U.S. Supreme Court To Rule On Online Porn Law

froggle2003 writes "Sites like goodfig.org and NEWS.com.au are among the first to report that the U.S. Supreme Court has decided to rule on the constitutionality of the Child Online Protection Act (COPA). The COPA was passed in 1998 in an effort to crack down on sites that don't block porn from children. It calls for 6 months in jail and $50,000 in fines for first-time violaters. Opponents of the COPA led by the ACLU are quick to note that the COPA makes criminals of many individuals using the internet for legitimate purposes such as providing information on anatomy, gynecology, safe-sex advice, etc."

Comments

Legitimate purposes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Opponents of the COPA led by the ACLU are quick to note that the COPA makes criminals of many individuals using the internet for legitimate purposes such as providing information on anatomy, gynecology, safe-sex advice, etc."

But porn (for adults) is a legitimate purpose. Unsavory, perhaps, but legitimate.

Re:Legitimate purposes?

[ezraekman]

The point is not that pr0n is not legitimate. Preferences and beliefs aside, drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, and hanging out in clubs and bars is "legitimate", and legal. But not for children. The point is that there are no safeguards in place to keep minors from accessing it... but the problem with this legislation is that, like some of it's legal predecessors, it seems to fail to properly distinguish pr0n from art, science, etc.

The article quotes the Bush administration as saying that children are unprotected from the harmful effects of the enormous amount of pr0n on the world wide web. And that may be true. But it sounds like this law would be the equivalent of protecting children from cigarettes by prosecuting stores who sold them candy cigarettes or cough syrup. After all, candy cigarettes are *like* real ones, just as discussing sexual technique is *like* sex stories. And cough syrup is *like* beer, because it also contains alcohol. Perhaps the latter is a bad example; I'm not sure if there's an age requirement for purchasing this type of medication, but I think the point stands.

I believe that some kind of safeguards should indeed be in place, even with some of these non-pr0n sites. For example, a parent may not want a child to know the ins and outs (no pun intended) of the birds and the bees as they pertain to disabled adults, until the child is older. That is the parent's decision. Thus, some sort of rating system may be better suited than an all-encompassing "THIS IS UNSUITABLE FOR KIDS, SO IT IS OBSCENE" statement. Sure, require a bit of code for filtering software to pick up. If the code doesn't exist, apply a fine, penalty, etc. But it should fit the instance. Getting pr0n results from a search for prescription drugs is a lot different than stumbling across the reproductive system on a medical site. Simply assessing the same fine for allowing access to any and all types of "inappropriate" material makes no sense. That's like allowing the removal of basic civil rights from a burglar simply by labeling him a "terrorist". Oh, wait a minute...

So Theodore Olson says the main target is commercial pornographers. So what? Since when has the "targeted group of offenders" ever stopped the government from prosecuting anyone it wishes? While I think imprisoning someone who's set up a meth lab is legitimate, prosecuting him for creating "chemical weapons of mass destruction" using a set of guidelines so broad that glue, bleach and motor oil also qualifies for is ridiculous. Let me guess... there's going to be a clause in here somewhere that makes "distribution of non-age-appropriate materials an act of terror, as a method for inciting rebellion in the homeland's children", right? We need to be specific, and our government has already shown that they cannot be trusted to interpret a law for themselves. Either we need to do it beforehand, or we should not pass the law. To do otherwise potentially allows innocent people to be prosecuted, or guilty parties to be punished far in excess of what is appropriate. You only need look at the recent history of the "Patriot" Act to see this.

For sites that contain content of an adult nature, perhaps an "I am over such-and-such age" entry form is appropriate. If so, the wording of said form might be set by the state... but that probably isn't necessary. It's easy enough to word something that says "If x, click here; if y, click here." Also, code might be put in place to warn off filtering software, which the parent is responsible for installing. If the parent fails to do so, that is not the site operator's fault. Perhaps there should indeed be a classification system for ratings... but it is important that we are A) very specific, and B) very understanding of what we are doing when we decide what is considered "adult entertainment", "mature information", etc. And dammit, no more "Oh, I didn't have time to read it properly" legislation! How many times have we read this in the news lately!?

Re:Legitimate purposes?

[Bob Gelumph]

First of all, I saw porn from as early an age as 13, like either most boys did, or most boys wanted to... Sure it was nowhere near as explicit as the stuff available on the web today, but seriously, if people want to get porn, they will...
And besides, what about the responsibility of the parents? I tell you, parents in the US love overbearing legislation, cause it means that someone else can be blamed for their failures as parents.
And on a more constructive note: Why not have a test, like at the start of Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, where only people over the age of 18 should be able to know the questions (and the answer is usually D: Meet the Press)?

Re:Legitimate purposes?

[orthogonal]

The point is not that pr0n is not legitimate. .... But not for children. The point is that there are no safeguards in place to keep minors from accessing it....

When did we decide that parents no longer had responsibility to monitor their children?

When did we decide that, so parents could be lazy, we'd limit the right of every adult?

You don't want your kids to download porn? Put the computer in the room where your TV is, and keep an eye on what your kids are downloading.

Don't send Ashcroft into my house because you're unwilling to watch your kids in your house.

Nice idea.

[ideatrack]

I don't know if this is a cleat-cut as it could be, and the point about this filtering out sites on safe-sex is slightly preterbing.

The main thing is "children" is a very broad term, and while I wouldn't want a 4 year-old viewing information on contraceptives, I would if they are at an age where this information is relevant and important.

I think the definitions need to be tidied more than they are now, and also feel that this could possibly include sites to do with mutilation etc. With some of the horrific things out there, a child could easily see something really traumatic.

I don't know, this just feels a little like all the SPAM legislation, a nice idea but something which is going to take much more than a law to counteract.

I can't help but feel that better parenting would help. After all there are schemes in the UK which are predominantly to educate parents to watch what their children are doing etc.

This is a typical example...

[mgcsinc]

This was a typical example of the government imposing unenforcable rules on the internet in the classical why-can't-they-just-hold-their-ID-up-to-the-screen style. Almost never before the internet came along did you have people who genuinely wanted to act legally but had no idea how. Credit-card verification is out, kids can have credit/debit cards at 13 now. No using checking accounts for verification, those can be had by kids even younger. Driver's licenses? Not nationalized. I guess until a generation which grew up with computer-in-hand runs the legislature, we'll be seeing more and more of this absurdity...

BBC News article...

[WIAKywbfatw]

Here's the BBC's story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3191676.stm.

The article also contains some interesting links, to the Internet Watch Foundation, ACLU, etc.

There are huge freedom of speech implications here. I'm not condoning pornographic content where it's likely to be seen by young, impressionable kids but it seems to me that you can't truly have freedom of speech unless you recognise everyone's freedom of speech, and not just freedom for those you deem morally or politically acceptable.

Sometimes you can't have your cake and eat it too. This looks like one of those times.

Re:BBC News article...

[Eivind]

but it seems to me that you can't truly have freedom of speech unless you recognise everyone's freedom of speech, and not just freedom for those you deem morally or politically acceptable.

This is 100% correct, and I applaud you for making this observation.

However, you can strengthen the observation even more. Freedom of speech is arguably only an interesting concept when it comes to the freedom of thos making unpopular (for whatever definition of unpopular) statements of some sort.

After all, if you think about it, popular statements are allowed everywhere. Even in North Korea it is perfectly allowed (indeed, I would imagine encouraged !) to make statements of a certain type that the government likes.

Thus it can be argued that the only sensible measure of our real freedom of speech is how much freedom we extend to those who make statements that we do not like.

Porn. Radical propaganda. Fictious child-porn. Bomb making instructions. Instructions on how to watch DVDs under Linux (sorry, couldn't resist that one). Information on how to grow drug-yielding plants.

I don't think Americans should be nearly as proud of their freedoms as many are.

Re:BBC News article...

[Oddly_Drac]

"I'm not condoning pornographic content where it's likely to be seen by young, impressionable kids"

That's the bit that I've always had a problem with. British culture being the way it is, I was exposed to porn at around eight from the usual vector of the railway embankment, but I don't think it harmed me any more than the (late) conversation I had with my parents about sex.

If anything I suspect that there's some kind of sociological embarrassment with dealing with the whole subject when little johnny asks what a 'blowjob' is at the dinner table...some people react by trying to cover up, some explain and have a laugh later...

The whole porn issue seems less to be about protecting children than using the excuse of protecting children to remove something distasteful from society, when society, through the media generally, is filled full of images of models, pop stars and actors making close-to-the-knuckle references to sex, dressing provocatively and generally doing the things adults do.

Usually the people who speak loudest about protecting the children get into objectifying children as innocence, when the truth is that at 10-14 you're already pretty aware of the world around you. Hell, girls are getting pregnant at 14 because of the biological imperatives of the hormone whirlwind that slams into gear during puberty, with or without sex education and porn. It's that kind of thing that assured the continuation of the human race before flipcharts and the sex cliff notes came along.

Admittedly I wouldn't be that happy about my kids seeing some of the niche stuff (scat, bestial, etc), but I think I'd make it my duty to explain that some people like that kind of stuff and let them make their minds up if they did see it. Bear in mind that the internet is a convienient transport, there's still cable, video, DVD, R Kelly, magazines and books that aren't legislated.

The Internet is NOT a babysitter

[Newtonian_p]

Let's settle this one in for all. The Internet is NOT a babysitter. There is nothing that inherentely makes it meant for children.

Just because some parents start to let their kids freely roam the web, doesn't mean we can prevent people from freeely posting whatever they want (ass long as copyrights are respected). It is their responsibiliry to supervise their children, not the web's. Like Mark Twain said: Censorship is like telling a man cannot have a steak because a baby cannot chew it.

Re:Click through is fine by me

[Anonymous Coward]

That doesn't work, yet apparently a little button that says "I agree" on a software licence is a binding contract. Odd how that works.

Better Idea Innit

[ajs318]

I'd be in favour of making it an offence to allow a minor unsupervised access to the Internet. We didn't have such things when I was a kid. It didn't do me any harm. Of course, alongside that would have to be making it an offence to deny adults access to "objectionable" content.

There are many districts in many cities where all sorts of stuff goes on that you wouldn't want young kids being around. Solution? Don't let your kids go there, at least, not on their own.

We live in an adult world. The Internet is an adult invention. Nobody ever intended it to be suitable for children. Deal with it. For crying out loud! You can't watch certain films till you're 12 or 15; you can't buy fags or have sex till you're 16; you can't drink booze, bet on sporting events or watch other people having sex till you're 18. Anybody complaining about adults smoking, drinking, gambling, having sex and watching certain kinds of films is rightly denounced. What's to complain about? Sooner or later you'll be old enough.

pr0n = harmless?

[No Such Agency]

OK, I agree that pr0n is, in theory, fun and not inherently evil. You or I can surf for naughty pictures and so on with few harmful effects. But, let's be honest, I wouldn't really want a child to view some of the stuff I see.

Why? Context. I understand that the "freaky weird" stuff is a part of natural human sexuality - hermaphrodites & dwarves need love too after all! As a well-adjusted adult, I understand that group sex is just another sexual option if done safely and sanely. But... a child might not. I think kids need to go through a GOOD "mommy and daddy love each other very much and sometimes..." talk, or a GOOD sex ed program (none of this abstinence-only Jesus bullshiat), before they start seeing the less vanilla stuff that's out there. Kids are really impressionable - it's better for them to develop their own ideas and preferences about sexuality, rather than be heavily influenced by whatever variety of pornography they're first exposed to.

Which is not to say that censorship isn't evil. Parents/teachers have to do their best to guide kids' online activity and that's about the best we can justly expect in our society.

Re:Why not 500,000 million?

[gfxguy]

I remember a discussion a while back, after Starship Troopers was shown on television in the U.S. (USA network, I believe, so it was cable, not broadcast - although I don't see why that matters anymore).

There is a scene nearing the end where two characters have sex. In the uncut movie they show the breasts of the female character while they are in their tent. The next scene they are attacked by "bugs", and she gets ripped in half. Now, when it was shown on TV, they cut the showing of the breasts, and happily showed her being ripped in half.

Unbelievable.

I truly believe all of the anti-sex in religion is due to the ugly men (and often enough women) who weren't getting any and decided it was wrong. Even now I see the old fat women at church socials (not that I've gone latley), a much higher percentage of ugly than the general population, and it strikes me that I must be right.

Protecting the Children...

[Sgt_Jake]

It seems that a lot of people are just flat out unaware of the scientific reasons (well... as far as psychology is a science) behind the 'keep kids away from porn' argument.

Children do not have the cognitive maturity to understand what it is they're looking at. Exposing them to it when they are too young to understand it warps their perceptions and confuses their understanding of a relationship. This is a fundamental truth.

For example - a 3 to 4 year old believes they can do anything... literally. In their mind they can climb as fast and as high as any world class rock climber. They'll believe this even after they've fallen off a 2 foot high chair 10 times in a row. They'll believe it in the face of every scrap of empirical evidence to the contrary, and if you tell them they can't they'll just try harder.

4 year olds can't lie - they believe you know the truth even before you ask the question. They don't understand that their thoughts are private to them, and even if you try to explain it to them, they still won't make the connection.

Sexual maturity starts between 9 and 14 (if I remember right), and it's a natural process that they go through with their peers all the way up through adulthood (19 to 22). They become progressively more curious as they get older, and willing to experiment. This provides normal healthy development, and they work it out by talking with thier peers (not you, as many parents would like to believe). Porn throws that development off a cliff - most will end up thinking that sex IS the relationship, and if they don't get it from their significant other, they get seriously confused. This confusion is manifested in everything from why doesn't he/she like me to violence (defense against rejection) and force. It also results in a fair amount of alienation from their peers (slut for girls / pervert for guys), which aggravates the confusion and reduces the pool of peers they can talk to about it (or are willing to talk to). It's also not something that works itself out when they get older, it's a belief system that's pretty hard to break.

So you see, it's not a morality thing, it's a social impact thing. Children should be protected from porn.

That doesn't mean censorship, it just means take reasonable steps to keep kids out - it's the beaded curtain at the video store or the entrance ID check at the local strip club. I'd say it's pretty simple - self regulation and common sense. If you try to pull the free speech defense when you're running a free porn site without a barrier to entry, your... screwed.