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Child Online Protection Act Appeal Rejected
TarrVetus writes "The Associated Press reports that a federal appeals court in Philadelphia has ruled that the Child Online Protection Act will not be revived, upholding a 2007 decision that the unimplemented 1998 law is unconstitutional. The law, which made it a crime for websites to allow children access to 'harmful' material, was declared a violation of the First Amendment because of existing elective filtering technologies and parental controls that are less restrictive to free speech than the 'ineffective' and 'overly broad' ban."
How many times did you have to read this summary before you understood the current state of the law?
Think Deeply.
I'd be more apt to believe that if the judge had struck it down on the principle that parents need to protect their kids rather than the world needs to make itself kid-friendly in all ways. An extended investigation to it and then turning it down because it would be poorly implemented and ineffective on top of all that is a win I guess, but it's not the resounding "this is flawed and stupid on a fundamental level, cannot be made to work, and shall never come to pass in any form" I would have hoped for. As it is, the "other side" will simply go back to work, maybe making exceptions, but will bring it back in a few years.
I'll believe the government can do that when they can prove they can keep:
1) My social security number
2) My finacial information
3) Any other personal identifiable information
safe (well you know what) just in their own systems much less the internet as a whole. If it isn't technically feasible to protect me from people that are actively looking to ruin my entire life, then they don't have a shot at keeping my kids "safe" from whatever might possibly someday have a potentially negative effect on them in some way.
if only the *parents* out there shared a similar view...
Now, most parents do indeed want to keep kids away from it, yet they willingly turn over the keys (computer) and let kids drive the Indy 500 (internet). They just can't be bothered to actually administer and moderate what their kids are doing.
Yes yes people are busy, but if you're that busy, why did you have kids in the first place? I don't want my access to whatever material I see as reasonable restricted simply because someone else refuses to take their own responsibility.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Yes, these things take a while to sort themselves out. There is simply no other way to protect the rights of the citizens while maintaining a meaningful and functional government. Subtle violations of your rights take longer, because there is more disagreement over whether or not your rights were violated at all -- you might think that the DMCA is a violation of your rights, but there are plenty of people out there who feel that it is not and that in fact, the DMCA protects the rights of the citizens (copyrights precede free speech in the constitution), including you.
Seriously, why do people think the system is deficient just because problems are not solved instantly?
Palm trees and 8
Two things: first, this is a parental issue, not a government issue. Parents should be instructing their children to close any browser window that has pornography in it; second, and this is somewhat based on the first, is that teenagers going through puberty are not going to be harmed by viewing pornography (it is debatable whether or not prepubescent children would be). It is a matter of maturity, and again, only the parents can really judge whether or not their kid is mature enough to view "mature content." If a 15 year old is looking at pornography that they downloaded over the Internet, what is the problem? This material is only of interest to sexually mature people, and teenagers generally fall into that category.
Palm trees and 8
Why?
If it is covered by free speech, I don't see how you can say "you must be *this* old to use free speech". Is porn harmful to people under 18? Even if they are legally allowed to have sex?
Why not violent material?
Absolutely, that is where this kind of oversight belongs.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
And yours didn't question you reading Playboy at 9 years old?
My parents restricted the hours I watched TV and kept tabs on what I watched. They took an interest in what I did and with whom I did it. Reading was things that they provided or I asked for (and they approved before I got).
Is that really so hard to comprehend? It's called childhood, your parents are responsible for you (and liable to a pretty wide degree).
Indeed many things can happen outside of a parents view, but the stuff that's inside their OWN HOUSE, they have to own up to responsibility for.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
You know, they could have extremely tame erotic websites to cater to kids who are interested. Probably like softcore Playboy pics or something.
This is the funniest thing I think I've ever read on Slashdot. You, sir, seem to live in some reality where a controversial but possibly reasonable argument about pornography and children will be taken seriously. Anyway, let's assume that such a proposal does make it to the general public. In the "real" world, "tame erotic websites" will have the same connotation as marijuana being a "gateway drug": (a) that it's addictive and harmful (b) it leads to "harder" stuff (in both weed and porn contexts) and (c) it will ruin the children, even though adults enjoy it responsibly everyday.
An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
I'm glad this happened.
Allow me to be blatantly honest. I think kids should have the right to explore their sexuality in a safe manner online. I know I did.
Why is "adult entertainment" so exclusive anyway? You know, they could have extremely tame erotic websites to cater to kids who are interested. Probably like softcore Playboy pics or something.
MTV?
I'm not not licking toads.
I would rather you did it as well. I would rather we not leave it up to the government.
It's your job to be a parent to your children, not the government's.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
To be clear, this has nothing to do with child porn. This is a law intended to distract the public from real issues and generate new revenue streams for politicians and their allies
there, fixed that for you.
Sometimes, life itself is sarcasm...
Ok, I'll bite... but only as AC.
I've been thinking a lot about this and I believe it's ok to separate sexualizing children by force (sex abuse, inappropriate hazing, adult on child sex) from children sexualizing themselves out of curiosity (porn, masturbation, child on child sex). The two scenarios have completely different outcomes.
I've seen many examples in my adult friendships where children who did not get to regulate their own sexual stimuli, grow up to be adults who feel out of control with regards to their sexuality.
It might follow that children who get to regulate their own access to sexual stimuli, grow up to understand that this aspect of their personality and behavior is under their own control.
I don't think that child targeted porn is a good idea (mainly for the reason that a child's mind is no match for targeted marketing). Nevertheless, the idea that children have access to porn, under the condition that they choose on their own to seek it out, doesn't offend me.
Tell someone who has spent eleven years in jail, due to a law that was eventually declared unconstitutional, that they are being "impatient".
For example, those persons who were jailed by the D.C. Anti-gun Ownershipship Law which was eventually declared unconstitutional. They lost a big chunk of their lives to imprisonment, for a law that should have never existed.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
a physics professor, in fact, who happens to be a friend of mine, puts it this way:
"They correlate marijuana use with other drugs, and say '70% of hard drug users started with marijuana.' But they are missing something: they ALL started on milk!"
There's an old adage in science and statistics which seems to fit with your claim. Correlation does not imply causation. The only way that one could determine whether porn makes rapists more likely would be to provide a meaningful, methodologically sound definition of "pornography addiction" and statistics on the number of people overall that could be classified in such a way. Otherwise, you might as well say "Milk creates rapists, because most rapists drink milk".
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
>>>seperate adult entertainment from sites talking about, say, breast cancer, that kids may need for research projects in high school.
If they are that old, there's no reason to censor it. They are their peers are already discussing sex - possibly even practicing it (oral is popular these days). Remove the filters so these young adults can gain access to accurate information ("yes you CAN get pregnant the first time"), instead of being fed bunk through the in-school rumor mill.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
Don't worry, they'll just keep using the power of the Federal government to regulate interstate trade as their reasoning for it. That is what started all the expansion of government in the first place. Though of course, I'm curious as to how any welfare systems regulate interstate trade, as well as where in the constitution the federal government has the authority to establish them.
This leads me into a side tangent. I can't stand how people think that the federal government should implement the will of the majority upon the minority. Your only choices are to suck it up and hope that when the minority get power, they can revert the former majority's will, or move to another country. Likewise, I don't understand people's distaste for the state to allow the majority to put it's will over the minority. That's the beauty of being a union of "autonomous" states. They're supposed to be given so much more power than the Federal government, and thanks to the open borders with states, if the majority are doing what you don't like, and you can't change it, just move to another state. You don't have quite that flexibility when it's done at the Federal level.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
I would love it if the porn sites simply said that their money comes from adults and they have no business luring children into it (like smoking companies) and voluntarily made more protection for our kids to help make my parenting that much easier. I know this is wishful thinking, but at some point, freedom of speech is taking to a point of hurting our society and not helping.
What is this 'luring' ?
I've been browsing the web for ~15 years now, and I've _never_ ended up at a porn site "accidentally". If your kids are hitting porn sites, it's because they're looking for them deliberately.
In the "real" world, "tame erotic websites" will have the same connotation as marijuana being a "gateway drug": (a) that it's addictive and harmful (b) it leads to "harder" stuff (in both weed and porn contexts) and (c) it will ruin the children, even though adults enjoy it responsibly everyday.
A: Marijuana is not addictive, but could be harmful to some (e.g., children and some mental patients).
B: marijuana doesn't lead to "harder" drugs (harder, deadly drugs like alcohol and tobacco?), but the laws against it certainly do. The same people who sell pot sell other drugs, and when Reagan waged his war in marijuana, the pot supply dried up and there was a flood of cocaine.
"Got any pot, man?"
"No, it's dry. Want some coke?"
I know guys who loved their marijuana until their employer started drug testing. Lied to about pot (which stays in your system for a month) they figured they were lied to about crack (which stays from three days to a week) as well, and subsitutued crack for pot, since they were less likely to get caught.
None of them are now employed by anybody, cocaine addiction is no joke.
C: this is the absolutely retardedest thing about drug prohibition. You want to keep it from the kids? Kids ain't narcs and dealers know it. It's easier for a kid to buy dope than an adult. Hell, you can buy pot in high schoold, but you can't buy beer there.
You would have to be on some strong drugs to think that outlawing marijuana could possibly have any positive effect on society.
Free Martian Whores!
It's not about protection. It's about control. It's about inciting self-hate and body image problems. It's about inciting misery, and sexual frustration later in life.
Why?
Because people with sexual psychosis are more likely to seek pleasure somewhere else. Some percentage of these pleasure seekers will investigate church/religion.
Religious laws exist to create customers for the Church.
To suggest that blatant anti-sex laws are not religious in nature is idiotic. To suggest sexually active teenagers should not be "exposed" to pornography is idiotic.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
For example, those persons who were jailed by the D.C. Anti-gun Ownershipship Law which was eventually declared unconstitutional. They lost a big chunk of their lives to imprisonment, for a law that should have never existed.
Those people had a choice. They could comply with the law until it was overturned. Or they could choose civil disobedience, which necessarily comes along with jail time. There is no realistic third choice where you get to break the law and not be punished.
I really wonder how I am going to handle this with my children.
Have the PC in a common room, with the monitor facing the room. And, even after they are older, make a point of walking through the room once in a while.
You'd be surprised how effective that is. Not 100% (nothing is), but not bad. When the kid knows you may be standing right behind them at any time...it really puts a clamp on what they try to do. And the kid has to know by example...i.e. you doing it.