Market solution before the legislated one


Meeting Congress halfway on their public agenda, while trying to defang the private one
There are some points that I want to make before I go into the article

I do not support child porn, although my definition of it is considerably more narrow than the FedGovs. Just as one example, I do not believe that a grandmother taking pictures of her grandchildren bathing automatically qualifies as porn.

Historically, "for the children" has been the one way that governments have gotten around ethics restrictions and privacy protections, even as most of the laws have nothing to do with children.

Government is lousy at making moral decisions.

The Internet companies--AOL, EarthLink, Microsoft, United Online and Yahoo--are pledging $1 million in cash and technical assistance to develop technology that can "detect and disrupt the distribution of known images of child exploitation" on the Internet. The coalition's effort will take place under the auspices of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.


Tuesday's announcement comes just hours before the beginning of a two-day U.S. House of Representatives hearing that will explore enacting new laws to require Internet providers to store records on what Americans are doing online, a concept called data retention.

Because Internet providers are loath to see new laws that could raise privacy and security concerns--and cost them millions of dollars in the process--they hope that their own, self-regulatory proposal will reduce Congress' willingness to impose a mandatory one. That may be a tough task: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has been pressing for data retention laws as a way to aid in child porn investigations, and some politicians have already drafted legislation.

"There's always a concern that regulations are adopted that are overly expansive or difficult to implement," said Fred Randall, general counsel to United Online, which provides Internet access through its NetZero brand and operates social networking Web sites such as Classmates.com. Randall said that United Online has a history of working with law enforcement and already reports child pornography images and videos that its employees encounter.

Before any legislation passes, we need to ask ourselves some questions. Is the goal here really to "protect the children," or is the goal to give the Federal government the ability to monitor internet activity?

From all the noise made so far, I think the the real goal is to pass the data retention law, and "protecting the children" is the justification that most people will not question.

Control over you is the issue, not protection. Watch how fast the private solution gets shot down.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Tue - June 27, 2006 at 04:23 PM  Tag


 ◊  ◊   ◊  ◊ 

Random selections from NeoWayland's library


Pagan Vigil "Because LIBERTY demands more than just black or white"
© 2005 - 2009 All Rights Reserved