she can time her orgasm with the faceless male behind her than the dreadful alternative -- mass media.
Oh no! She might begin to form her own opinions -- and they just might be different from what the United $tate$ wants.
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
saying that adult verification services, which cost the user money, represent an acceptable "price to pay for protecting children from the harmful effects of graphic pornographic images".
From what I gather, current AVSs just require that you have a credit card and are stupid enough to use it on shady sites. Some do not actually charge the card, they just validate that it is real and infer that if you have a valid CC then you are old enough to see pr0n.
IMHO, AVS doesn't really work anyway. If pr0n exists and horny pimple-faced 15yr olds exist, then it will be accessed by minors, period.
I am just waiting for the Supreme Court to do real work, like taking a look at the DMCA one of these days...
Sending a kid off to the public library, watching porn is the least worrying thing. Somewhere further up the list are: gangs; drive-by shootings; ppl who have easy access to _legal_ firearms, never mind _illegal_ ones; SUVs with bull-bars; drunk drivers; ppl with mental health problems who aren't getting help to sort themselves out; and easy access to quick-dependency drugs like crack. The phrase "don't sweat the small stuff" springs inevitably to mind...
;-) or would you rather they were actually out having unprotected sex? It's a bad age to be at. Teenage boys are just going through puberty, they haven't got a clue what the f*ck's going on, half the time they're scared of girls and the other half they want something they don't understand. Meantime, teenage girls have mostly got puberty under control (having started the hormonal changes on average 4 years earlier) and are starting to actively look for sex. Porn gives teenage boys a safe way to explore their sexuality without risking anything.
Not to mention sex itself. Would you rather your kid saw porn to learn how it went (think of it as "practical anatomy"
Someone else pointed out the best solution - put the public terminals foursquare in the middle of the library, so everyone can see what you're doing. There aren't any privacy issues with a library terminal, any more than there are with seeing what books the person ahead of you in the library queue is borrowing, and having to surf for porn in public is going to put off damn near every teenage kid.
Grab.
The Constitution doesn't apply to laws that are for protecting the children. And nowadays, all laws are for protecting the children.
InstaPundit! Ahead of the Curve Since 30 Minutes Ago
I'm more worried about the porn distributors finding out who I am then the government and psycho organizations. I mean, do you really want that industry, who is responsible for a huge percentage of net spam, to have access to your meatspace identity? From your name could come your mailing address and your phone number.
Some figures:
Now if we could just get past the general subjugation of women thing....
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
If ONLY we were forced to pay AdultCheck before we could see goatse.cx.
--
--hongpong.com
To comply with the law, operators would have to severely censor their Web sites or would have to adopt age or credit card verification systems to shield minors from material deemed harmful...
I think my CC numbers would be safer in a usenet posting then with a age verification system.
BOSTON SUCKS!
"It was amazing," Mr. Smith stated, "I could actually sit down with my son and daughter and surf the web TOGETHER. I mean, who would of thought of that!"
Yeah, who would of thunk it! By the time a child is in high school, filtering software is useless, they already know about pr0n and when they are younger, parents can exert more control over what they view on the Internet. This is just another example of the government trying to be a parent because a small minority of parents can't do it themselves and their children end up in the park with a dirty ole man. I know I'll never forgive my parents for that one! :P
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Oh bother.
This is not a Fugazi
Let me get this straight. Driving to work in your SUV is natural. War is natural. McDonalds is natural.
News @ 11 is natural (as is the TV on which you watch it). Hockey, pro wrestling, robocop, and schools are natural.
But nudity, and the human mating process, is harmful.
Remarkable.
--
All men are great
before declaring war
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
Is their a body of work supporting the statement that graphic pornography is "harmful" to children, or is this just fact simply accepted by America's judicial system? Not that I can see Antonin Scalia questioning the assumption very thoroughly.
The arrest for seat-belts was a reasonable application of the Constitutional limits on federal power -- this incident should have been handled on the local level. That is, get hold of the police chief and ask what plans he has for re-educating or firing those fools working for him, and if you aren't satisfied there, work on getting a new police chief. For the Supreme Court to try to set rules on when a state or local ordinance violation requires an arrest vs a summons would be a ridiculous case of micro-management and keep them working overtime for the next 50 years, so they are lucky the Constitution does not give them the power except where illegal discrimination is clearly involved.
What does bother me is the erratic course these alleged "states rights" (in)justices are following -- it's also quite clear that under the Constitution, marijuana is not a federal matter until it crosses state lines, and how Florida counts the votes is for Florida to decide... From here, it looks like the limitations of federal powers is something they only think about when it's expedient.
To the people above who question what harm seeing pornography does to minors, just ask me. When I was eleven I was flipping through the channels and came across a scrambled station. I wasn't quite sure what it was, but I was intrigued by the strange noises emitting from the actors and actresses. In all the jumble of images on-screen, I made out what appeared to be a woman. A naked woman.
I was shocked, for that brief period- it lasted no longer than a second, my life turned upside down. My strict parents had never let me view any material like that- I've learned since then for good reason. I came upon this accidental viewing at 4:30PM. By 8:30 I was at the convenience store down the street stealing Hustler and Torso magazines. By 9:30, I was getting into rumbles with street toughs.
As the years went on, my eyesight decreased from watching hours of this scrambled pornography, and my tastes in magazines became even more hardcore- I spent my entire European high school trip in pornographic shops looking for the all-anal-revues and animal activities that I so desperately sought. I'm now in jail (they give us 15 minutes every week to use the Internet, but have installed NetNanny to keep things kosher) because I was caught stealing live-action Japanese tentacle pr0n from a local Tower Records.
My life wouldn't have taken this horrible path if I had not stumbled across that oh-so-brief glimpse of a scrambled, discolored, naked woman. I would be singing the glories of God in my local church with my father and mother- not rotting in a jail cell with Bubba and Tito. Hopefully the Supreme Court can rescue children before they turn into people like me.
iluvpr0n.
Sometimes I'm amused, sometimes amazed that we can continue to let ourselves live in a world where the average man considers the image of a naked blade less disturbing than the image of a naked breast.
Murder, death, violence. Portray these and you may rise to be a "news source" for the world. Love, kindness, and attraction. Portray these and you may live... if you run quickly.
Nietzsche on Diku:
sn; at god ba g
:Backstab >KILLS< god.
When are we going to stop trying to "protect" our children from all the "bad things" out there? If you have children, BE WITH THEM. Help them learn what is right and wrong...don't let the media and a group of people that have no idea what it's like to be a young person in todays world try to tell you what you can and can't do for your children. IMO, this will not stop your average kid from getting to porn sites if they want to. (Remember, kids are smarter than you ;-O)
When will parents understand that you get what you give, especially in respect to your children?
Damn, this pisses me off.....
Sent from your iPad.
I say, Out With It.
I want children to see the raunchiest porn available. I want them to ask "Daddy, what is that dog doing to her?" If a parent can't answer a question like that comfortably, it means that they are truly uncomfortable with it.
No one can ever be free until they are ideologically free, and that means that our children can be freer than we are if and only if we actively restrain ourselves from handing down our supercilious taboos. It is haughty, outrageous, and truly damaging to pass the irrational fears we harbor onto our children, labelling the objects of our fear "wrong".
If I am uncomfortable with something, it is a weakness.
It is your child's birthright to appropriate your weaknesses as his or her own strengths.
________________________________________________ __
Art Schools Dietzilla