____/ Darth Chaos on Saturday 28 July 2007 08:45 : \____
> Found this, too. Interesting how civil liberties groups weren't
> allowed to attend.
>
>
http://pressesc.com/news/78225072007/us-senators-call-universal-internet-filtering
>
> US Senators call for universal Internet filtering
> Submitted by Adam Thomas on Wed, 2007-07-25 20:47. Americas Tech
> United States News US senators today made a bipartisan call for the
> universal implementation of filtering and monitoring technologies on
> the Internet in order to protect children at the end of a Senate
> hearing for which civil liberties groups were not invited.
>
> Commerce Committee Chairman Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Senate
> Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee Vice Chairman Ted
> Stevens (R-Alaska) both argued that Internet was a dangerous place
> where parents alone will not be able to protect their children.
>
> "While filtering and monitoring technologies help parents to screen
> out offensive content and to monitor their child's online activities,
> the use of these technologies is far from universal and may not be
> fool-proof in keeping kids away from adult material," Sen. Inouye
> said. "In that context, we must evaluate our current efforts to combat
> child pornography and consider what further measures may be needed to
> stop the spread of such illegal material over high-speed broadband
> connections."
>
> "Given the increasingly important role of the Internet in education
> and commerce, it differs from other media like TV and cable because
> parents cannot prevent their children from using the Internet
> altogether," Sen. Stevens said. "The headlines continue to tell us of
> children who are victimized online. While the issues are difficult, I
> believe Congress has an important role to play to ensure that the
> protections available in other parts of our society find their way to
> the Internet."
>
> The measures they are calling for include directing the Federal
> Communications Commission to identify industry practices "that can
> limit the transmission of child pornography" and requiring the Federal
> Trade Commission to form a working group to identify blocking and
> filtering technologies in use and "identify, what, if anything could
> be done to improve the process and better enable parents to
> proactively protect their children online."
>
> "In its zeal to protect kids from predators and potentially
> inappropriate content, Congress must not trample the First Amendment
> rights of Internet users," Center for Democracy and Technology said in
> a statement submitted to the Committee today.
>
> They highlighted the finding of a report prepared by diverse group of
> people including individuals with expertise in constitutional law, law
> enforcement, libraries and library science, information retrieval and
> representation, developmental and social psychology, Internet and
> other information technologies, ethics, and education found that
> "public policy can go far beyond the creation of statutory punishment
> for violating some approved canon of behavior."
>
> "[T]he most important finding of the committee is that developing in
> children and youth an ethic of responsible choice and skills for
> appropriate behavior is foundational for all efforts to protect them-
> with respect to inappropriate sexually explicit material on the
> Internet as well as many other dangers on the Internet and in the
> physical world
It's not about sex. Sex and children, just like terrorism, is a way of creating
a scare and then creating laws.
I had this article open yesterday and I was going to post it to COLA. It seemed
too off topic though, so I close the tab. Basically, our so-called democratic
government, which is supposed to encourage free speech, is now seeking to
restrict and control information, no matter how truthful it is. It boggles the
mind. Our governments are becoming more like the abusive parent they always
promised they would never become. Sooner or later, the US could become
digi-totalitarian, just like China. As I said in my previous post, it's not
about child pornography. They already go further and they will take another
bite, day by day, month by month, eating away more of what they consider
inappropriate material. If something incites criticism against GW Bush,
that /could/ at some point vanish (become unreachable). That's how suppressive
industries/regimes come to power. The Internet is truth, not anarchy.
--
~~ Best of wishes
Roy S. Schestowitz | Open syntax, Open API's, Open Source
http://Schestowitz.com | Free as in Free Beer | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
Load average (/proc/loadavg): 1.32 1.54 1.49 3/130 32168
http://iuron.com - semantic search engine project initiative
|
|
