Canadian Bill C-234 to Require ISP licensing

Matthew Skala writes "In Monday's House of Commons proceedings, Canadian Member of Parliament Peter Stoffer (NDP member for Sackville-Musquodoboit Valley-Eastern Shore) introduced Bill C-234, an anti-child-pornography Bill. It requires all Internet Service Providers to get licenses from the Government, specifically including non-profits and individuals. Licensed ISPs then must block Web sites named by the Government as containing child pornography, and must "report information [of the Government's choice] to the Commission for the purposes of this Act" - a requirement that neatly slips in spy-on-your-users requirements under the radar of the ongoing Industry Canada consultation on "Lawful Access" (wiretapping/CanCarnivore)."

Comments

Re:Child P0rn, just a foothold to kill free speach

[orthogonal]

By itself licensing ISP's is not a bad idea. It is a pointless idea, but not bad.

Pointless is bad, when:

it costs tax money to enact and to enforce

it costs individuals and companies money to ensure they're in compliance

it gives lawyers something else to ligitigate about

it takes away government resources, like police time, from legitimate problems

Just figuring out what laws apply, and what taxes accrue, given the mammoth complexity of federal law (in any Western nation), requires anyone doing business to pay far too much to a lawyer and to an accountant.

Pointless costs money and time without producing any individual or societal good. Pointless is bad.

Re:Child P0rn, just a foothold to kill free speach

[GeekWithGuns]

I agree, pointless is bad, it cost's money, but it isn't nearly as bad as the loss of freedom. If you take my money (via taxes or any other such manner) I still have the freedom to complain, orgainize, and tell the world why I don't like your tax; however, when you take my freedom (in this case free speech) no ammount of money can buy it back.

So given the choice of waisting money or loosing freedom, I would pick waisting money. At least that way I could still have half a chance to fix the problem if I wanted to.

In this case the real fight is freedom of speech and not giving up just a little bit of it to "make the world safer for children". With any government this is just the start of taking away more and more of that freedom until it is completely worthless. As an added bonus I'm also against a waistful government agency.