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Pennsylvania Court Forces ISPs to Block Porn Sites
jkastner writes "Salon is reporting that Pennsylvania is forcing ISPs to block web sites that have child porn. While we can all agree that child porn is bad, this sort of approach starts us down a slipperly slope. If one site slips through, does that make the ISP liable? In addition, the court ordered blocking may prevent access to legitimate sites that are hosted on the same server."
...of sites to be blocked. I worked at an ISP and at one time a rather irate customer wanted all of a certian kind of pr0n blocked. We simply asked for a list of all those sites that they wanted blocked. This simply made them go away...
The sites probably aren't in Pennsylvania. They might be anywhere in the world.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Is the ISP responsible if their users are surfing thru anonymizers or redirectors?
... and who gets to draw it?
What if they download that child porn via FastTrack or Gnutella?
Where is the line drawn
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
"Connolly, the spokesman for the Pennsylvania attorney general, said Wednesday that in such cases involving a Web site with a shared address, authorities contact the Web-hosting companies and order them -- under threat of legal action -- to pinpoint and shut down the illegal pornographic sites."
So Pennsylvania authorities are going to call a Web-hosting company in Denmark and threaten legal action? In addition to being silly, I think that also violates US law. Foreign policy is the domain of the federal government.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
s/slippery slope/incrementalism/
Does that make you happy?
As documented in your citation, slippery slope is an informal fallacy that rests on uncertainty in the premises in what is otherwise a deductively valid argument. It would make the debate more productive, if not easier, if you would address the premises rather than regurgitating your first semester logic course.
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
So how do they intend to block such sites?
Scanning emails for spam is pretty easy, all the mail comes into your server. Blocking websites is a lot harder, you will need a transparent proxy with lots of rules or a list of sites to block. User changes their DNS server and uses a third party proxy and voila, no more blocked sites.
The post makes it sound like some judge woke up one morning and decided to order blocking. That's not quite the case. The Pennsylvania legislature passed a law requiring such blocks. Since county courts (in most states; I assume PA is similar in this respect) do not have the power to declare a law unconstitutional, the judge has no choice but to order the blocking.
Ultimately this is a good thing. The order gets appealed to (the PA equivalent of) a state court, which will (as those tend to lack the power to declare a law unconstitutional) uphold the county ruling. Once a state court issues an order, then the (PA equivalent of the) state Supreme Judicial Court would be able to take an appeal and (finally) declare the law unconstitutional (especially if the PA Constitution has a free speech clause).
Thank you for pointing out the exact fallacy in your logic. It makes debate so much easier when you opponent strikes themselves down.
The slipperly slope in this case is that ISPs will be made ever more responsible for the content they carry. But the phone company and the post office aren't responsible for what their infrastructure is used to deliver. Why should the web be a special case?
How about, rather than blocking childporn sites, which requires ISPs to know who the offending sites are, you make legislation that if an ISP finds childporn, they are required to report it?
How are ISPs supposed to enforce this law? If I were a small or medium-sized ISP, and I were starting or contemplating doing business in Pennsylvania, I'd cancel the plans. There's way too much at risk, and if authorities themselves can't track down and properly prosecute paedophiles, they shouldn't force ISPs to do such or possibly face prosecution, when all they're doing is running a legitimate business of connecting people to the largest public network in the world...
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
We won't know until the state discloses the info, but this seems very much like an "enabling" law. Basically one that is not meant to be enacted proactively, instead it enables an action to occur. Basically, if I complain to an isp that www.whatever.com has kiddie porn, then they are compelled by the law to block access to it, vs throwing up their hands and saying "well just don't surf there". I would assume that unless the state is going to come out with a "banned sites" list that all isp's use, that this is the way the law will be enforced.
I don't know why people are asking questions about jurisdictions since this law does not seem to address the hosting of these sites, just peoples access to them. And it looks like the counter argument is focused on the fact that the law requires the blocking based on ip vs url, thereby possibly blocking many potentially unrelated sites (like someone complaining about msn communities and having them all blocked).
No good can come from this.
Here's a sig for someone...
--
Pennsylvania: Michael Jackson free since 2003!
Aside from the various technical flaws in their approach, which others have already pointed out, the court's action sets a terrible example.
On the bright side, though, perhaps the federal government could finally win the war on drugs simply by requiring state transportation departments to not permit vehicles containing drugs to use any roads maintained by the states. I'm sure that would solve the problem handily.
that they shouldn't be blocking ANYTHING. End organizations (i.e. where you can view the porn, like your house, school, etc.) should be able to control access.
are you suggesting that the STATE decide what content ISP customers can see and what they can't ? what if the Democratic Senator from that state decides that you can't see Republican websites ? or Catholic ones ? or Jewish ones ? yes, child porn is bad. so are a lot of things that are in newspapers, cable TV, and on the radio.
but to give the control of that content to the people RUNNING the network flies in the face of the end-to-end design the Internet was built with.
once you put control within the network, not at its ends, you have a situation where the vested interests (in this case, the state) can decide what is good and what is bad. that, my friend, is worse than ANY child porn you can find.
I believe that these people can't control their fetish (or choose it) so isn't this the most preferable thing? I mean child fetishes are not going to go away once all these sites are closed down or blocked. It is the same reason I believe that prostitutes and brothels should be allowed to operate freely, as it keeps the rape rate down.
Thoughts? It would be interesting to hear what you guys think.
WARNING: This sig does not contain a joke
How can an ISP be prosecuted for not blocking a child porn site if the site hasn't been legally proven to be a child porn site? How would the state get tips? Are they looking for the sites? If so, when they find them, why not report them to the FBI? I would think this is similar to requiring bookstores to stop selling certain magazines - they'd have to first provide due process that the magazines should be blocked.
A problem with this is unless the ISP's announce a list or warn the site they are blocking, it does risk legal sites being blocked and not knowing it. Unlike the print industry, which knows if shipments are refused or returned, neither legitamite sites nor their attempted viewers would know why the connection didn't work.
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
No one's saying it's not a noble effort to reduce child porn. The problem is a major logistical one for ISPs. Most of them work with the mindset that they are carriers, nothing more. This means they don't usually have granularity in the controls over where their customers go by region. null routing all traffic to a site is usually cake, but only traffic from Pennsylvania adds a wrinkle. Sure, it can be solved given time, money, and resources, but it's a big problem for ISPs now since they are being required by law to do this, and probably don't have extra resources just lying around.
Unfortunately, laws like this are likely to get passed in other states as well.
Not necessarily because the legislature doesn't understand how the technology works (although that is often also the case), but because if such a bill is proposed in your state, which politician is going to open himself up to the inevitable "he voted against a bill designed to reduce child pornography" campaign when he runs for re-election?
Overrated Moderation: This posts sucks... because.
You're right, but only because of the complete lack of common sense in modern society.
I know what child pornography is, you know what child pornography is.
I think we would both agree that the coppertone ad where the dog is tugging at the little girls swimsuit isnt child pornography.
But then there are the crackpots. I was watching some news show where they interviewed some little old biddy who thinks that Huggies commercials are pornographic.
So this whole scheme is utterly useless. The people who create and disseminate child pornography need to be tracked down and prosecuted, or hunted down and shot, but not simply hidden.
This is a "look at my tough stance on internet child porn" play for votes in a fairly conservative state, and not a feasible solution to the problem.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
The thing that bothers me the most here isn't that child porn sites are going to be blocked, but IF courts are allowed to tell ISPs that the have to block to web sites of some kind than it is just a matter of time before the forced banning gets out of control.
What if some yahoo gets elected and thinks violence is bad and has all websites containing violence of any kind forcibly banned by court order. What about bad language? What about porn? What about sites about drugs and alcohol?
Hey why not ban every site that this anti-that judge or every site that is anti anything?
You can't just let courts force ISPs to censor things. I hate censorship so much, whatever happened to freedom of speech?
I can see it now: at the ISP: "Well, I'll just take this list of child-porn sites that we keep in the file cabinet, and enter it into the filter."
What ignorant jackasses this court has proven itself to be governed by...
Anyways, I don't imagine this will be a serious problem. Just make the plaintiffs send you a list of all child-porn websites or show you where to get one, and have them show you where to get updates without breaking the law, such as seeking such sites out. Or plead with the court to make you immune while you do said searches. I don't think they'll do so. The court will then realize that this request is impossible for you to fulfill without you breaking the law to do so, and have them throw it out. It's not the USPS's job to make sure I don't order seventeen magazine in a brown wrapper. That responsibility belongs to a government investigative body that oversees the USPS. The same goes for ISPs.
And as for ISPs being liable, didn't the DMCA make that impossible?
Pennsylvania's attorney general, Republican Mike Fisher, is leading the state's effort, which already has forced Internet providers to block subscribers from at least 423 Web sites around the world.
423 kiddie porn sites?! I hope the Attorney General has his office raided and his computers inspected for that, the man should be in jail. Anyone else would be in jail for that kind of collection.
This is arguably one of the worst pieces of news in a while. Once, we laughed at places like Saudi Arabia for trying to censor the internet. Now we are to have state mandated censorship as well.
Mr. Fisher, your efforts are not appreciated. You conclude that everyone in your state is into kiddie porn and that gives you a right to interfere with the press also known as the internet. It's offensive and unconstitional. Kiddie porn is vile and illegal already, but you are going to have to respect the rights of the rest of us while you catch people who can tell you where the best kiddie porn is. Your monitoring of my web surfing or email is a violation of the fourth amendment. Any restrictions you might place on my web surfing, however well intentioned, are violations of the first amendment. If you have reasonable suspisions backed with evidence you are ready to swear to in a public court of law, then you might be able to look in a particular place at a particular time. You might even be able to watch the web surfing of an individual for a limited time.
In the end, the only way to end the kiddie porn industry is to teach the world to have respect for their fellow man. Children would not be violated if people would not violate each other. Abuse of state power, presumption of guilt, and disrespect for your fellow citizens are all steps in the wrong direction. Aid to countries where this occurs would be a better use of your money.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
in this case, it's not a freedom of speech issue. not from first glance, anyway. maybe it is, but more on that later...
what *is* happening here is law (whether temporary or not) empowering the state to inject control of content WITHIN the network. this goes against the original design of the Internet, which allowed for control only at the ENDs of the network (i.e. your house, the library, school, etc.)
not having control of content *within* the network is a good thing. in fact, it is for that exact reason that the innovations we have seen with the Internet (and its protocols) have been able to come about. once their is control placed WITHIN the network (i.e. the ISPs or Tier1 providers) then the entire network is affected in a controlled way.
that is BAD for innovation and creativity, and can kill any future creations that might come about.
now, about the freedom of speech part of the constitution. that's actually the best part of the constitution. it guarantees that someone who asks questions of his government (and therefore inact change in it) cannot be punished or held silent by anyone who might not agree. it is exactly that part of the constitution that would ALLOW us to "change the specs" of our project.
p.s. it's the US government, not a software design project. there are some great parts of it, and some not so great parts of it. believe me when i say that not everyone thinks that it is handed down on stone tablets. far from it. that's the beauty of it.
How do they block it without knowing what the sites are?
Exactly. I'd have to require a list to impose anything per court order. To expect otherwise would be like asking the police to "just go get all the criminals out there - we don't have names, but make sure you get them all."
This issue will certainly be moved up on appeal, and I'd have to believe it will lose as it violates the framework of common carrier. You can trust that no service provider will permit themselves to operate without those protections - Prodigy's embarrassing loss in the 90s (due to its policy of filtering some content and therefore providing a guarantee thta the content was free from offensive material, vs. the Compuserve case where they clearly disclaimered "life has risk" and let people determine where they wanted to go) is enough of a reminder of where we service providers do not want to go.
I think it'd be wonderful to demand the list from the State of Pennsylvania, and then when they miss a site, hold them accountable. Or if they accidentally block a site, nail them for interfering with commerce.
BTW, it'd help if people would quit electing nanny-wannabees...
*scoove*
It is possible to argue that child porn is a bad thing, but so far as I am aware, there are no actual studies showing that it causes any bad effects. To be sure, the scarcity of child porn, and the difficulty of getting a grant to fund a study of it probably contribute to the lack of studies.
On the other hand, there is plenty of historical evidence of the harms caused by lack of free expression. If people cannot communicate their sincerely held beliefs in a meaningful way, they become unhappy, and agitate for what they want in clandestine ways. Ultimately, this pressure can build up enough to lead to a revolution that changes the rules in radical ways. Anyone familiar with history who prefers a stable society will advocate free expression rather than censorship.
In order for free expression to work, there cannot be some authority saying what expression is permitted and what is not. Such authority quickly becomes corrupted: the first thing it will forbid is any criticism of itself! Therefore, all expression, even the most repugnant, must be permitted.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
Now, as far as laws go, anything which conflicts with the Constitution *is* illegal. It's not about good and bad, it's about law. People may be saying, in the examples you notice, not "Hey, that's Bad because it conflicts with the Constitution", but "Hey, that's illegal because it conflicts with the Constitution." If Congress passes a law taking the right to vote from people with blue eyes, it will be struck down as unconstitutional, which is short for illegal because the Constitution says so.
Hope that helps.
Unfortunately, if you don't have a problem with living in a country without a constitution, then I don't think that you are actually willing to understand what it means to an American. For me personally, the cost of losing my freedom is greater than the cost of child porn. If you don't understand that, no other explanation will help.
on law enforcement, which has already been proven ineffective, and is thus an embaressment to those who enforce the law.
This punts responsibility to the poor ISP who all government officials can now point their scrawny little finger at while cackling "There's the bad guy" to the voters.
This is actually a quite common tactic and if you examine laws closely you'll find any number of examples.
The fact that this ruling makes no sense, is impossible to comply with, and thus defines every ISP as a child pornographer is beside the point.
Shit rolls downhill.
KFG
How would the telephone company implement an order to block, say, terrorist planning conversations?
The telephone company is hereby ordered to block phone numbers of terrorists.
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.
Pervs will get it anyway. They are insidious that way.
Actually, I'm pretty sure if there was a comprehensive list of kiddie porn sites that 2 things would happen:
1: Most ISP's would voluntarily block those sites
2: The kiddie porn sites would simply switch hosting on a regular basis (like they do now) to keep one step ahead of law enforcement and blocking policies.
The problem that I have with this is that it seems to put the responsibility for determining what is and is not legal in the hands of people who are not qualified to make that decision. So, if I have vacation pics of my kids at the beach, they might decide to block the site just to be on the safe side.
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
Right. But since the government of PA should properly only be concerned with pervs in PA...
Besides, what if my ISP is not doing it's job? Shouldn't I have access to the list so I know what to avoid on my own? Further, how will site owners and other free speech advocates know if *only* sites hosting illegal materials are on the list?
Wouldn't surprise me if this whole thing was the brainchild of a recent PA governor (Tom Ridge), the guy who suggests in all seriousness that plastic wrap and duct tape are suitable defenses against chemical and biological warfare.
I do not have a signature
There's a kinky story accessible through this site about two underage kids who fall in love, have sex, and later die. I've read it myself. It's called, "Romeo and Juliet."
Ceci n'est pas une pipe.
the court ordered blocking may prevent access to legitimate sites that are hosted on the same server
I'm trying to imagine a context where a 'legitimate' site would be colocated with a child porn site on the same server. If the whoever's running the server knows its content, then they're clearly running a criminal operation and I wouldn't cry if his whole server was pulled. Otoh, if someone posts stuff to geocities, I think it's the responsibility of the host to keep the server clean and the threat of blocking all of their pages makes a strong enforcement tool. It's not that hard for a web operator, even of a large multi user site, to review its contents for illegal material.
All that being said, it *is* a slippery slope. However, the law is pretty clear about what is illegal and what is not.
So long, and thanks for all the Phish
There's no good legal definition of it either. That's the real problem.
Where do we draw the line in the sand, This is slashdot and many people here are from the US, but we also have a lot of people from other countries. How do they view this. In Holland, at 15 your an adult and can be in porn if you like. Is this a problem? Where did we pick the magical age of 18 and do we have the right to impose it on everyone? I personally enjoy the look of a mature woman, which is why my wife is 4 years older than I am and I find her sexy every day I wake up. But what if I was 17, and I took pictures of my 17 year old girlfriend, do I go to jail? you can't expect a 17 or 16 year old boy or girl to want to look at people much older than themselves. hmmm... and then there is this issue of men of my age looking at young girls. This really pisses me off, but I have a daughter, so maybe my view is biased. See that is the problem in this country. Were always so gung ho about picking a random moral standard and forcing everyone to follow it. We get pissed off over child porn, but then I see, we don't seem to respect our own principles in our own homes. I often drive my daughter and her friends to drop them off at the movies, or the mall, and I see these parents who let their 13 year old daughters leave the house in outfits that would make me blush to have seen my wife wearing in college. mid drift shirts and belly button rings, thong underwear very vissible. This pisses me off, but you don't see me running out to make a law against mid drift shirts, or belly button piercings, although I feel this causes more rapes to happen than any child porn we can imagine. I guess my point is, that life is subjective, and we must be careful what laws we start throwing around willy nilly, a friend of mine in college became a nudist when she got married, she has kids and a husband and has been happily married for 15 years, should I look down on her, because it is not the lifestyle I chose. Let me reitterate, men who take erotic pictures of children should die a horrible death, but I just don't want our laws suddenly starting to infringe on the rights of the innocent, and I fear vague rulings such as these could result in that.
Anonymous Cowards - Oh God, How I hate you
It's wacky that courts can order companies to do things, and not suggest ways of doint it.
What's more is that they can't legally do it. IANAL, but it seems that the only way to determine if a site contains kiddie porn is to take a look at the pictures, at which point the pictures will be downloaded onto your computer. You will then be in posession of illegal 1's and 0's.
TodayTM BillyJoelTM GoogleTMd for StitchTMes due to WindowsTM while RollerbladeTMing with an AppleTM and a PopsicleTM
it's legal in pakistan to own a fully automatic ak47 (substitute another country if i'm wrong). it is generally illegal in the united states. if someone in pakistan ships one to my home address, what will happen?
is the shipping company liable? are they required to open the package? will the government open it when it first arrives in the us? once i recieve it, did anyone but me break the law?
i'm curious what the answers are, but i'd start by saying follow the analogy.
char *mySig;
You're absolutely correct. However, if it is not the responsibility of the ISPs to at least maintain some level of control over the content accessible on their servers, whose is it? The most the ISPs can do is attempt to shut down child pornography sites. The least (and worst) they can do is nothing. Incidentally, I do not believe that you or any other parent is in serious danger of having their site blocked based on pictures of their children. 99% of people have the basic common sense to discern the deprave from the acceptable.