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Pennsylvania Refuses to Disclose Banned Website List
koehn writes "In an interesting turn of events, the Attorney General of Pennsylvania has ordered all PA ISPs to block sites that have child porn. If that's not bad enough, they won't tell you which sites those are because - so the excuse goes - that could be construed as 'disseminating pornography.' So much for public review, huh?" See the previous story.
Here
But what about this?
Oh BTW, Pajonet's Hot or Not News Site has been totally redone
So here's how the game is played: someone notifies the authorities about a child porn site. Several days (weeks) go by before the claim is looked into. Several more days pass by until the site is eventually shut down.
In the mean time, ISP's can act on their own accord by blocking access to known child porn sites. This is a good thing (TM).
I am just curious. I keep hearing this argument made over and over-- the "what if the site is in a country where child porn is legal" argument, i mean. I can't think of any countries where such *IS* legal though.
Which countries do you refer to, anyway? Are there any, or is this just a straw man?
Child porn is illegal everywhere I am aware of. Why block the websites when they can be taken down like they should be? That's like when your mother told you to clean your room and so you just shoved it all under the bed, didn't make your room clean and this wont make the internet better. A band-aid won't stop the bleeding.
I think PA is a great state. I live in MD (Annapolis) now, lived in Toronto, Ontario before. I've had the chance to drive through PA a half dozen times, and drive up to Allentown every once in awhile (both for business, and sometimes to go to the marketpro comp. show)
Its a great state (well, Philly doesnt float my boat, but you cant win 'em all) and my wife and I have considered moving there.
BTW, grandparent was a troll. I doubt he lived in Harrisburg if he cant spell it correctly.
If they fail to make the list open then some cracker will crack one of the covered ISP's and make the list public. Information wants to be free, and any information this widely distributed is bound to make it into the wild. Now I personally believe that hidden government is bad in general, but I put up with the CIA and NSA because they provide a service that is necessary and requires secrecy. Whether blocking sites alleged to contain kiddie porn is a compelling enough argument to put up with hidden government is debatable, but for me it is not.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
The public seems to have something of a love-hate relationship with child porn. On one hand, child porn in the classical sense is bad. On the other hand, child porn in the form of Britney and Christina is just fine? I remember reading an article on Britney before the music industry pimped her out. Cute kid. I just say LeAnn Rimes the other day on a Blender cover, topless. Even country music has gotten into it. Sigh... Maybe just another reason to hate the RIAA?
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Makes no difference, though; the pornos depicting 17 year olds are counted among the numbers when the gov't is spreading hysteria about child porn. You see a report on TV every now and then about how so-and-so was arrested for child porn, and that the cops found "2,000 images" on his computer. What you never hear is how many of those 2,000 images were of 17 year olds, versus how many were of 6 year olds. Or even how many were child porn to start with! The GAO and Customs recently conducted a study of "child porn" on filesharing networks, and found that out of 1286 suspected child porn images, only 149 were actually illegal. But that doesn't stop people from being up in arms about "how much" child porn is all over those evil p2p networks.And, biologically, children are sexually attractive to some people. I don't think biology is the answer, I think it's the problem. People are different, they have different wants, different needs, and different tastes. From a lawmaking point of view, that's an obstacle.
The parent brings up a good point, we as a society run around decrying child porn, and passing law after law supposedly trying to stop it, but typically only serving to pull the wool over peoples' eyes. The PA law is a great example of this, it doesn't do anything to combat child porn, it's as if the entire state is just supposed to pretend those sites don't exist. Yet we parade underage girls around on TV, magazine covers, movies, etc. in skimpy clothing all the time. I remember when I was in my teens Jennifer Love Hewitt was in bikinis all the time on episodes of "Byrds of Paradise" (it was a network TV show). She was probably 13 or 14 at the time, showing a ton of skin, the only reason they were doing that was to get ratings.
Both child porn and the latest teeny pop starlet's slutty wardrobe are made with prurient interest in mind - to turn on, arouse, and attract sales/viewers - yet one is illegal, the other is not only legal it's flaunted everywhere. It is indeed kind of weird when you think about it. A lot like the idea that sex is taboo yet violence is A-OK. Us Americans are a weird breed.
The problem is, this viewpoint is flawed for two reasons.
1. Making something illegal, making it tough to get, making it risky to get, doesn't stop it. As long as there's demand, someone will be supplying, someone will be producing. Worse, because the supplying is done on the black market and thus prices can get steep, there isn't just 1 guy in his basement trying to be the supplier. The more money there is to be made, the more people you'll have trying to be the suppliers. Want an example? Try prohibition. Try the "war on drugs." Both failed miserably and one of them is still costing us billions of dollars a year. I'm not saying we should legalize child porn, I'm just saying that the continual "cracking down" is a futile effort because there will always be demand and thus there will always be supply.
2. From what I understand, child porn is not a purely profit driven enterprise. Not everyone who makes child porn does it to sell it. Some of them do it because, surprise surprise, they like diddling kids. These people are going to keep diddling kids whether they can profit off the pictures or not. In other words, even if by some blessing all child porn was eliminated from the world tomorrow, along with all cameras, camcorders, and any other device capable of making porn, the abuse would still be going on.
But your average law maker fails to think all of this through, instead opting for the lazy way out, "let's make more laws making it even more illegal than it already is!! That'll fix it!"
...then you're already most of the way to being qualified to serve as a U.S. Postal Inspector.
I'm not making that up.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
This is far from an original idea. The Pope and Roman Inquisition did the same thing back in the 1700's and 1800's. The Church published the "Index librorum prohibitorum" or "List of Prohibited Books".
Once the list got out, nearly every book on it became a best seller and eventually the list itself was put on the "Index librorum prohibitorum". So the Catholics arrived at the same point. The Catholics maintained a secret list of prohibited books but wouldn't disclose what was on the list for fear of promoting that which was prohibited.
Either this guy knows his history or it's a clear case of "There is nothing new under the Sun." I wonder if he also knows that in 1966 the Index was abolished. I suspect the list was abolished because the Catholics could no longer keep up with the volume of books being released and they had probably had their fill of p0rn too. So, if history does repeat itself, this list will fade away too. I just hope he doesn't start making claims that "heavy bodies fall faster than lighter bodies."
No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!
I live in Pennsylvania and I've been using an international proxy server for a while because I don't trust either my state or my federal government.
Often, but not always, I use proxy servers to mask my location and avoid the possible censorship; especially while looking for information regarding the Iraq invasion. Aljezerra for one has blocked the USA at times from fully accessing their site. I would not doubt if my ISP or government has been censoring or monitoring the activities of their customers/citizens.
Don't trust anyone.