COPA Suffers Yet Another Court Defeat

A US federal appeals court today struck down COPA, the Child Online Protection Act, a Clinton-era censorship law that the Justice Department has been struggling to get implemented for a decade. (The ACLU filed suit as soon as COPA was signed in 1998 and won an immediate injunction.) The battle has made it to the Supreme Court twice, and the DoJ has essentially never gotten any satisfaction out of the courts. This was the case for which the DoJ famously went trolling for search histories. In the ruling issued today, the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower-court ruling that COPA violates the First Amendment because it is not the most effective way to keep children from visiting adult Web sites. The law would require sites to check visitors' ages, e.g. by taking a credit card, if the site contained any material that is "harmful to minors," whatever that means.

Comments

Good

[Smackheid]

Parents, it's your job to watch your kids, not anybody else's.

Re:Good

[negRo_slim]

True but a society must also take care to protect it's most vulnerable members.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

That is the job of parents, if they can't do the job they should lose custody and be put up for a family that wants children, but can't have them

Re:Good

[MightyMartian]

By idiotic, unenforceable laws that anyone but a mental retard knows is a violation of the Constitution and is going to get kicked out (after, of course, costing all the parties involved a shitload of attorney's fees)?

This had absolutely nothing to do with protecting children or any other vulnerable group. It's called pandering. The politicians that enact it do indeed hope that their constituents are mental retards.

Re:Good

[Hijacked Public]

You assume that preventing children from seeing 'things that will harm them' online is a means of protecting them. It isn't, of course, not that this law would do that anyway.

What would protect children more than anything else would be stiff penalties for lawmakers who pass laws later found to be unconstitutional. Something on the order of losing your pension. They know what they are doing, and it is time we held them responsible somewhere other than on the campaign trail.

Re:Good

[digitrev]

Well, call me a bastard, but keeping kids off the internet would not have helped you in the least. If parents are doing a bad job, this is not society's fault. Your father was a fuck up and deserves to end up in jail. However, we rely on other people to notice and report those things. Ultimately, you cannot punish society because your father did a bad job.

tl;dr Censored tubes would not help your situation.

Re:Good

[digitrev]

Politicians understand politics. They know that by trotting out "Think of the children", any numbskull with kids will vote for them "because our precious baby will be hurt" if they don't. Politics and the law are two different things. Politicians write the law (well, some of them do, other times industry writes it for them and they just sign off on it), but they don't necessarily expect it'll get enforced. Just that they can say "I voted for a bill protecting America's children" when election time rolls around.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Cynical Idealist

"Scratch any cynic and you'll find a disappointed idealist."

- George Carlin

Re:Good

[fm6]

Most parents would agree with you. Unfortunately, there are some very vocal and influential people who don't just want to "protect" their own kids, they want to protect everybody's.

Also, this is not entirely about "protecting the children". People wouldn't be so noisy about keeping something away from the kids if they weren't actually offended by it themselves. But just being offensive is no longer enough, by itself, to justify censorship, either legally or in the minds of most people. So it has to be about The Children.

Personally, I would like to see children protected — but not from porn. The fact is, I just don't see the harm in kids seeing graphic sex. It's not like it's not something they won't need to learn about eventually. On the other hand, it bothers the hell out of me that children are exposed to so much violence in their entertainment. And not just violence, but violence separated from any kind of emotional context. That cannot be a good thing.

Re:Good

[tm2b]

The way to protect children is to world-proof them, not by trying to child-proof the world.

Re:Good

[Darkness404]

Or... Realize that it is stupid to "protect" kids from the internet. Now, granted you don't want your kid talking to MrSerialRapist997 on AIM, but some of the things that are censored are absolutely pointless. For example, its OK if an 18 year old swears once in a while, but a 10 year old shouldn't? It is totally OK for an 18 year old to play a game in which you kill people, but not a 16 year old? Really if censoring content is all people use to judge parenting ability, then that is just sad. Now, I think that if you are say, starving your kids, they should be relocated, but just because a kid can say some swear words, plays some violent video games and have seen naked people, doesn't make the parenting bad and our society needs to realize that.

Re:Good

[bioradmeister]

Well then, I hope I can rest assured that you will be in the 2008 United States presidential election? Since you seemingly have a firmer grasp on politics then those that have devoted much more time and effort into that area of life.

I think that is the problem. You think the Constitution is a political issue.

Re:Good

[digitrev]

Damn straight I want politicians afraid to pass laws. They should debate it, talk to judges, talk to lawyers, and for god's sake think about these laws before they pass them.

Re:Good

[john_anderson_ii]

True but a society must also take care to protect it's most vulnerable members.

That's a laugh. The reason why 'society' can't take care of anything, much less it's most vulnerable members is because 'society' is incapable of shouldering responsibility. How do you punish 'society' for every kid that joins a gang or drowns in a pool? If 'society' is charged with a portion of the responsibility of raising a child, what are the consequences of shirking that responsibility? There are none, therefore the responsibility of society is a myth, and so is the idea that society 'takes care of' anything.
For each child there are a select few people who have an actual responsibility to rear that child. Family, teachers, coaches, etc. These people aren't 'society', they are part of a local community, not America as a whole. These people have real world consequences to face when they don't live up to their responsibilities.
Logically, "It takes a village to raise a child." is a ridiculous farce when that "village" is the whole United States & it's Federal Government. The only thing the "village to raise a child" philosophy has done to child rearing is to lessen the consequences when those who should be responsible aren't.

Re:Good

[LordNimon]

I've never believed that an "emergency law" is ever necessary. The law should be able to handle situations in advance. If we need to have certain changes in the law to thwart terrorism, then it should be possible to know in advance what those changes are. I reject the notion that our legislatures need to "act quickly" after a terrorist attack in order to quickly modify the law to catch the terrorists or prevent another attack.

Re:Good

[mdwh2]

"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"

- Senior US District Judge Lowell Reed Jr., commenting on this same law when he struck it down last year ( http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article1554275.ece ).

Re:Good

[Darkness404]

I've never believed that an "emergency law" is ever necessary. The law should be able to handle situations in advance.

But that is what the Patriot act is made to do. And surely you don't believe that wiretapping Americans is necessary today do you? Emergency laws allow for the suspension of freedom temporarily, and the only solution is to create permanent laws killing freedom permanently if you choose not to use them.

Your idea is that we would allow all freedom 24/7 if we choose not to use these emergency laws, the fact is it won't happen and rather than freedom being stopped for a few months to a year, it becomes permanent. And I myself am willing to sacrifice a bit of freedom for a year to prevent a terrorist attack, I am not willing to sacrifice a lot of freedom for my lifetime to prevent a terrorist attack.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

I was referring to your line "violation of the constitution" that chumps like you bark out whenever any law is enacted, ever. You don't have a right to murder. You don't have a right to steal. You don't have a right to trespass. You don't have a right to rape. "Essential Liberty" does not include exposing children to pornographic material.

Straw man arguments are lies.

Re:Good

[snowgirl]

And I myself am willing to sacrifice a bit of freedom for a year to prevent a terrorist attack, I am not willing to sacrifice a lot of freedom for my lifetime to prevent a terrorist attack.

I believe a quote is in order here...

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin

Re:Good

[snowgirl]

True but a society must also take care to protect it's most vulnerable members.

There are readily available, affordable and even free technical means by which any concerned parent can prevent his or her child from being accidentally exposed to pornography. Should a parent fail to do so, the failure is on the part of the parent, not the society.

It's not the presence of a law that kept my children and so far has kept my grandchildren from being accidentally exposed to pornography (online, on television, wherever) but the presence of parents who care.

... but seriously, how damaging is it? I was "accidentally" exposed to porn as a child... hundreds thousands MILLIONS of children are exposed to porn as children. And honestly, at age 12 for girls, and 14 for boys there is no good reason to forcefully protect them from pornography at all... they're sexually mature at that time.

This whole "think of the children" crap is a bunch of hog-wash from puritanical idiots... our ancestors lived for a long time with just as health of psychologies as we have now (perhaps more, if you're living in America).

There are a number of cultures that when contact with Europeans began, they were in one-room huts where the parents made love while their children slept.

Demonizing and vilifying sex is just bogus mojo... Romeo and Juliet were 14! Get off your high horse... Young children don't even UNDERSTAND sexual content... and once they can, hey, they're sexually mature!

Re:Good

[digitrev]

It's unconstitutional because it is an unnecessary and unreasonable limit on free speech. Forbidding death threats is a reasonable restriction on free speech. Forbidding yelling fire in a crowded theater is a necessary restriction on free speech. Age verification for huge sections of the internet (remember, there are already laws stating that you must be 18+ to watch porn; if you lie, it's not their fault) is neither reasonable nor necessary, especially when the guiding words are "harmful to minors". Guess what? Shit piss fuck cunt cocksucker motherfucker tits. That's probably considered harmful to children by someone. Now /. requires age verification. So yeah, this is unconstitutional.

Re:Good

[snowgirl]

Most parents would agree with you. Unfortunately, there are some very vocal and influential people who don't just want to "protect" their own kids, they want to protect everybody's.

Also, this is not entirely about "protecting the children". People wouldn't be so noisy about keeping something away from the kids if they weren't actually offended by it themselves. But just being offensive is no longer enough, by itself, to justify censorship, either legally or in the minds of most people. So it has to be about The Children.

Personally, I would like to see children protected — but not from porn. The fact is, I just don't see the harm in kids seeing graphic sex. It's not like it's not something they won't need to learn about eventually. On the other hand, it bothers the hell out of me that children are exposed to so much violence in their entertainment. And not just violence, but violence separated from any kind of emotional context. That cannot be a good thing.

*applause* I agree :)

I believe in protecting the children too... from Lawn Darts! Not from pornography...

And prostitution is only a dangerous profession where they cannot turn to the protection of the law, and illegal immigrants are only exploited by businesses because they can't go to any authority to complain about work conditions, or pay.

Making something illegal makes criminals, but it doesn't make the illegal something wrong. Didn't we learn that with prohibition? OH THAT'S RIGHT, we still have temperance movements... *sigh*

Re:Good

[Grave]

Emergency law?? No such thing. If it has time to clear Congress, it is not an emergency.

What you're thinking of is an Executive Order, which is designed for situations like this. I can think of only a handful of REAL emergencies where violation of the constitution is legitimately the best response. A wide-scale biological warfare attack being one (all interstate travel would have to be completely shut down and blocked by the military to stop the spread, even if it meant killing anyone who attempted to leave town), or perhaps a military invasion by China or some other power. Those are emergencies that I could accept such violations for, so long as once the immediate situation was corrected, the Executive Order expired. The 9/11 attacks represented, at best, a one week emergency. Air travel was completely shut down, the stock markets were closed, and quite frankly, everybody was a bit scared - was it the precursor to something bigger? Was it just a bunch of suicidal terrorists who got really lucky? We didn't know at first. Within a week, it became clear that it wasn't the start of World War III, and although there was still tremendous uncertainty about our future, we knew that any further attacks were going to be really really tough to pull off. Everyone was more vigilant (paranoid, really), and it was universally agreed amongst Americans that if a terrorist tried to hijack another plane, we'd not even hesitate to fight back. So, the markets reopened and air travel resumed on 9/17 (if memory serves). During that week, I'd have understood, and perhaps even begrudgingly accepted if massive wiretapping had occurred (though I'd have fully expected a very thorough and public Senate inquiry into such an Executive Order afterwords). The Patriot Act was not signed into law until 10/26, more than six weeks after the attacks. The "emergency" period was over. Hell, by that time, US special forces were in Afghanistan, coordinating with the rebels and preparing for the domino collapse of the Taliban.

As for your assertion that a few months or a year would have been needed, I beg you to more carefully consider that view. Why would you sacrifice a year of your freedom to prevent a terrorist attack? If by some magic, giving up one year of freedom would prevent any and all future terrorist attacks, I'd be fine with that. But it's a delusion of grandeur to believe that the world works that way. Taking away the freedoms of a people is a wonderful way to inspire terrorism. The laws in place allowed for more than enough protection from 9/11 - the problem wasn't with the laws, it was with the poor budget and management of our intelligence organizations, combined with a bit of luck on the part of the perpetrators and the shear audacity of the plan.

Re:Good

[Eli Gottlieb]

I think people are a bit more worried about "Backdoor Sluts 9" than "Parents Making Love".

Re:Good

[geekoid]

Close.
Their are certain groups that have political power that think it's up to them to tell you the right way to raise your child.

Religious groups do that. Don't tell us what to believe, but you better not do anything we don't think is right.

Re:Good

[webagogue]

That's why I always favor deadlock in government. The less they do, the better for me. Selfish? Hell yeah, but so is everyone.

Re:Good

[nomadic]

There's nothing unconstitutional for punishing a legislator for breaking the Constitution...

Article 1, Section 6: They [Congress] shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

Now treason is specifically defined: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

Considering how many constitutional cases end with a split decision in the Supreme Court, it seems unfair to expect an individual congressperson to know precisely whether the law they're proposing is Constitutional or not. While slashdotters think the Constitution is "clear," it really isn't, and "I disagree with your interpretation" is often a more accurate accusation than "zomg thats so unconstitutional its so obvious you should be dragged onto the street and shot!"

Re:Good

[PakProtector]

You mean like the Pilgrims? Pure myth. They actually wanted the kind repressive society we're complaining about here. They left England because it wasn't "pure" enough for them.

I have a perfectly good grasp of history. You need to understand the metaphorical content of a thing along with its literal meaning. I want to leave the United States and go found my own land, because the United States is not pure enough for me. It has compromised upon the ideals upon which it was founded. I want to go found my autarchist paradise, where we each are responsible for our own selves, and no one tries to force their own morals on anyone else.

From Brigham Young to Jim Jones, going off to form your own little society has been about imposing your own vision on the world, not about escaping somebody else's.

I wouldn't mind imposing my own vision on the world, as my vision is that no one gets to force their way of life on anyone else.

And what's this BS about "weak willed"? These censorship things mostly come from the Christian Right. They have many shortcomings, but lack of will is certainly not one of them.

I think it is a sign of being weak-willed that one will not take responsibility for raising one's own children and wishes to foist that responsibility off on others, namely, the government. Many times have I heard married people tell me, someone without children, that I simply do not understand the responsibility that is involved in raising a child -- on the contrary, I do. That is why I don't have one.

Christianity, after all, is a religion where a vast majority, or at least a visible majority, of its adherents would have us believe that someone else is responsible for all their evil actions; "The devil made me do it." It's a religion based upon abdication of personal responsibility and free will; you surrender your own will to the will of God.

Do you know the Lord's Prayer? "Thy will be done." I have never heard a phrase that better sums up complete and total abdication of personal will to that of another. No slave could better state their willingness to serve their master.

Re:Good

[Khaed]

1. Nobody was arguing for rape, murder, or theft in this thread. But keep building those strawmen, I'm sure they'll keep the birds away.

2. You are not the final arbiter of what is and is not constitutional. I don't recall, however, the portion of the constitution that says anything about keeping kids from seeing pornography on the internet, so I'm not sure how the law falls under the very purpose of the constitution.

The purpose of the constitution is to lay out our federal government's most basic rules and set up. There's nothing, NOTHING, in it about protecting children. (Of course, you probably think there's a constitutional right to vote...)

Re:Good

[hairyfeet]

I have to agree. In fact my boys started playing before they could walk(Barney Hide & Seek on Sega Genesis),boy was his mom pissed after trying to get him to say Mama for a week only for the oldest first word to be "MINE" when he work up from his nap and caught me playing Eternal Champions on HIS Genesis.

The oldest started playing FPS with me at 12,and do you know what the horrible things were that he said? "Who wrote this thing? I can shoot them in the toe and they die? And why don't the bad guys duck! Don't just stand there,dodge dummy!". Because I have taught them from birth the difference between games and real life. I showed them how to make buildings in Bryce,explained how editors work,why AI means the difference between "good" bad guys and stupid bad guys,etc. That said,I have seen WAY too many parents that just drop their kids in front of an "idiot box" and use the PC,TV,PS2,etc as a babysitter instead of interacting with the kids. I sit with mine and try out new games,when they are online I am not 10 feet away and often look over their shoulder to make sure they aren't doing something they shouldn't,etc.

Would they like it better if I just left them to it? probably. But I care about my boys and do everything I can to make sure they are safe. We need to tell folks that it is the governments job to secure the borders and provide national defense,NOT raise their kids for them. I also think(and the religious will hate me for this) that we need to make it a LOT easier to get birth control so we won't have so many kids having kids of their own, perhaps even make parenting classes mandatory for all students. But trying to "make the world safe for 8 year olds" just doesn't work. COPA and laws like it are doomed to fail. The kids will find a way around it,and most of us adults don't want to live in a world where everything is family friendly. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV

Re:Good

[smellotron]

if another attack on the scale of 9/11 to happen...

...and it will happen eventually. It's not a matter of "if".

...would you want the government not passing any laws to catch the culprits or for them to be too scared of losing $$$ to do anything?

I don't want "the government" to have to pass any more laws to catch the culprits. It's not like new laws need to exist in order to deal with a mass homicide perpetrated against anonymous individuals. I want the executive branch and the military to mobilize and do their job by enforcing existing laws at both a national and international level.

The desire to let men in power create more laws after shocking events is a great way to lose our freedom. Of course, shocking events happen, and it's a great time to slip in something that seems superficially related, but is nothing more than good timing for a political hobby horse.

Re:Good

[Timothy Brownawell]

And honestly, at age 12 for girls, and 14 for boys there is no good reason to forcefully protect them from pornography at all... they're sexually mature at that time.

Physically mature, which has nothing to do with mental maturity, which is what matters. Probably the right age would be whenever they can recognize that fantasy != reality, and Santa Claus doesn't actually exist. That should be strong enough higher thinking skills to separate "some people do this" from "I should do this".

Re:Good

[Renraku]

Sexually aware? Pre-puberty.

Sexually capable? Puberty.

Sexually mature? Really depends.

Sexually responsible? Quite a few ADULTS never reach this stage. Its actually easier to teach children and teenagers why safe sex is important and how to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Normally I'd say when they're informed enough to make a decision, they should go for it, but the United States absolutely HATES personal responsibility.

Re:Good

[Kadin2048]

Think of it this way, if another attack on the scale of 9/11 to happen, would you want the government not passing any laws to catch the culprits or for them to be too scared of losing $$$ to do anything?

Yes, that's exactly what I would want. I'd want something -- anything -- out there to make them think things through before they get caught up in some "crisis" and pass a bunch of really stupid laws, like the PATRIOT act.

Just to use your 9/11 example, there was no reason for any of the Federal laws that followed. None, zero, zilch.

The government didn't need to do anything to "prevent another 9/11". 9/11 couldn't happen again -- stand up and look funny on a plane, and the other passengers will kill you. That's the solution to that particular problem, and it was a done deal before most of the US government figured out what the hell was going on.

And there's no evidence that anything the government has done will actually stop Al Quaeda or anyone else from devising some completely different scheme to kill a bunch of people -- every few months Bruce Schneier runs a contest to think of new ones, and there's no shortage just thought up by rank amateurs. All the additional airline security won't stop someone from just blowing themselves up in line, for instance.

The Constitution should never be allowed to be ignored, regardless of how bad the emergency seems. 9/11 was not a national emergency, it did not represent an existential threat, and in absolute terms it wasn't even a pinprick. Yet politicians would have us living in a police state over nothing were they allowed.

That's exactly the reason why I'd like to see any politician who advances unconstitutional laws punished. We need more clear, dispassionate, long-term thinking in the face of what might appear to be a crisis. Not emotional, reactive, thoughtless "emergency legislation" that only hurts us in the long run.

what happened to parenting?

[andre3001]

There are so many good options for parental control software today that this kind of stuff is totally unnecessary. Then again, I guess that means that parents will actually have to buy it, and pay attention to what their kids are doing online.

Next stop: Cuomo

[Relic of the Future]

Great, now maybe they can get New York's attorney general from implmenting the same law through the back door.

http://techdirt.com/articles/20080721/1545501748.shtml">Techdirt's latest on the topic

Put the computer next to Mommy.

[khasim]

Fuck parental controls. If you believe that your children are not old enough to "surf" on their own, then just put the computer next to you while your children use it.

"Parenting" - it doesn't end at birth.

Re:Put the computer next to Mommy.

[digitrev]

The problem is the time constant varies between children.

Wise King Solomon:

[Anonymous Coward]

I shall cut your country in two.

common sense from the federal government?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm tempted to go for 'suddenoutbreakofcommonsense' except its taken them a few years to get around to this so perhaps 'delayedoutbreakofcommonsense'

Re:What!

[MaXiMiUS]

I've seen COPA used on more sites I'd consider safe for children to visit than not (see: Neopets).

How many times have you seen a porn website with anything mentioning COPA on it?

cue the porn-site related jokes...

Old Hack

[Anonymous Coward]

COPA is just an artifact from the days when no one knew how to apply constitutional law to the Internet. Unfortunately, we are now in for years of quasi-successful bills that will only serve to screw up the structure and nature of cyberspace. I wish these politicians would at least try to learn about the Internet before they pass ridiculously unconstitutional bills.

Re:Harm to children

[dgatwood]

While we're at it, let's ban any books that teach dangerous ideas. We'll start with the most vile of books, e.g. hate speech, terrorism aids, anything about manufacturing weapons like The Anarchist Cookbook or nuclear physics texts, etc. Then we'll move our way up the chain to progressively more subtle subversive threats like 1984 and anything by Ayn Rand.

Helpful tip: after collecting the books, for easier disposal, heat them to 451 degrees Fahrenheit....

Yeah, these laws are absurd. It doesn't take a village to raise a child, it takes a parent. The sooner we stop expecting the village to raise our kids for us, the better off everyone will be.

ID

[Darkness404]

The law would require sites to check visitors' ages, e.g. by taking a credit card, if the site contained any material that is "harmful to minors," whatever that means.

Stupid laws like this is the reason we have so much Identity theft here in the US. The moment that people think that giving out your credit card number to some site just to say, register for a blog, or view some porn, is normal, is the moment that even more scam sites will emerge.

It was an absolutely stupid idea to check anything with a credit card when you don't know even *who* that is going to half the time. And what the card is being used for.

Re:The problem isn't really in parent's hands

[MightyMartian]

It's so encouraging to see someone who has thought things through, and has come up with a solution that's more tyrannical, more inhumane, more destructive to liberty and basic decency than the problem it purports to solve. Bravo, I say, Bravo!

Harmful to Minors

[srobert]

If you ask me, any site that extols the virtues of Milton Friedman as an economists is "harmful to minors".

Re:Slashtards

[QCompson]

These stories show how bad Slashdot has gotten. The thought of keeping little kids off of porn sickens the average Slashdotter? Absolutely pathetic excuses for humans.

And the thought of restricting the rights of adults for little or no foreseeable gain doesn't sicken you? That sickens me.

Pathetic attempt at trolling.

A modest proposal

[philspear]

A quote from Justice department spokesperson Charles miller: "We are disappointed that the Third Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a Congressional statute designed to protect our children from exposure to sexually explicit material on the internet."

See, all they're trying to do is keep kids from seeing sex on the internet, they're not trying to limit your freedoms.

Here's a solution that will make both camps happy: pass a law that all children must be executed.

Re:A modest proposal

[taustin]

"We are disappointed that the Third Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a Congressional statute designed to protect our children from exposure to sexually explicit material on the internet."

And we, the public, are disappointed that our public servants are to goddamn stupid that they think COPA had any chance of accomplishing that.

Re:The problem isn't really in parent's hands

[taustin]

Licenses and education required for breeding.

Sure. As long as I, and only I, get to decide who gets the license and who doesn't. Remember, the country is currently run by jeezmoid fantatics who believe - literally - in forced breeding.

Real penalties for not getting help when you can't parent your offspring properly.

Sure. With a very precise definition of what constitutes "getting help," which will involve getting it from some government office (who else could we trust?). Said office will be open 24 hours a day in affluent, mostly white neighborhoods, and one hour a month in poor, mostly non-white neighborhoods. Of course.

End absent-parent child support - no amount of money paid to the mother makes up for lack of a responsible two-parent family. If you can't be bothered with birth control you get to live with the results of your inattentiveness.

Unless, of course, you are a man, in which case you obviously should have no responsibility whatsoever for where you dip your wick. (Yes, that is exactly what you just said - live with the results, but only if you are a woman.)

Oh, and, BTW, get ready for the tax increases, since all those women will be on welfare. Except, of course, you'd rather let them literally starve. I mean, really, it's not like women are people or anything, right?

Holding parents responsible for the actions of their children, really. This means that when the 10-year-old kills a neighbor child the parents and the child are responsible. Today often as not the child gets some slap on the wrist punishment because of their age and the parents get nothing. How could you be an effective parent and not know your kid is seriously screwed up when a 10-year-old kills someone?

Hold the parents responsible in exactly what way? Put them in prison? More tax increases. Plus, more tax increases to take care of their other kids.

Undoubtably this means more "community resources" and "social workers" to help failing parents.

Which is to say, more taxes. Lots more taxes. And, if so many parents aren't capable of raising their kids properly, where are you going to find social workers who can? If we can train social workers to raise other people's kids, why can't we use the same money to train parents to raise their own, and then no pay them middle class wages for the rest of their working lives?

But we are either going to spend the money on the front end or the back end. Right now you can check the prisons for the results of dealing with the problem on the back end.

You appaerently want to put more people in prison. Then, you turn around and decry how many people are in prison.

Re:The problem isn't really in parent's hands

[edisrafeht]

Your root cause analysis is pretty spot-on. Parental guidance is crucial from everything social to academic. Your proposed solutions, like others have pointed out, aren't so great though. Until there's a good solution (i.e., not COPPA and not totalitarian), the best policy is to live and let live. Most of the time, laws don't work the way they intend, simply because you can't fix (or ever finish fixing) problems just with laws.

Re:The problem isn't really in parent's hands

[AeroIllini]

See, let's start with little Johnny that watches lots of porn. Hard-core stuff. Ends up getting out of high school thinking that (a) wimmen like surprises, like rape, and (b) wimmen don't like him. Yes, (b) is a logical corallary to (a) but we won't go there. How did little Johnny get so twisted? Simple: nobody ever paid any attention to him and let him go off and figure stuff out for himself, like relating to other people.

Little Johnny has a choice about how to treat women in his adult life. His parenting or lack thereof have little to no bearing on this choice. He cannot blame his criminal actions on his childhood as you are so quick to do.

Your culture of victimhood, dismissal of personal responsibility, and totalitarian proposals make me sick.

You know what would be nice...

[sheehaje]

If some people come to their senses. The vechicles being used to exploit kids these days aren't the reason kids are being exploited. Parents should watch what their kids are doing. It's called good parenting. The idiots blaming technology should keep using it to catch these sick fucks. I know what appalls me the most, that their are sick fucks out there taking advantage of children... The next appalling thing is that politicians don't have one clue about the real problem and wave a victory flag everytime they wage war against technology because some slimeball tells them this will get them more popular. People like Andrew Cuomo aren't doing anything good to help kids. NOTHING. NADDA. They are basically misleading parents ... and the parents (not to their fault, they just want to protect their children from horrible shit like usenet) are eating this up...

I'm more than agitated with this, not because it hurts technology somehow, but because you have more clueless sit hands politicians that have no touch with reality, just as long as they are popular. I wish it wasn't so illegal to slap some of these assholes upside the head.

"Childhood" is a recent concept

[Rastl]

Is it just me that remembers that the idea of "childhood" is at most a century old? Prior to that they were adults-in-training.

So this entire "Think of the children" crap is more about protecting an idea that these small humans should be shielded from the realities of life instead of educated so they actually do become adults.

I think the new definition of childhood actually extends into the mid-20s because of more societal pressure. They're in college, they really aren't responsible yet, etc.

Screw that. It's the parents job to get those little monsters properly trained to be responsible adults. Heck, overseas 'kids' are in professional training schools by they time they're sixteen. Here they're still considered helpless babes who can't do anything without mommy and daddy there to make sure they don't get 'damaged'.

Don't even get me started on that whole self-esteem vs actual value stuff that the schools are promoting.

I realize I'm starting to sound like an old fogey but I guess that's what I am. I'm tired of seeing these poor young adults with absolutely no idea of what is expected of them or how to achieve it. And all because of some misguided idea that they should be protected while they're young instead of taught.

I despair.

Re:What!

[Anonymous Coward]

If vaginas are bad for kids, maybe we shouldn't let them spend 9 months tucked inside the evil things!

And if boobs are so bad for kids, why do we let them suck on 'em?

And now for a counterpoint...

[gillbates]

Personally, I would like to see children protected -- but not from porn.

I take your statement to infer that you'd rather that children be psychologically damaged to the extent that they can't enjoy sex by the time they're old enough to engage in it? Hopefully not, but I've noticed that there seems to be some misunderstandings about the reasons legislators pass laws against porn. It isn't about forcing some Puritan morality on the public at large. It really is about protecting the children - not your children - theirs.

Most girls don't look like models. Most guys don't have http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_penis_size/12 inches [NSFW] to satisfy their potential mate. What happens when little girls and boys look at porn is that they form unrealistic expectations of sex:

1. Boys start to believe that they're somehow inadequate if they don't have a huge penis.
2. Girls start to believe that boys won't like them if they don't look like a model, or if they're too fat, to small on top, etc...
3. Boys start to believe a woman's sole purpose is to satisfy his carnal desires. They start to believe that all women are simply there for their sexual gratification, it doesn't take much of a stretch to see how this leads to men overlooking, if not condoning, rape.
4. Girls start to believe that the only thing a man wants is sex, and without a good body, they stand no chance of finding a husband.

The complications and anxieties that such beliefs can form is left as an exercise for the reader. But I myself on more than one occasion have had to deal with the fallout from the porn industry, and am well aware that it does damage people. Perhaps not in the immediately recognizable, medical, or clinical sense, but it definitely affects people in a mental and spiritual way.

And honestly, why would you want to take anything away from a person's future enjoyment of sex? So you can maintain your own fantasies about what sex would be like if you could get it?

This law isn't about denying porn to those who will make an effort to get it, but rather, about protecting children from inadvertently stumbling upon it. As a parent, I don't want my child's Google search for "hot fire truck" to serve up porn. Until I'm convinced that an innocent phrase won't turn up porn, my kid isn't going to use the internet. So what a law like this really does is allow children to be exposed to the internet, because without such controls, parents such as myself just won't let our children use the internet.

When I was growing up, I was allowed unfettered access to a computer. Sadly, because of the widespread availability of porn (among other things...), I'm not sure if I'll be able to extend that same privilege to my children. And that's quite sad, that in a mere 20 years, the environment of learning and discovery with which I grew up has been co-opted from an intellectual playground into merely just another content distribution mechanism for the masses.