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Supreme Court Rules Against Anti-Porn Law
Saeed al-Sahaf writes "From Fox News/AP, the Supreme Court has ruled that the COPA (Child Online Protection Act), passed in 1998 ostensibly to shield kids from Web porn, is probably an unconstitutional muzzle on free speech. This is not quite like 'striking the law down' because the court simply said a lower court was correct to block the law from taking effect, since it likely violates the First Amendment, and sent the law back to a lower court for trial. The American Civil Liberties Union and other critics of the antipornography law said that it would restrict far too much material that adults may legally see and buy, the court said."
"The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a law meant to punish pornographers who peddle dirty pictures to Web-surfing kids is probably an unconstitutional muzzle on free speech." No... no... that's an objective fact-based introduction to the article.
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"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
from my tired, cramped hands!
the problem is that not only do non-porn sites get blocked, but porn sites get blocked. Pornography is also free speech. People don't seem to get that. Protecting children from porn (if you can even call it protecting) is soly the responsibility of the parents.
There's porn on the Internet? Does anyone else know about this?
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
I'm still waiting for someone to demonstrate actual harm to children from pornography.
It's hard to ask a question like that as anything but an AC, because you end up being tarred with the NAMBLA brush. But that doesn't change the fact that the question needs to be asked before passing Constitution-endangering legislation to "save the children."
Who, besides evangelical freakshows, can make a serious argument that kids are corrupted for life when they see naked boobies on the Intarweb?
The high court divided 5-to-4 over a law passed in 1998, signed by then-President Clinton and now backed by the Bush administration.
Just remember kids, it's BOTH democrats and republicans out to take away your rights. It's not a left vs. right struggle, it's a class struggle. Just as it's been throughout history.
Frankly, I don't understand why porn doesn't have it's own extension. That way people can block it out, or surf it to their heart's content. No harm, no foul.
I signed this
Here. It's a long read, but even in skimming you can get far more detail than any Fox or CNN report. In fact, find more detail than the government or media really wants you to know at: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/. The relevant link ('Recent Decisions') is near the top just above the pretty picture of the courthouse itself.
Well, think about the unrealistic expectations that pr0n sets for sex in the real world. I have heard much anecdotal evidence about couples in their 20s where the woman has to basically act like pornstar in the bedroom in order to interest the guy at all because he's become so desensitized to sex by all the pr0n he's been seeing since he was 16.
Now, imagine now how much worse it'll be for kids who are growing up on the Internet with a world of porn at their fingertips. I teach at a high school where all the kids are given laptops and wireless net connectivity, and I know that all of them, male and female alike, have gone to at least one pr0n site on purpose, not to mention all of the goatse's, lemonparty's, etc. that they are tricked into viewing by their maliscious friends.
We're going to have an entire generation of kids who are completely jaded concerning sex while simultaneously haveing all kinds of complexes because their boobs, penis, butt, etc. is too small.
my pet machine
Nope it isn't a fox bias, it is just further proof that the "liberal media" is a myth...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
Everyone nods their heads solomly when someone argues that children need to be protected from the dangers of the net at all costs. But should they?
:E) was that 4 of the justices thought that the Law, which really would have curtailed freedom of speech due to its obsurity(see this article), was a good thing. Who the hell are these judges and how the hell did they ever get to where they are, let alone law degrees.
There is view that the net is predominatly a smut loving, pedophile and cracker infested den of iniquity. It isn't(for the most part anyway). That view is perpetuated by people who don't like the net and what it represents(i.e. change).
Lets get some facts straight.
1) Kids are not going to 'stumble' across pr0n. They are going to go out looking for it.
2) The primary responsibility for children who browse the net, lies not with the government, or lawmakers, or ISPs, or pr0n websites, or even the owner of the computer. It lies with their parents.
3) Pr0n is not the work of satan, despite what many(including 4 S.C. judges) believe. People need a more mature attidude towards sex.
4) No matter WHAT gets put on the net and no matter WHAT the children see and do on it, we should NEVER sacrafice our liberties for the sake of piece of mind.
The most shocking part of the entire article( apart from the fact that Fox reported on it
Yet another case of society being threatened by people not thinking past their next meal. We need intravinous feeding now
May the Maths Be with you!
God forbid that children get the idea that sex can be an enjoyable experience and that sex outside of the missionary position is acceptable. Porn saves many relationships because it gives couples new ideas. Not all porn is John Hugecock and Jane Boobjob having violent sex with a plunger up her ass. There is plenty of porn that is designed for couples.
Either way, if a guy is treating his girlfriend like a porn star than perhaps he has other respect issues that need to be dealt with. While porn will not cause a man to be disrepectful it may make it worse.
It's weird how we Americans hate porn so much more than violent media. I know when I was 5, my dad let me watch Die Hard on video since it was all violence and no sex. That seems inherently backwards when I reflect upon his thinking. I mean, violence is not a natural, productive extension of human behavior. Sex is. No, I'm not riding against GTA or something (especially since the package is clearly marked M for Mature), since escapist violence has its place as entertainment as well.
Here are the popular arguments I hear (and the responses) against kids seeing porn:
1) They'll become rapists
Answer: Rape is widely viewed as being linked to violence rather than sexual gratification. It's a crime of power. Even if rape is linked to sexual needs, the personal threshold to commit such an atrocity is probably linked to either inherent psychological detriments or a desensitized state of being regarding violent acts, which probably has more to do with 9-year-olds playing GTA than 9-year-olds reading Playboy.
2) Kids will become addicted to porn like drugs
Answer: Stop watching Jerry Falwell. Porn has no chemical dependency, and if a child wishes to explore what they're born with, who is it harming? They're not going to go blind
3) Date rapes are about getting some, not violence. Kids will feel a need for sex if they're exposed to porn, and they'll get it one way or another
Answer: This relates to the answer to 1), but also has a separate argument. The contention that seeing porn -> needing sex is tenuous, and is hardly more persuasive than "not seeing porn -> curiousity/forbidden fruit -> needing sex". If you've never seen a person naked, the appeal is heightened in hormonally-charged situations such as dates. Frankly, the idea of something being banned for kids only makes them more interested. Ask George Bush Sr. and his oh-so-successful War on Drugs. 4) Children become densensitized to sex, making sex less enjoyable.
Answer: Okay, that's a legitimate concern, and I'd be willing to agree. However, that hardly warrants the extremely unconstitutional methods proposed by current anti-porn legislation. Perhaps schools ought actively engage in sexual discourse, but that ain't happening in this lifetime.
I'm sure there are some holes in the arguments. No pun intended.
Yes, but these are blokes who treat Loaded as a bible, toot their car horns at billboards and generally are stuck in a mindset of artificial = sexy.
The rest of us, who discovered porn in our teens (and quite a bit younger than 16) got bored with people faking it, and realised that good sex is about intimacy rather than image.
Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Gates M'dna wgah'nagl fhtagn.
If I had seen Goatse and Lemonparty as a teenager, I think I would have decided to be celibate.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
What happens when children look at themselves naked? Is that damaging?
I recall that I started having my first sexual urges around 13. My mom caught me reading a Playboy magazine and sent me to counselling. What a fucking waste of time. In the end, the psychiatrist explained to my mother it was normal for human beings to develop sexual urges starting in their early teens.
I'd like to go on, but a fellow inmate needs to use this computer...
US law will never change the Internet. Porn sites that are domestic will simply move to overseas hosts that are located in countries with lax laws.
Between this and yesterday's ruling on detainees during "war time" I have to give a big shout out to the supreme court. I am glad to see that they are protecting our freedoms as they are supposed to. Not that I think so much that terrorists should be treated fairly or that kids shouldn't be protected from porn. Just that laws that limit these things can easily be abused and I'm happy to see that the supreme court is taking a stand. Since our Executive branch is so set on stealing our freedoms.
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
Hi. I'm Darkmind of Darkmind Web. Mind control erotic literature.
I am not interested in selling porn/erotica at all. I am interested in writing dirty stories, and putting them up someplace where people can see them. I have registered my site with various child blocking services, and put up a big warning at the front.
But I'm not interested in having to set up a credit card verification system just to post my stories. And that is what this law would have required.
I am not interested in distributing it to minors. They probably would misunderstand it. (Heck, many adults will misunderstand it.) I'm just interested in distributing it to people who are of age and interested without having to require I keep track of each and every person who arrives. It would take to much time and money on my part, and be intrusive on theirs.
A lot of people on this site complain about the New York Times' (and others) required login. Is it so bad that I don't want to do that?
He's not my friend because he was "conservative" or liked fox news, but because he was so damn simple as to say something like fox isn't a news channel, so it doesn't matter that they are biased.He was someone (philosophy major) who should have known better. There was a lot more to it than just this one incident. He regularly showed himself to be a parrot towing the (Republican) party-line. Ultimately, though, it had far more to do with his callous and outright rude remarks to other people, irrespective of politics that got to me.
Also, you really need to learn how to more properly judge a throw-away line that is intended as humor at the end of a post. I was being flippant. Or perhaps facetious. In any event, I thought it would be obvious that I was making a joke and would not really stop being friend's with someone over something like his political views.
my pet machine
Sex, which was invented by Satan, is evil. When you expose people to sex, you score points with the Great Horned One. For example, let's say your child is exposed to pornography, and this gives him the idea of having sex. At the end of his life, when he is at St Peter's gate, Pete will look at your kid's sex monitoring chip and see he had more orgasms than the number of children that his wife conceived. This sends your child (and his wife) to Hell to burn forever in eternal anguish. The pornographer gets a referral fee every time this happens. Whoever gets the most referral fees, will get to sit at the Right Hand of Satan and become a Duke of Hell, with the usual perks such as glorious prestige, command of demon armies, etc.
It's also about specifically corrupting the youth of America. Pornographers hate America. When your child spends time and energy masterbating to pornography, he is diverting effort away from doing productive things that would make, say, North Korea, look bad. It gives North Korea a chance to catch up. This is desirable from the point of view of a pornographer, because they want Communism to win.
They also publish porn purely out of sadistic malice. They know it hurts and offends people and makes baby Jesus cry, and that's pretty exciting.
Hope this helps and answers your question.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
"If you want unbiased, read through the report yourself... If you are basing your opinion on any news station, you are not going to get the real story."
Well, what you'll get instead is the bias of the person who wrote the report. ;-)
The flipside is that many (most?) of us Americans seem too damned lazy to actually take the time to develop an informed, independent opinion on anything. We merely digest what we're spoon-fed. So if it's reported incorrectly there's no critical analysis. It's just accepted as fact. Lazy. Too damn lazy.
An ignorant democracy is no democracy at all. Just a flock of sheep waiting for the most shiny light.
Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
Its nice to see that the ACLU has decided to protect my 5 year olds right to surf the net and enjoy the pron pop ups the these unethical perverts want to send.
It's nice to see that you prefer to let Witch-finder General Ashcroft into my computer and my bedroom rather than take responsibility to raise your own child.
Are you such a bad parent that you think a nanny-State can do a better job?
Your five year-old daughter might well be shocked by seeing porn on your computer; but I wager she'd be wakened by screaming nightmares for a month if she saw these pictures of the results of the Nazi Holocaust. (Note that two of the pictures, including the one of the emaciated children your daughter's age who were subjected to medical "experiments", are served up by a Florida public school system.)
Should we remove those pictures from the Internet to protect your daughter? Turn the Holocaust survivors' "never again" into "never again seen"?
What about pictures of Pol Pot's Killing Fields?
Will throwing those pictures down the memory hole make your job as parent any easier?
What about sanitizing inconvenient pictures of America's Iraq War?
Is you daughter too young for those pictures of her country's "accomplishments"? Shall we censor them too?
Or maybe it's a better idea you sit with your five-year old while she browses the internet?
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
While "real porn sites" generally involve hunting them down, pornographic ads (and I'm talking about rather explicit stuff, too) are far easier to come across by accident. I think the _ads_ are the thing that the government needs to concentrate on if they're going to regulate internet porn.
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
If a law comes from the left, it's usually stupid. If it comes from the right, it's usually evil. "Bipartisan" just means it's stupid and evil.
But hey, it's a two party system, and you don't want to throw your vote away. Are there even any local government elections in the US which use Condorcet voting yet?
No, it shows that the mainstream left and right wings are solidly united on some issues, such as censorship of pornography. American society in general hates and fears pornography, and any mainstream news source is going to be heavily biased in its reporting of it. For example, witness the hatchet job PBS Frontline did on the porn industry a few years ago. (Is PBS a right-wing outfit?)
As another poster pointed out, it was Bill Clinton who signed the law in question in the first place. I don't think that that anybody could argue that this shows that Clinton's "liberal" bias is a myth.
Not everything can be predicted by traditional, shallow labels of left and right. The Supreme Court ruled against the law, and that doesn't necessarily mean that they are sympathetic to pornography; it merely shows they are aware of broader free-speech issues involved. On the other hand, I believe strongly in a right to government non-interference in private, consensual activities, and that doesn't mean I lean to the left (far from it!).
Microsoft Windows is, fittingly, the official Desktop OS of Olig
(6) Material that is harmful to minors.--The term `material that is harmful to minors' means any communication, picture, image, graphic image file, article, recording, writing, or other matter of any kind that is obscene or that--
(A) the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find, taking the material as a whole and with respect to minors, is designed to appeal to, or is designed to pander to, the prurient interest;
(B) depicts, describes, or represents, in a manner patently offensive with respect to minors, an actual or simulated sexual act or sexual contact, an actual or simulated normal or perverted sexual act, or a lewd exhibition of the genitals or post-pubescent female breast; and
(C) taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.
Notice that the only specific topic defined is sexual content. The rest can almost be applied to anything.
Where does our obsession with Sex come from? Is it better to present children with violence, death and war?
It's funny that a movie where you can see a Nipple is automatically Rated-R, whereas other movies where 100s of people are killed maybe be rated PG-13 (or whatever). Violence is ok, Sex evil? Please.
Now we're trying to do the same with the internet. No, thank you very much.
People tend to go through phases in terms of what they find attractive. When I was younger, I actually found women closer to my age now (and older) more attractive than I do today, and I find my eyes drawn to the young tenderonis more, probably an indication of the oncoming morbidity which occurs around thirty years of age as the reality of one's mortality becomes more apparent. I'm sure I'll swing back around the other way when I get tired of women that don't understand me, or something.
There is a theory that [basically] states that when we are prosperous we go looking for women with athletic figures because they are capable of more sexual gymnastics, we are looking for a playmate. When we are in poverty we go looking for a woman capable of being a mother. Right now is a time of prosperity, in spite of the U.S. economy's "slump" we are still much better off than much of the world. Hence we in the US are looking at the hot lil' honeys when we watch porn. But, that's just one theory. Besides, not everyone likes the waifs-with-boob-jobs today.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The AP is like the rest of the media: it plays to the sanctimony when appropriate, and never criticizes military action or defense appropriations bills. And never, EVER interview a soldier on the ground; only interview Pentagon spokesmen who tell you how great things really are.
Most self-professed liberals I've encountered genuinely respect the rights of others and want to make society more just and equitable for everyone.
Most self-professed conservitives I've encountered are intent on imposing their political and religious beliefs on everyone else.
Most liberals I've talked to are willing to have a rational discussion of the issues and are at least willing to listen to an opposing viewpoint
Most conservatives I've talked to are totally convinced that they are 100% right and everyone else is 100% wrong, and are not willing to even acknowledge a dissenting viewpoint.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
A friend passed along a url to me the other day about the ACLU. I strongly suggest people read it, not only to perhaps dispel a few preconceived notions, but to read the replies the author got and reflect.
There seems to be a portion of the citizenry that cannot seem to abstract their own beliefs (and belief systems) from reality. There also appears to be a distinct willful decision not comprehend separation of church and state. Individuals have the choice to restrict (or not) themselves, government does not have the choice to restrict or advocate. Why do I bring this point up? many of the "please think of the children" are running on their own religious views about sex, and sexual content, and are pushing their agenda unto to the government, pushing the govt into a role is it not only ill suited for, but has no place in. Let us examine a hypothetical, if used in a similar manner, laws could be passed to shut down any non-kosher restaurants and stores. Clearly no one pushes this because the govt has no role enforcing a set of religious beliefs or edicts, regardless the rhetoric they are couched in.
This of course puts the onus on the parents to handle the situation, and that is where the responsibility lies.
I agree, most people involved in the media seem to be what Republicans and libertarians call "liberal." Whether they actually are traditionally liberal, and whether the corporations they work for let them print everything they want to print the way they would want to - those are different issues.
But anyway, what's wrong with being liberal?
This country was a radical, liberal nation at its inception. The idea that a monarchy was unneeded, and that the people could govern themselves-- that was an incredibly forward-looking and progressive idea. Functioning democracy is the gift we have given the world. We need to be proud of it. And we need to recognize that we are patriots.
A patriot fights to defend freedom. Holding citizens without charging them? That's not patriotic. Lying to the nation to goad us into a petty, personal conquest? Not patriotic. Colluding with enemies like Iran for one's personal poltical gain? Certainly not patriotic, and even traitorous.
As liberals we deserve to derive our power from our nation's strong progressive history. Walk around Washington and look at those monuments: Washington, Lincoln, FDR, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt. These were all men who were considered tremendously liberal by the standards of their age. Read some of what Lincoln-- the only Unitarian President-- says about the corporate power of his time and tell me that's not a liberal guy. Every just war we've fought-- the Revolution, the Civil War, and World War II-- has been fought under the aegis of a liberal President.
The problem these days is that most liberals hate what this country is becoming in the hands of corporate and right-wing power, and because they fear what we are becoming they listen to the views of Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, et al., who are intelligent people who need to be heard, but whose views cannot be the basis for a popular progressive movement. Any successful liberal movement must wrap itself in the flag. We must reclaim our role in America.
Put a flag decal on your Toyota Prius (or your Volvo, as the case may be). Fly it proudly in front of your house, behind your John Kerry (hell, or even Ralph Nader) lawn sign. That flag is the symbol of your country, but it's also the symbol of generations of Progressives who have fought, and struggled, and often died to make this country the nation that it is. Liberals have played an integral role in crafting America into a superpower, and it's about time we stood up and acted proud about it.
All of the links you referenced had to do with history events... and you are correct that we should not forget history since "those who forget are doomed to repeat".
However, pornography has NO redeeming value.
I'm a you missed my point: even if all pornography were removed from the internet -- even from servers outside the United States --, even if you achieved this impossible goal, there would still be plenty of pictures on the web you wouldn't want your five-year old to see.
Among those would be what you call "historical" pictures, which you correctly note should not be suppressed or forgotten, which need to be available on the web for our reminder and instruction.
So, since those pictures should stay on the web, and nevertheless five-year olds shouldn't see them, a parent or guardian needs to monitor a five-year old's net access whether or not pornography is accessible on the web.
Since such a monitor could also shield the child from pornography as well (and since, realistically, no law will result in the removal of all porn from the web), there's no benefit to removing pornography: with or without porn being accessible, you need to monitor five-year olds.
The law provides no shortcut, no possibility of doing without a parent's monitoring, unless the law also bans photos of Holocaust victims and bloody car crashes and surgeries gone wrong and lepers and the casualties of wars.
So if the law doesn't shield children from non-pornographic horrors, and doesn't allow parents the benefit of not spending time monitoring, whom does the law benefit -- other than people who want to crack down on porn just because it's porn
The point of my examples is to impress upon you that even if it were a valid argument (and I don't think it is valid), the argument that this is "for the children" doesn't apply here.
The "for the children" argument is a straw-man -- this legislation is "for" fundamentalists who don't just want to keep porn from children, they want to keep it from adults by banning porn outright. Since they can't ban porn outright thanks to previous Supreme Court decisions, they decided to make it so difficult to put porn on the web, or to view porn on the web, that most people would just give up. That, and not protecting children, is the motivation behind this law.
The law is designed to make it:
Again: the legislation doesn't protect kids from horrors or give parents a pass to not monitor their kids. Since it doesn't accomplish its proponents' ostensible goals, we must ask, what does it really accomplish?
Any time a law is proposed, ask yourself that old, old question, cui bono, "for whose good?" if you want to understand what's really going on. By doing so, we understand the real goals of this law's supporters -- and those goals are to prevent adults from making or posting or viewing free speech the law's supporters don't like.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?