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The Best and Worst US Internet Laws
An anonymous reader writes "When a US legislator describes the Internet as a 'series of tubes' you just know that you're going to end up with some wacky laws on the books. Law professor Eric Goldman takes a look at the best and worst Internet laws in the U.S. Goldman offers an analysis of the biggies such as the DMCA, but also shines light on lesser-known laws like the Dot Kids Implementation and Efficiency Act of 2002. And he actually finds four Internet laws that aren't all bad."
An easier to read, all on one page version of the FA is here.
Aritcle headline incorrect.
Should read:
The Worst and Least Worst of US Internet laws
The ammendments would-
There's some more info *here*.
I did read TFA, and it's just amazing how US lawmakers think they can govern the way Internet is being used and how it evolves, all from behind their desks. 10 out of 10 laws, good and bad, fail to take into account that these laws have no juristriction in other countries.
How does a US legislator come up with a law that tries to regulate information that may be property of an Australian entity, that sits on a German server and links to a French database hosted by a Lithouanian ISP? These laws are totally useless. Defective-by-design. And contrary to what that guy in the White House may think, America does not rule the world.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
Tubes! The naive old fool!
Every geek on this site knows that the Internet is actually a series of pipes.
In the case of the main backbones, great big fat pipes!
I'm apalled that the author excluded CAN-SPAM from tfa. Easily #1 worst internet law in my books, for the fact that it is almost entirely unenforcable. (amongst many other enormous problems)
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- Possession of counterfeit credentials involving interstate commerce, such as credit card numbers
- Accessing a computer in an unauthorized manner
- Gaining privileges in excess of those otherwise granted
- Unauthorized wiretaps
While our ability to exercise certain rights is important, let us not forget that we also need the ability to restrict others from trespass and fraud.We've upped our standards. Up yours.
.. have to be to use "series of tubes" as an analogy for the Internet? What's next? Buffering? Routing? Flow control? HAH! Ignorant politicians.
...have the right to play in the middle of the 'Information Superhighway' are almost always rotten.
Handing over the keys to the car is something you do when your kid turns 15. There ought to be a similar ethic WRT Internet access.
Still, knowing who sponsored the bills would be useful (yea, I could look it up myself, but I'm a complainer, not a doer).
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
They missed one of the worst, 18 USC 2257, which makes a large chunk of internet sites impossible to run legally, like any site where people are uploading content or streaming video. This includes anonymous rateme sites like ratemyboobies, flashyourrack, and arguably even things like tinypic, flickr, and photobucket.
Of course nobody will admit to hating it as it protects the children and if you dont like it you're a creepy pedophile.
Impossible to hate the law because it makes distributors have to keep a copy of everything they distribute (technologically impossible for a cam site, not enough storage exists), makes pornstars give up a lot more personal info that all needs kept on file, even though they're usually the type that would want to stay anonymous or at least not have random guys able to come find and rape them, and makes it impossible for a girl to randomly post a tit picutre on a forum, imageboard, or whatever.
Nope. None of those are valid complaints. Don't like the law = want to dick an 8 year old. Must be why it was left out from the article.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
Ok, we can all agree that the government has not been able to understand the internet, and I think that's pretty sad, but I have a feeling that there has been more than 14 laws put into place about the internet. He even admits there's been 100s of laws passed. My problem is that we can only find 2 good laws, 2 questionable laws and 10 bad laws? This sounds like the article's writer has a bit of an axe to grind and decided to take it out on laws while pretending to maintain impartiality. He admits he's biased, but I could admit I'm biased and repeat some of the stuff that Venezuelan president Chavez says about out country and Bush. Doesn't make what I say news, or even worthy of a title "The good and bad of Bush".
Personally I find this article to be subpar for our standards. Slashdot isn't a soap box, something we seem to have forgotten.
The CAN-SPAM act is terrible legislation, not because of what it attempted to accomplish, but because of what it actually accomplished: Nothing. Even worse, it failed to criminalize spam, effectively legitimizing it.
Aside from that the law has no real teeth. You can't seek redress from spammers unless you're an Attorney General or an ISP.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.