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Pennsylvania Child Porn Act Overturned
Ghoser777 writes "According to MSNBC, a Pennsylvanian law that required ISPs to filter/block websites containing child porn has been overturned by a federal judge. Child porn is still illegal under U.S. federal law, but the judge found that 'there is an abundance of evidence that implementation of the Act has resulted in massive suppression of speech protected by the First Amendment.'"
If you run an ISP, and are worried about some government agency forcing you to sacrifice your subscibers rights, heres a good place to start to learn about the latest battles. http://www.eff.org/minilinks/archives/cat_free_spe ech.php
While it wasn't your main point and I don't know if you were arguing for it or not, the fact that arresting marijuana users would get 50% of college students arrested and punishing music downloaders would get 80% of college students in trouble should set off an alarm in anyone's head that maybe the law needs to be re-evaluated. (Not necessarily dropped, but definitely re-evaluated.)
Closer to topic, your desire for more government monitoring is scary. But also not the point, and I won't argue it.
(The following is obviously speculation, so if you have facts to refute or support it, I'm all ears.)
Actually on-topic, while the whole child porn thing is disgusting, stopping internet sharing of it is not going to stop the abuse of the children the law aims to protect. The people who do this aren't doing it because they can make money doing it. They're going to be making the porn for themselves whether they can sell it and share it or not. The people consuming it aren't going to stop molesting children if they can't get their dirty pictures.
I'm willing to bet that the number of kids helped by this law is going to be within the margin of butterfly-effects, so let's not waste time and money blocking people from reading melodramatic blogs.
There are better ways to fight child abuse, and they conflict with this one.