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Has Verizon Forfeited Common Carrier Status?
An anonymous reader writes, "Freedom of speech, the future of the Net, you name it. In October, a U.S. vigilante group asked Verizon to cut off Net access to Epifora, a Canadian ISP that hosts a number of (entirely legal) web sites offering support to minor-attracted adults. Shortly thereafter, Verizon gave 30 days notice to Epifora, ending a 5 year relationship. Telecos have traditionally refrained from censoring legal content, arguing that as 'common carriers' it is outside of their scope to make such decisions. Furthermore, they have refrained because if they did so in some cases, they might be legally liable for other cases where they did not exercise censorship. The questions are: has Verizon forfeited their claim to common-carrier status by selectively censoring legal speech that they do not like? And can the net effectively route around censorship if the trunk carriers are allowed to pick and choose whom they allow to connect?"
Verizon is just protecting the children, you pedophile freak.
Seriously though, Common Carriers should really not be censoring ANY content if they want to be common carriers. Here in the real world, though, Verizon and all of the other big telcos have the FCC in their pockets, so I wouldn't hold my breath on anything happening to them because of this.
So, since they did this, isn't the obvious thing to do to sue Verizon for transmitting something bad that "hurts" you? They are no longer protected now, yes?
In theory, yes, but no corporation with that much money will ever be held accountable to the laws of our country unless they kill the citizenry, and even then, only after many, many years, and especially not when they're Thinking of the Children
My Heart Is A Flower
But it's not going to be a quick process. If the backbones censor content, then encryption and onion routing will make sure that the backbones can no longer see what they carry. That however requires a change of protocol and will take time.
The phrase "minor-attracted adults" makes baby Orwell cry.
Just like blacks and whites who dated fifty years ago "destroyed their own lives", eh? And like gays getting caught up in stings before the gay rights movement "destroyed their own lives".
-Ella, 16
Depends on the age, and the law now doesn't it?
If the age of consent is lower than that of the age of majority (ie, a minor) you could be referring to a 17 year old potentially.
Here in Canada, the age of consent is 14 as long as you're not in a position of authority over the minor in question, with people making noises about raising it to the age of 16.
If I look at a 17 year old girl, am I a pedophile? I think not. I could legally have sex with her, but since she's half my age, I probably don't stand much chance/wouldn't have much in common with her anyway, so I'm not gonna go out and try. But, it hardly makes one a pedophile to stare at her b00b13z, she's merely a minor, but one who is legally allowed to have sex -- including with a dirty old man like me if she so chooses.
I don't know anything about the sites in question (and TFA seems to be slashdotted already), but there is not an immediate transition from "minor" (not old enough to vote or sign contracts) and "child" which is implied by pedophile. Depending on where you live, there are a few years of late adolescence which is a gray area.
Of course, now that I've tried to point out the distinction between being attracted to a minor and what it means to be a pedophile, I'm sure I'll be accused of being one, or at the very least supporting them. Which I don't. I'm merely trying to point out that "minor-attracted" might, in fact, NOT mean pedophile.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Kind of hard to judge with absolutely no real information, but that has never stopped anybody on Slashdot before.
If the ISP shut anyone down without a court order, regardless of what content they're hosting, then they've forfeited their common carrier status in my mind. If they found the site and thought it was illegal, they should have contacted the authorities. Otherwise, they should have done nothing. With the facts we have, we can answer the question asked in the summary.
>Censorship is an ethical cancer. There can be no legitimate justification for it.
Yes, because you still have the unlimited right to yell, "FIRE!" in a crowded theater not on fire. Or incite a riot.
Face it, there is NO such thing as unlimited freedoms, and for good reason.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
The right to refuse business is a long-standing tradition, at least in this part of the world. Verizon can generally choose not to do business with whomever they wish, with certain provisions relating to discrimination.
It is not censorship, it is Verizon's right to say "you can believe and say whatever you like, but please take your business elsewhere." Last time I checked, pedophiles were not a protected class under the U.S. Federal Civil Rights Act, or the Americans With Disabilities Act.
So no, I do not believe Verizon's status as a "common carrier" would be in question with regards to this matter. But thanks for asking!
Age of consent and age of majority are different legal issues.
Whether or not you consider them different moral issues is your issue.
KFG
What the hell is a "minor attracted adult", if not a pedophile?
Notwithstanding the common carrier issue and the legality of the material, it bothers me to see the mainstreaming of pedophilia with terms like this. Years ago I worked at a Montreal ISP. Someone notified us of one of our user's 'secret' webpages--a page not linked from his home page, requiring you to know the exact URL. The page was a collection of links to NAMBLA and like organizations and websites, including a message board for "child lovers".
On the message board, pedophiles alternately discussed sitting in parks watching children play, and discussing how they "came out" to themselves and each other, and accepted themselves for who they are. What was most subtly grotesque was the manner in which they'd adopted the rhetorical stance of the queer community. They talked about 'coming out', and about accepting themselves, and reclaiming terms like 'boy lover'. They were mentally and emotionally setting the stage for the same sort of battle for public acceptance that the gay community has fought and mostly won over the last few decades.
I don't want them to 'come out', I don't want them to have supportive underground communities, and it was saddening to see the entirely appropriate discourse of public acceptance of homosexuality and queer identity perverted like this. This is exactly the slippery slope that the right uses to justify non-acceptance of gays, and we need to bring a big heavy boot down on crap like 'minor attracted adult' to demonstrate that we can make moral choices about who we will accept and who we won't.
The world's a better place because homosexuality has been mainstreamed. It'll be a better place still when pedophilia is absolutely and explicitly denied the same path and the same acceptance. It starts by calling bullshit on terms like 'minor attracted adult'.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
That's not censorship.
Censorship would be the gov't throwing you in prison for warning people about the danger of fire. Your example is the gov't throwing you in prison for knowningly and willfully endangering people's lives by shouting something you a) know to be untrue, and b) know will most likely cause a panic-stricken stampede for the exits.
Quite honestly, saying that not being able to yell 'fire' in a croweded theater is like saying that your right to bear arms is infringed by not being able to shoot people at will.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
You can say anything you want. If it can be substantially proven that you inflicted quantifiable harm on another, you can be held accountable for that.
For instance, if I published a full-page ad in your local paper calling you a pedophile, I would have the full legal right to do so. If you could demonstrate that I caused you financial losses from such a thing, and damages, then I could be sued for libel.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Sadly, you've offered little information to support your claim.
You state "There can be no legitimate justification for it.", but I beg to differ. Rather than ask you to prove your statement, I will merely offer examples of what "I" believe to be "legitimate" justification.
Subject suffers from a kidney disease. A result of this condition is a bed wetting problem. Currently, there is a law that protects the subject from ridicule by preventing this information from being made public. As an aside, there is nothing to prevent the subject from distributing this information. In this case, censorship protects the subject, unless the subject wilfully gives up that right.
- Example B:
I am certain that there are many other examples that you would accept as reasonable. You do not wish members of the general public to get their hands on your SSN/SIN/government number. The law that protects this information is a form of censorship.Subject is the target of an abusive relationship. Subject wishes to leave the relationship and move to a safer environment. To keep the example simple, there are no children involved in this relationship. Subject wishes to start life anew, but does not wish to leave self open to abuse from former abuser. Currently, there are laws that allow you a certain amount of privacy. Unlisted telephone lines, etc. In this case, censorship protects the subject, unless the subject wilfully gives up that right.
Censorship protects the rights and privilages of average citizens. Unfortunately, there are parties that would have you believe that NO information should be safe, that you do NOT have the right to privacy.
I would recommend that people take a moment to understand the banality of your statement. It's like saying being human is a societal cancer. We continue to live and breath, and mostly play our roles responsibly. Sure, there will always be another nut around the corner trying to trample your rights, or abuse the system in one fashion or another, some things are simply there to protect us.
Mod me to hell and gone, I don't care, but this is yet another prime example of people simply refusing to take responsibility for their own actions. How about you yell fire 10, 50 or a hundred times, till people get the "joke" and then on the 101st time, there really is a fire, and a crowded cinema full of people die, because they stopped believing you.
Communication is an important thing, and it depends on meanings of words and short phrases. In certain circumstances, you actually want to be able to convey huge volumes of data with only one or two words. If someone deliberately and willfully tries to erode the data content of that word or phrase (by censorship, by the childish bullshit outlined by the parent, or even by propaganda/google bombing/whatever), then they all deserve to be slow roasted. Its hard enough to move ideas between people as it is, without additional static clouding things.
Thank you. Finally a voice of reason on here.
People incorrectly toss around the "pedophile" label for anyone doing or thinking something they deem inappropriate with someone a lot younger than them. In reality, a pedophile is someone interested in pre-pubescent children... which is a whole 'nother category than a lot of those who get incorrectly labeled such.
Amazing how many hypocrites on here will cry "burn in hell, pedophiles!" at someone interested in POST-pubescent minors, and then proceed to go jack off to Natalie Portman in Phantom Menace (she was 16-17 during filming), or Keira Knightley in Curse of the Black Pearl (she was 17 at the time)... or even Knightley in The Hole, where she goes topless at age 15.
Truth of it is, we as males are attracted to youthful beauty. While pre-pubescent sexual attraction is a sickness in my opinion, it's natural that once the "girl" starts to become a "woman", our natural biology kicks in and desires/thoughts can't necessarily be helped. This whole "18" and "minor" and "age of consent" thing is an artificial creation of very-recent society. Just because stuffy gray old men in some marble building deem it illegal doesn't make it unnatural, wrong, or worthy of condemnation.
Paedophiles are a matter for the F.B.I., and H.M.R.M.P, not for some spineless telco. I went over to the site, www.Epifora.com and saw no sexual oriented anything?! I can only wonder if this is some form of extortion, or someone has access to information that only the bad guys have access to. Civilians that know who the bad guys are, but do not inform law enforcement are just as bad as the bad guys, IMHO.
Perverted Justice is getting thier way, and our society is eating it right up. These narrow-minded souls and others like them have already twisted the english language in such a manner as to cause (in many people's minds) to equate "pedophile" with "child molester", even though a simple etymological study of the words in question would quickly reveal that one has nothing to do with the other. I would think that here on Slashdot we geeks would be more intelligent than this. Then again, I might as well be Don Quioxte arguing about the differences between a hacker vs. a cracker. Even so, words help to define and propel thoughts, and what was once a valid word to describe a legitimate topic has now taken on a wholly wrong and sinister definition.
Why on earth is it that our society can't seem to fathom the idea that there could actually be people out there who truely and honestly love children (without any sexual connotations), on a level that isn't just mere lip-service meant to console the consciences of the "think of the children" moral hypocrites? The fact that this self-same group targets and rallies against such people, while entrenching the concept of "pedophile=child molester", further gives lie to their hypocrisy: This process has little to do with "thinking of the children", and everything to do with "thinking of myself and my power". What these people hope to acheive with this power is anyone's guess, but I can guarantee it will not be something free-thinking people will enjoy.
Instead, we are now a nation who constantly "thinks of the children", while simultaneously fearing them. This fear brings a cost onto our society, as such fear (ie, the legitimate fear of being branded a new-speak "pedophile") causes legitimate teachers and counselors to avoid working with children closely, doing what they do best - teaching, counseling, mentoring, and consoling. Our society, by deligitimizing contact between children and adults (including parents, on many occasions!), is slowly raising a generation of individuals who have never had honest adult guidance. Rather, the little guidance they may have had (from parents or others) was presented to them couched in fear, uncertainty, and doubt. These children aren't robots, they are picking up on these notions. One has to honestly wonder what effects such watered down (and dishonest through ommission) interactions will have on these children as they grow into adults. I sincerely doubt they will be good. In fact, it seems like it would serve to cause more of the same "for-the-children" behavior from these children-turned-adults, or it will flip 180 degrees from where it is today. Both of these outcomes are equally extreme, and neither are a world I want to live in.
Despite all of these cries of "for the children", though, our society continues to turn a blind eye toward the other side of the coin: The sexualizing of children and youth by the media. We the people legitimatize it by doing nothing about it - by letting it continue and expand in scope. By continuing to buy (for ourselves, and for the children, too) and consume the products being advertised, we are effectively saying out of one side of our mouths "this is OK", but lest any member of that society espouse an attraction to these youthful portrayals, we pounce on them and decry "PEDOPHILE" - figuratively rending the individual who dared to utter such thoughts limb-from-limb (interestingly, though, this seems to only apply to certain sub-groups within the larger whole - but this goes well outside the scope of this rant). We ostracize them as a pariah to the group. T
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Actually, "Assault" can be the act of threatening to hit someone. "Battery" is when you actually hit them. IANAL and INW (I'm Not Wikipedia), but I did take a criminal law class in college, and the difference between Assault and Battery were covered, as were the terms Mens Rea (Criminal Intent) and Actus Reus (Criminal Act).
The basis for determining what is and is not a crime falls largely on the existence and extent of the Mens Rea. It's why there are different degrees of Murder and Manslaughter. It's also why the threat to rap and kill a family can, in one case, be totally legal, and in another case, be Assault.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
"Fire" is just a word. It's not my fault people are so jumpy.
Wrong, and I kind of hope you were attempting irony. You know exactly what will happen when you shout 'fire' in a crowded theater. The only reason you would shout fire in a crowded theater is to achieve that effect. Not because your precious inner child is just yearning to share that thought with the world, and to prevent you from doing so is to squelch your freedom of speech.
No, you know goddamned well what you are doing, and it is clear that you are trying to create a stampede, a reaction motivated not by rational thought or argumentation, but by appealing to people's survival instinct to get them to run out of the theater.
Likewise with inciting a riot - just because there is an underlying issue, like bad race relations, jobs being lost and people attributing it to illegal immigrants, etc. does not absolve you of responsibility if you inflame an angry mob of laid off workers and get them to commit violence or burn down a factory with people still in it. No, you knew goddamned well what you were doing and the fact that you only dropped a spark on the dry kindling doesn't mean it was the kindling's fault rather than yours.
The court has decided these ones long ago, and you are wrong, and they are right. The imminent lawless action test of Brandenberg v. Ohio is a very reasonable one, and I've never heard any rational person argue that they think shouting fire in a crowded theater, one of the most extreme examples of speech with obvious, immediate, and unavoidable negative consequences for people's wellbeing, should be legal or morally permissible.
Just because something is made with the vocal chords doesn't make it "speech" in the protected-by-the-first-amendment sense. Speech is something intended to convey thoughts or ideas, not something intended to create an imminently harmful or dangerous situation by bypassing rational thought.
So you're on a jury. The case has to do with a mob hit. You get a note that says, "The defendant walks or you are a dead man." Still okay?
You are a judge. You are presiding over a corruption case. Several of your colleagues have been killed presiding over similar cases. Now you are threatened if the defendant, the brother of the mayor, doesn't walk. Still okay?
A man walks up to you on the street with an M16, points it at your face, tells you that he is going to kill you. You happen to have a gun and you shoot him. You go to jail because he was just using words - your action was completely unwarranted. Still okay?
There are practical limits to free speech. If you still think that threatening speech backed up with a credible threat should be protected, then I'd really like to hear how you would attack government/mafia corruption. I honestly can't work it out in my head.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Driving drunk is not an essential liberty, and not having drunken idiots driving around all the time provides a hell of a lot more than temporary security. Since the liberty is not essential and the security is not temporary, Franklin's quote is not even partially applicable.