Judge Strikes Down COPA, 1998 Online Porn Law

Begopa sends in word that a federal judge has struck down the Child Online Protection Act. The judge said that parents can protect their children through software filters and other less restrictive means that do not limit others' rights to free speech. This was the case for which the US Department of Justice subpoenaed several search companies for search records; only Google fought the order. The case has already been to the Supreme Court. Senior U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed Jr. wrote in his decision: "Perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection."

Comments

Re:A step in the right direction.

[statusbar]

I am very happy about this.

I wrote the first available internet filter for windows 3.1 The Internet Filter specifically because it is the parent's responsibility to decide what their children should and should not see, not the government's responsibility.

--jeffk++

Re:finally

[Intron]

...and my favorite, "Free Speech Areas" at political conventions.

Re:A step in the right direction.

[Spaceman40]

While I don't (yet) have a position on the disenfranchisement of felons in the United States, I'm not sure if your argument really sways me either way.

America's prison population passed the two million mark back in 1992. By 2001, one in 37 adult Americans had been in prison for some period of time (including those who were still there.) For over a decade, sixty percent of the prison population is made up of minorities. While less than one percent of the population is in prison, nearly five percent of the black population of the US is incarcerated.

Summary: lots of people are convicted felons.

It's long past time to recognize the disenfranchisement of felons for what it is; a denial of democracy.

I think that's kind of the idea -- disenfranchisement is basically the removal of citizenship.

If you take the vote away from an entire class of people, their needs and problems need not be addressed; they are effectively denied a voice in government.

The former half of this is part of a point, but again, I think that's kind of the idea.

This becomes far easier when they are people who have been dehumanized by society.

By here, you begin to expand on your main idea, but then your argument ends.

"Disenfranchisement" -- kicking people out -- as punishment has been around forever. The English sent people to Australia (and even America, IIRC). Pirates maroon. We remove their rights as citizens. This doesn't make it good, just tested. I assume that you understand the reasons behind the policy in general.

Your argument seems to be that there are so many felons at this point, we might as well just let them back into citizenship. This is a non sequitur; why should it matter how many felons there are, or how many are minorities, etc.? The reason that a felon is disenfranchised is to remove them from society -- I'm sure the framers would have sent people to some uninhabited area if they could (the wild west, for instance). A few more felons wouldn't have made much difference.

Perhaps it's the permanent disenfranchisement that bothers you. You know, that bothers me a bit, too.

tl;dr: Re-word your argument.