Senators Call for Universal Internet Filtering 628
An Anonymous Coward writes "US senators today made a bipartisan call for the universal implementation of filtering and monitoring technologies on the Internet in order to protect children. Their statement came at the end of a Senate hearing in which civil liberties groups were not invited."
Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:4, Insightful)
Are they completely out of touch with technology (it is often a guy in his 60s or 70s proposing the law) and they really see it as a menace and thing these things will solve it, or
Are they completely aware the program won't do one damned thing to solve any problem, but the propose it anyway just so they can put a blurb in their campaign ads about how they protect children.
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:5, Insightful)
The majority of the push for this sort of thing is money. The allocations of taxpayer money to devote to these pet filtering and monitoring projects will be huge. One particular military subcontractor, Battelle, was already building an _ENORMOUS_ datacenter in Aberdeen, MD, when I left in '07. Why were they building? Most people working at the (existing) tiny site new that it would be mostly devoted to computer science technology but few people knew exactly what. The inside word was that there were going to be enormous contracts coming down the line for processing, indexing, storing, retrieving, and minin gargantuan amounts of data.
Politicians and top-level businessmen work together for years to figure out how to grant themselves a huge chunk of the taxpayer pie. When the news releases start making it to the headlines it's not a matter for debate anymore--it's after the fact justification. The insider trading knowledge that these folks have, by being able to both write the laws and determine the size of the checks and decide to whom the checks are written, is a golden gift from God for the gravy train.
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Think of the children!
Yeah--go ahead, install a huge monitoring and filtering system. I'm sure no one will abuse it by monitoring and/or filtering other content.
Zark off senator asshat. I am a responsible parent. I can watch out for my own children.
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well which is it? Those are two separate problems with very different solutions. Even if you accomplish the one, you don't necessarily make progress on the other.
Either you enable a passive filter, and essentially tag (to use a web 2.0 term) the net to help parents with their parenting, or you actively scour the dark corners of the net trying to find predators and child pornographers. How likely do you think it is that a child pornographer is going to get caught in a passive filter? If they were that easy to find they'd be shut down already.
So which is it senator, do you want to combat child porn, or do you want to help parents parent? If it's the latter lay off the child porn red-herring. Oh wait, you won't get any support from your porn surfing colleagues if you want to filter everything? Too freaking bad, make an honest argument for god's sake.
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's hard to filter something when it looks like "(*#U(*YkaJH(*&F()*&G(SER". (Clearly that's a naked 12 year old boy.)
If the legislators in question REALLY wanted to do something effective they'd allocate funds for more traditional investigatory agencies, like the FBI. Social engineering is how these people get caught; their pursuit of their perversion is ironically their greatest weakness, which can be exploited. But I'm assuming that Congress isn't a logic-free zone, and that they actually want to do something useful.
Do something?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
How about instead of spending billions on even more police to act as parents, we get more money to the PARENTS!
Like 2-3 year paid maternity leave for working moms/dads, benefit supplementation for part-time working moms/dads, or greater daycare/workcare allowances. Tax breaks for businesses to encourage working from home? THERE are some GOOD ideas on where we should be spending our tax monies, not adding even more damned pol
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Incidentally, it was brought to my attention recently that the government doesn't need a warrant to know the sites you've visited; it only needs a warrant to determine the content of those communications. This goes back to a "pen register" precedent that was s
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Still a problem. It gives the government the ability to censor content the government finds objectionable for anyone using the software. That could be millions of people. Plus, once adopted and accepted you would eventually see the same people who are suggesting this suggesting it be mandatory in schools and libraries and la
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Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not that kind of insider trading like you hear about in the high drama of Wall Street.
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:5, Informative)
Well you don't have to look far, when voting against a measure like this will guarantee that next election cycle your opponent will run a black and white ad with ominous music saying, "Sen. Jim Bob wants to protect the rights of sexual predators to contact your children on the internet!"
House races especially are dirty like this. This crap happens all the time, I've even seen it in live debates.
And you want to know the really sad part? A lot of voters eat this stuff up. If you're average Soccer Mom Susie, all of a sudden you're not sure you can trust the candidate anymore, and if you already hated the candidate, well now he or she is the devil himself.
kids are seeing boobies!! (Score:5, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:kids are seeing boobies!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Is that the world you want to live in!
Not just yes, but Hell Yes! The human body is nothing to be ashamed of, though specific people should be ashamed of thier own body.
FalconBodies (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bodies (Score:5, Funny)
Re:kids are seeing boobies!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:kids are seeing boobies!! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like when parents get divorced. I, and most of those I know with divorced parents lived happily with parents in separate places, but the _drama_ surrounding the actual divorce hurt some. Those where the parents split up as friends had no problems, since they had a relaxed attitude towards it.
When we treat something natural as sacrilege, we get messed up! Just look at all those priests abusing kids...
On a semi-related note, I also remember seeing a great play called "Blackbird" once, that talk about a sexual abuse case. The question raised by the play is whether the court case, the police interrogation, the parents crying, the need for discretion and forcing the kid to lie to his/her friends did far more damage than the act itself could ever have. Worth having a look at when you feel like screaming "Somebody think of the children!" (thank you, South Park, for this amazing quote).
Note to those who wish to derail the argument: the last example is not to condone abuse of kids, but rather to poke at the way we go about handling such things once they happen.
Re:kids are seeing boobies!! (Score:5, Interesting)
B.
Re:kids are seeing boobies!! (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe the blurring people got bored. If I was a blurrer, I'd blur out random things, like people noses or apples, just to confuse the viewers.
Re:kids are seeing boobies!! (Score:5, Funny)
There is an upside to this. You won't ever have to hear someone talking about Bush & Dick again.
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:5, Informative)
* Referring, of course, to Inouye's absolutely dismal record at actually getting anything passed, or for that matter, even supporting anything that gets passed. Of 289 bills he sponsored since Jan 21, 1997, only FOUR have become law. And for that, I think we can all be grateful. (source [govtrack.us])
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The reality is, if you are really concerned about what children have access to on the Internet, you sh
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:5, Insightful)
While I still think it's a conceptually flawed idea, it's at least better than trying to either censor or round up all of the 'smut' and put it into some sort of a blacklist. Fundamentally, if you're trying to make a 'clean internet,' whitelists are the way to go; not blacklists.
Putting the 'kids' domain under the CC TLDs is even better, because it avoids having to create some sort of international consensus on what's appropriate for children, which isn't feasible. Whatever the Congresscritters decide is OK for kids (violence = okay!, sex = bad!) in the U.S. can get into
The problem with this is is that it's a solution looking for a problem that most people really don't seem to care about.
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The reality is, if you are really concerned about what children have access to on the Internet, you should be able to activate a setting the would lock access to a separate DNS service and a set series of IP addresses that only provides content that has be accessed, reviewed and approved as fit for children web sites, as the web sites would have to be applicable to each of the age ranges for children, obviously what is fit for a young adult is not suitable for a toddler.
Leaving aside the fruitless bang-
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Presumably you meant that as the number of child molesters actively using the Internet for "grooming children". Can you point me to a source for that statistic? I was under the distinct impression that the modus operandi of the vast majority of child molesters was to molest children who know them personally (e.g., their own children, or children they meet in their work).
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Social Services stats indicate 80%+ of the perpetrators are family members or known to the family.
Focusing on the internet as a breeding ground is just a way to ignore the fact that it comprises less than 5% of the events. Put another way - 100% elimination of the molestations that occur because of the internet will result in less than a 5% reduction of the overall number of molestations. Is this really the cost effective means of saving the children?
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:4, Insightful)
And the people who are in their teens and 20s today that eventually opt for a career in politics will be technological ignoramuses who will be passing legislation which is every bit as out of touch with the social issues surrounding emergent technologies from 40 years in the future as our lot are with what's happening now, and the equivalent of Internet forums from that era will contain the same claims about how it will all change when the old sods die off. Check out what things were like when Richard Stallman, Tim Berners-Lee, and Steve Wozniac were teenagers, and you'll see a period of notable political upheaval when youth activists could count on vast numbers of like-minded people to attend rallies and demonstrations, organise mass sit-ins, publish "subversive" magazines and newsletters, and generally stick it to "the man" despite heavy-handed and often brutal attempts by the police and government to stop them. They make today's youth look like a bunch of disorganised, cowardly whiners, yet their conviction that things would definitely change when the old guard died off turned out to be completely unfounded, and the same will happen again, and again, and again.
The reason for this situation is a simple one: those who tend to choose careers in politics mostly come from backgrounds in law, political science, business, and / or extremely wealthy and influential families (and increasingly, film and TV actors), none of which are renowned for their high level of technological awareness. Very few of today's young people in these categories have any real idea how venerable technologies such as steam engines, "land-line" telephones, radio and TV, or suspension bridges work, let alone complicated modern things like computers, cellular telephones, or the Internet, and it is they who will be governing in 30 years, not the sort of people who read Slashdot.
Where are the parents at? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why protect children. Just ban them from the net (Score:3, Interesting)
Go form your own network. call it Kids-net. Right wing christians could use it too.
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What should be legislated... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Much as I'd like to name such an argument after myself, I think Godwin's Law Part II will probably win the day. Any such argument would simply have to bear too much argument to Godwin's Law current.
Re:What should be legislated... (Score:5, Insightful)
"They" (Senators/Congress/most parents) didn't.
Parents used to know the locals in their neighborhood and that was enough to adequately monitor their children. Now the neighborhood is everyone on the internet.
Some of their fears are legitimate, so don't dismiss them out of hand.
"We" just need to make sure they don't do anything rash.
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Re:What should be legislated... (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't set children loose in a world of adults and expect them to be safe, whether that world be electronic or meatspace. The same dangers exist on the 'Net as in the Real World. These parents who think they're doing their children favors by setting them loose on the Internet without any sort of supervision should be set up in stocks for all of us to jeer and throw tomatoes at. That might be very fitting punishment for another stupid, archaic law meant to babysit "The CHILLLL-dren," which is ass coverage for, "I'm TOO BUSY to be an ATTENTIVE PARENT." The bloody thing has an on/off switch, and power cords don't grow on trees. If you're that worried about Junior seeing too much of Pam Anderson and Tommy Lee, use one or hide the other.
This is the same reason why I'm sitting here at 11 p.m., watching Ferris Bueller on VH1, a channel that I couldn't access without *paying for it*, and the bloody movie is censored to keep these same people from screaming too much about protecting "The CHILLL-dren." Fuck "The CHILLL-dren." You want them protected, they're your children, YOU PROTECT THEM. It's your job, stop pushing it off on the government and the rest of society.
Re:What should be legislated... (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing I remeber most about the book is that it was an excellent and entertaining introduction to basic physics and geometry, apparently the thing that the "censors" disliked the most was the fact that witches were involved.
Seems to me that this kind of censorship can only end in tears. I could see an exception being make is for explicit (pre-pubecent) kiddy-porn, snuff-films and the like, since the material itself is evidence of a vile crime. OTOH: Leaving that material up has proven to be an excellent way to track down highly organised child abuse (re: Denmark in the 90's).
As a parent who kids are now adults, I agree that parents do/did have ligitimate concerns but somewhere in the back of my head is a voice that says Murdoch has more to do with this than your average parent. ("29,000 perverts deleted from MySpace" - today's coincidental headline).
As for growing up in a "dangerous world", I can assure you that what was "normal" behaviour in the 60's towards kids would now land you in jail.
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But yes I see your point and yes my parents would order a "shandy" (50/50 mix of lemonade and beer) for my brother and I when we went out for dinner. Here in Australia it is still legal for a gaurdian to order wine/beer for a child provided
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And now look what tops the bestseller lists - Harry Potter.
...which is number 7 on the list of most frequently banned books [ala.org].
Re:What should be legislated... (Score:5, Insightful)
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The fact is any sort of child molester story ends up on front page news nation-wide. Just because some pedo in California abducts a 12 year old girl/boy does not mean that you in Florida are any more or less safe than you were the day before this was reported. The PERCEPTION is that you are less safe by hearing about s
To Die from Over Eating (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a good hearty laugh. You are safer today than you ever were. Your generation will live longer then any of the humans that came before you, you most likely you are going to die of a very mundane and boring age related disease. Want to talk about scary? Imagine a world where stepping on a nail is potentially lethal, a scrap can lead to an amputated arm, you can die of a sore throat, or you are a few minutes away from nuclear Armageddon.
What do you have to worry about today? Over eating or smoking. Yeah, that is right... the thing to most likely kill you is stuffing too much food down your gullet or a voluntary behavior. Oh god, the horror... the horror. Your pool is dramatically more likely to kill you than a terrorist. You stand a far better chance of being killed in a car accident than being murdered, and the rate of murder and rape in respect to the overall population has been on a nose dive since the 80s*.
The only thing that has changed in this world is that you are far safer and far more likely to live to be a crotchety old bastard than ever before. We don't need politicians "protecting the children" and more than we ever have.
*http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/table_01.html
Say what now? (Score:5, Interesting)
"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."
How does he jump from kids seeing pr0n to pr0n of kids? Is this a special type of logic you learn when you get into politics?
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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."
I'm just curious which kids are victimized online? Last I thought it was going to meet people in the real world is what got kids victimize
Ha! (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully fossils like him will just die off or (even better) get thrown out of office and replaced by people who aren't utterly clueless. Our only hope in this situation is for him to kick off, unfortunately, because he'll never stop winning in Alaska as long as he keeps up with the "Bridge to Nowhere" pork projects.
Re:Say what now? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. It's called juxtaposition. See "Al Qaeda in Iraq"
Re:Say what now? (Score:5, Insightful)
He doesn't understand that the computer's not watching him. So then if "kids are being exploited online"
In other words the senator has no friggin idea what being online is actually like. The worst that happens is some 13 year olds find a few videos of adults at orgies. I've overheard the neighbor kids talking about that as they walk down the street. It's a curiousity, but obviously doesn't mean a lot to them. It wouldn't bother me if that stuff was blocked from such kids, but it doesn't bother me that it's not. It was just in the news that porn site revenues have taken a steep drop in the last year. It seems that our culture's been so saturated with the stuff that people just aren't motivated to buy it like they used to. Maybe the senators figure if they can create a more restrictive environment again, it'll revive the porn industry.
After all, that's worked well with recreational drugs.
1984 much? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Children and terrorists (Score:3, Insightful)
What a nice blessing for any power hungry totalitarian government
My Announcement: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My Announcement: (Score:5, Funny)
Ironic Tubes (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ironic Tubes (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully nobody. But Ted has to keep talking. He's got some interesting things going on right now [adn.com] and it's best for him to keep the topic on children.
It would be so much nicer if corrupt oil companies were to do a better job of wiring up unethical politicians' houses for Internet when doing them construction favors. We could have been spared all that tube talk. At least put in a kiddie filter for the guy, he's old.
COPA Part Deux? (Score:5, Interesting)
Let parents deal with kids. If the parents can't do it, there are local resources that can help. Legislating to the family unit won't work. There are more important national things begging for attention, like getting a bridge built to a barely inhabited island in AK.
Yes, we MUST catch up with China!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's what it's all about. (Score:2)
Someone should really explain the concept of "unworkable" to these clowns. Short of shutting down the entire Internet...no, wait! They couldn't possibly be...???
And they're calling it The Fairness Doctrine???
Look to Scandinavia (Score:3, Informative)
Actually we've had this kind of filtering for years now here in Norway and most ISPs are connected to the filter run by the national police [politi.no]. It's easy to get around it of course if you know how.
The other thing is of course the filter does not work the way it's supposed to! Lots of people have reported on internet forums and newspaper debates that their legitimate surfing has incurred the wrath of The Filter. Some of the just reported that legal porn sites were included. It's not like we feel sorry for the
Won't somebody think of the parents? (Score:5, Insightful)
"There are ways for parents to keep their kids from the stuff we want to censor out, but we don't trust them to do it. Also, those darn kids are to sneaky for their parents to stop."
Whatever happened to letting the parents do their job and parent?
Re:Won't somebody think of the parents? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a lingering feeling that I've been trolled one of the subtlest trolls I've ever seen. Hello, "Velvet Flamebait".
I find that to be somewhat encouraging, actually. Children as young as ten already know more about the Internet than Ted Stevens ever will! So maybe, in another 10 years or so, he'll lose his job and the world will be a better place.
Mine is, actually, but that's not a solution. What that does is it means your kids will go to their friends' house, where you can't monitor them yourself. Or they'll get a DS or a PSP ("Playstation Pornable" was the sensationalist headline), even a laptop (for the schools that give them laptops), and hop on the neighbor's open wireless access point.
Really, as a parent, you have three choices when it comes to "bad" influences:
There's a lot more to parenting than that, of course. But you do need all three of those things.
It's a lot harder to raise a kid in the inner city than it is in the suburbs, so you do want to at least do some geographical isolation. That way, even if they know about hookers from GTA, there aren't any around, unless you're really looking.
More importantly: If they're really looking, they will find gangs, drugs, and sex. (Sex, drugs, and rock & roll.) Same with the Internet. If you are trying to fight a battle to keep them isolated, you will lose. The only sure way to prevent them from being corrupted by all the evil out there (or whatever you think will happen) is to make them incorruptible, and that is what I mean by "inoculate".
And even more importantly: Give it up. I don't care how diehard of a Christian you are, I don't believe in a God who will send them to Hell just for looking at a naked body, or the act of love. (Well, sex, really, most porn isn't about love...) You also have to figure there is a fair chance that they will not become Christian -- or Muslim, or whatever your faith is, but that's really the point. And the list goes on...
It's up to you where to draw the line, but I think if your child grows up to be happy, considerate, honest, productive, and successful -- maybe I forgot a few, but it's pretty simple -- in other words, if your child grows up to be a good person, you've done your job. For example: they may play violent videogames that you don't approve of -- but never even come close to hurting someone in reality. I call that a win.
Who filters the filterers? (Score:5, Insightful)
We have Republicans in Congress propositioning their same-sex underage pages, others sleeping with prostitutes, and a Democrat president a few years back getting frisky with his intern and a box of (contraband) Cuban cigars -- and all this makes it onto the news.
Who's going to protect the children from being exposed to the examples from these pinnacles of morality?
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The first thing they'll filter... mp3 downloads. (Score:5, Insightful)
VOTE 3rd party immediately.
Re:The first thing they'll filter... mp3 downloads (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The first thing they'll filter... mp3 downloads (Score:4, Interesting)
If you listen to his speeches and read more about him, you will see that he is staunchly against any regulation of the Internet. He believes that the government should try to stay out of the lives of the individual as much as possible. Check out his stance on personal liberty [ronpaul2008.com]. He is also the only Republican candidate against the war in Iraq. He opposed it from the very beginning because he felt that we must actually declare war if we are to invade another country. He basically is calling for a return to a government dictated by the constitution -- namely that any powers not specifically given to congress by the constitution should be left to the states.
If you want to learn more, you can search for Ron Paul on YouTube and see his campaign speeches. I think you will see that he is quite a bit different than most of the Republican candidates -- especially the front runners.
Great Firewall of China (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmm...
Absolutely Outrageous Proposal (Score:4, Insightful)
Let us ban internet content deemed obscene to save our sensitive childrens' eyes. What standards should we use?...Oh, of course, we already have the FCC's handy guidelines for obscene content on over-the-air TV and cable TV broadcasts. Let us just use a similar definition of obscene content to filter out the internet. That is very convenient since the FCC already has a lot of experience in this area, and of course we can apply old laws to new mediums in which they were never intended to regulate.
Oh, but how will we enforce these new filtering laws? We need to remove anonymity with internet postings (technologically, almost impossible, and if implemented this will essentially remove the best form of communication for whistle blowers that exists). Also, we need to block all foreign internet content if that is obscene, so maybe we should build a whitelist of sites without offensive content...
End sarcasm.
And people think the second amendment is outdated? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's becoming increasingly apparent that the second might need to be taken out and exercised in the near future.
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Nonsense, the third amendment is still going strong. You're not asked to quarter troops in your home, just support them with your taxes... and put bumperstickers on your car... and silence all political debate because it would embolden the enemy and put our troops at risk.
Nevermind
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At least you understand its purpose. But I think education should come first. I mean, people actually voted _for_ Bush in the last elections, when I thought it was completely obvious that bad things had and would come of it. If you can't even get people to vote for a different candidate, what do you expect to gain by armed rebellion? Getting yourself a one way trip to Guantanamo Bay? Replac
Re:And people think the second amendment is outdat (Score:5, Insightful)
The really sad part is that your probably right.
Study Proves (Score:4, Funny)
The same can be said of the postal system (Score:5, Insightful)
And the same can be said of the fucking postal system.
While it's true that parents can screen the letters that arrive at and are sent from their home post office box to somewhat guard against their children using the postal system to solicit, receive, and exchange adult material, the practice of screening by parents is farm from universal and even when applied may not be fool-proof.
We had better start filtering and monitoring all domestic mail as well. And, my God, what about international mail? We'll have to screen that for sure, maybe even just stop it all.
And, and,
this is why (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:this is why (Score:5, Interesting)
Might This Be.. (Score:5, Interesting)
For those unfamiliar, here's a link to an EFF page on Trusted Computing.
http://www.eff.org/Infrastructure/trusted_computi
Here's another link to an excellent piece by Ross Anderson.
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html [cam.ac.uk]
Not trying to be all tinfoil-hat-like, but it seems these days that it's trumped-up issues like this that precede an attempt to limit freedoms and increase control of the population. Awareness of these possibilities is the first and most important step to preventing a world none of us wants to live in.
Cheers!
Strat
You people aren't cynical enough! (Score:5, Interesting)
Vote Quimby!
Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parents.
Do
Your
F'in
Jobs
or better yet, don't breed 'em if you don't want the responsibility.
Protecting Children Is Just An Excuse (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe they should just go ahead and call this what it really is - just another step towards a totalitarian police state.
Sponsored by two Senators in their 80s. (Score:4, Insightful)
There's less happening here than it appears (Score:5, Informative)
Sens. Stevens and Inyoue had a similar hearing last year. [senate.gov] Not much happened.
This year, they heard fewer witnesses. [senate.gov] A summary:
The witnesses heard are reasonable ones. We used to see a big presence from the religious right at these things, but that's not happening this time. Nobody was asking for much on the legislative front.
The USA isn't the Universe (Score:4, Insightful)
Senators Should Take a Page from RIAA vs P2P (Score:3, Insightful)
First, reject the assumptions (Score:3, Insightful)
"Whenever 'A' annoys or injures 'B' on the pretext of saving or improving 'X', 'A' is a scoundrel." -H.L.Mencken
The Filter Gap!!! (Score:3, Funny)
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Don't get me wrong, this internet filter thing is stupid, but your priorities need some adjusting.
Re:I'm not a father (Score:5, Insightful)
It is definitely up to you to prefer one way or another for your children, but in my unqualified opinion there is nothing wrong with satisfying the temporary chemically induced desire with mere patterns of pixels. Even the most burning need can not withstand viewing of 10,000 pr0n photos that are easily available on Usenet or elsewhere. After the pressure dissipates the kid would be able to actually think before making a commitment. Hormones are a poor substitute for a well considered decision.
It is, of course, possible to argue that one-sided attraction to computers (or their screens) is unhealthy. It may be so. But anything one-sided is unhealthy, and a parent should ensure that dangerous activities are done in VR and reasonably safe activities are done in real life, and not the other way around.
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Part of the "No Filter Left Behind" policy.
Help us, Obi Ron (Score:5, Funny)
I wouldn't mind, assuming we returned corporations to a public charter system, in which a corporation may have its charter revoked if it is found to behave illegally. And, I'd like to see some vengeance against the to executives, and make it so if Kenneth Lay dies, we get to see his body so all the ex-Enron employees who were fleeced out of their retirement funds can piss in his cold dead mouth.
'Cause I don't think he's dead.
If the libertarians can promise me that, I'm a convert. 'Cause except for the whole trust-in-the-free-market thing, I'm mostly there.
Actually, I'm a liberal anarcho-constitutionalist. But that's pretty damned close.
Re:That's a terrible point (Score:5, Insightful)
Absurd?
OK, we agree.
A 15 year old?
Abusrd?
A 14 year old?
Absurd? Questionable?
a 12 year old? EXECUTE THE FUCKER!
wait... what about a really big 12 year old.
What about a really stupid 17 year old?
Execute the fucker.
Wait, I have an idea, lets take an extreme case (a 2 year old) and then use it to justify an entire argument.
But wait... how many sex crimes are actually perpetrated against 2 year olds? 75% of "child sex crimes" are perpetrated against teenagers.
Execute them?
I'm confused.
Mark Foley? Surely he's a schmuck. But.... execute the fucker?
OK fine, but what about my best friend. He was 12 when he banged his friend's mom. He still talks about it like it's the freaking icing on the cake of his life and he's almost 30. Should she be executed?
Where do you get off thinking there is some icon of "evil" and some glowing halo of "not evil" and you can automatically decide one gets death and the other gets a medal?
Oh wait... your reaction was based on irrational, emotive impulse, not logic. I forgot.
Stewed