Child Online Protection Act Violates First Amendment, Judge Rules
An American judge has struck down a law passed in 1998 by the US Government that made it a crime for commercial website operators to let children access “harmful” material.
The judge said parents can protect their children through software filters and other less restrictive means that do not limit the rights of others to free speech.
“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,” wrote Senior US District Judge Lowell Reed Jr., who presided over a four-week trial last fall.
The law would have required websites deemed harmful to children by “contemporary community standards” to ask for a credit card number or other proof of age before granting access. Penalties included a $50,000 fine and up to six months in prison.
The internet by its very nature is not safe, and can never be made safe, for children. I disagree with those who think it can. Children require supervision. So why don’t parents want to supervise their children? Why do they keep looking for a magic bullet?
More importantly, there are plenty of things on the internet other than porn that can be harmful to children. Why are we so fixated on it?
Its the ONE THING fundie-neof**ups have in common with leftie Hollywood types – want to stop people from picking their noses? – arm amputation!
If we really and truly don’t want our children seeing naked human bodies, shouldn’t we outlaw mirrors too?
DOWN WITH THE MIRRORS!
All I can say is, I am glad I dont have kids. As a technician in the retail sector, the stuff I have run across on kids computers can make me blush, and believe me, I am no prude. I certainly dont have the answers although parents will frequently ask me for advice, and like KB, I say supervision. But thats a pretty lame answer, because of the sheer number of different systems they can access. I really wouldnt want my own children to run into some of this crap, on the dark side of the net. My hat is off to parents out there.
Why are we so fixated on it?
Because we are a country of prudes.
2. IF it were just naked bodies, I’d say fine. But you and I both know there is some sick shit out there (at least I do), that some kids may take for the norm.
Wait!! You mean parents have to now monitor their own children, and teach them how to discern what is proper for their view of the world versus other people? Bravo to this Judge!! “It takes a village to raise a child…” only goes so far in a democracy.
This would have been a overly broad and unenforceable law anyway. These are the kind of ridiculous laws that result in a substitute teacher being convicted and facing 40 years in prison for “allowing” porn spam to appear on a classroom computer.
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=9366
If you don’t want your children exposed to the stuff that is on the internet, ether supervise them or keep them off of it. They are your responsibility!
1. Parents should supervise their children, but stuff happens. That is why we have child safety caps on medicines, electric outlet covers and fences around pools. KB – do we want to get rid of ALL protection for children under the guise that they should be completely monitored and supervised 24×7?
2. As #6 says, for most people it is *not* about naked bodies, but the extreme stuff. I can’t believe anyone would agree that there is NO such thing as a harmful image to a young child (violent, sexual, or whatever). The question, as always, is where to draw the line.
3. I truly believe that the internet can be made “safe” (to the majority of parents, educators, etc), It would require a “white” list type system, where a web site “applies” to be on the white list, and pledges that all pages follow the rules. A particular computer (or user) can be easily set to only allow access to web pages from the white list. Think of it like “Underwriter’s Laboratory” certification. Yes, it will limit the sites kids can access, but I think lots of content providers would go along, with more and more being added to. Think of it like school libraries, where librarians filter content to some extent (ie: I remember HighLights magazine and *not* Playboy in my school library, even though Playboy did/does have some valuable interviews, ie: think Jimmy Carter’s, lust in his heart).
Would it be perfect? No, but nothing is. Would people argue about it? Sure, but just like school libraries (think the Huck Finn debate).
And to counter another argument I’d probably get, I don’t think it would affect adult’s access to the content they want.
#9 Lou
1. I agree, but it is our responsibility as parents to choose the medicines with safety caps, put the covers on electrical outlets and build the fence around our pool. In the same way it is our responsibility to use filter software on the computers that our children might use at home to access the internet. Just for the case that we can’t watch them 24/7.
2. There is plenty of stuff on the internet that I wish I had not have seen let alone my children.
3. There is filtering software available now (even MS Internet Explorer has some filtering built into it) that works similar to the way you suggest. But it is our responsibility to use it and require its use in schools and children’s libraries. It is not practical to centrally regulate the World Wide Web except in a draconian manner similar to way used by the governments in China or Iran.
Frankly, I’m tired of children having access to internet porn. They’re getting to be a huge bottleneck on my bandwidth when I’m downloading my own porn! 😉
(with apologies to those who are taking this discussion seriously and making some good points)
The responsibility-avoidant type of mentality behind that law was brought home for me in a New Yorker cartoon (wish I could find it on the intertubes) that depicted a family in their living room, kids glued to the TV, mom and pop on the sofa, pop telling mom, “I don’t think the children should be watching this. I hope Congress bans it.”
#12, I’d love to have the cartoon for my collection, but your description is perfect. I can’t stop laughing.
12 – That is RIGHT on the money.
Side thought – is this the law that poor substitute teacher, who was railroaded into prison because of stuff already on a classroom machine, got convicted for? Does this give her reasonable hope either on appeal or in a retrial?
#14 – TJG
I’m pretty sure she was charged and convicted under state law – this one is/was a Federal statute.
I would tend to think that invalidation of the Federal law might be usable in an action seeking to overturn the state law… It’s a good question.
Maybe DU’s answer to Perry Mason, SN, would be able to shed some light on the issue…
You there, SN? 🙂
Parents only want to hear “You are so good at parenting!” but do they want to bother raising them? Noooooo…
This is what happens when you don’t spank your child.
The internet by its very nature is not safe, and can never be made safe, for children. I disagree with those who think it can. Children require supervision. So why don’t parents want to supervise their children? Why do they keep looking for a magic bullet?
You’re on the correct track. Supervision and being involved in your child’s life gets you far in terms of keeping them away from some of the shit in this world.
Some parents are too busy entertaining themselves and “don’t have the time” for their kids. I’ve seen it all too often.
#16 – This is what happens when you don’t spank your child.
Big time bullshit.
Why don’t these people who are so concerned about children seeing porn fund and operate their own safe DNS service? Then parents could set up their children’s computers to use that DNS instead of the one assigned or recommended by their ISP?
That would get the government out of the censorship business. It would allow families to “opt-in” to a censoring service that matches the level of censorship they desire.
If parents insist on outsourcing their supervision duties, then for God’s sake please don’t outsource it to the government.
>>Children require supervision. So why don’t parents want to supervise their children?
Man, this drips of condescension. Will you at least concede that monitoring is super-hard if all your kid has to do is click on one single link after the door-bell rings and suddenly he’s in Bestiality World?
>> The internet by its very nature is not safe, and can never be made safe, for children.
If that’s the case, then shouldn’t responsible parents totally deny their kids access to the internet? If they did so, they’d be flamed as control-freak fundies!
Technically I agree with you — it can not be made absolutely safe.
But can it be made safer? Especially for younger kids? Clearly yes. It’s being done right now on a large scale in several countries.
My country — the UAE — is working proof that the vast majority of pornography can be blocked. It is very hard to get around the filters — certainly too hard for younger kids.
Some system like that would at least slow down kids’ access to porn enough that parents could answer the phone or maybe even cook some dinner!
But — it must be a voluntary system. Voluntary self-restriction is no violation of the First Amendment. Everybody self-restricts, all the time.
#19–
Greg Allen, the problem here is that too many parents in the U.S. are looking for the easy fix, and Congress is more than happy to win votes from both parents and the religious right by passing bone-headed legislation which they must know ahead of time is likely not going to stand up in court. As I pointed out, “safety” is not just a question of pornography. What filters are you going to create that will shield young children from the dangers of contact with literally the whole world? Somehow we have this expectation that because the internet has become popular, it can also be made child-friendly. I just don’t think that’s possible.
Also… since you brought up the UAE, their filtering process does exactly what critics of the overturned law argued would happen if it were enforced– keep even everyday content from being viewed by people who would like to see it. I know you remember this. 😉
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=8254
Filters are fine if a person opts to use them and realizes their limitations, and if they don’t replace parental responsibility for supervising the kids.
Being a parent comes with much responciblity and this is just part of it.
Plenty of child safe surfing filtering software installed that prevents children from accessing the adult content.
MSN and AOL have parental controls built in that also creates a report that the child visited.
The problem is not the adult content instead the parents and how they deal with issue.
Children do not perceive a naked woman the same as an adult would.
Children are taught that an image of a nude person is bad bad bad except in a museum where its art art art….
Growing up we have all been exposed to adult issues and it was the obligation of our parents to discuss it with us as well as drugs etc.
In my school in 5th grade the school system had the class watch a clip called the birds and the bees. That removed the mystique associated with sex and everyone moved on. All the kids laughted and said this was silly. It didn’t take long and we where playing spin the bottle.
When laws are proposed, you call for more parental supervision and monitoring, then you turn around and express anger at all that monitoring.
Parents will monitor their kids anyway in a few years when they’ll be hooked up to the VR set in the same room as the child throughout most of the day.
our way of life already becomes increasingly multi-tasked while in the next decade our geographical location will become quite fixed by virtual reality. at the end of the day, it’s just another routine sporadic child-rearing task.
The less laws that are propsed the better off we are.
Its the parents responcibility to monitor thier childrens behavior not society.
Is it ok for parent to have Vicodens, Valiums, Jack Daniels, Marlboros, Guns, Playboys, trojans, vibrators, adult movies, adult content TV and numerous adult items in their homes but when it comes to the internet the same parents want it to be safe for thier children?…geese come on now.
Next take a trip to your local store. Turn on the radio and you here adult content. every oneabee disk jockey is trying to emulate shock jock Howard Stern.
You pass a bill board that contains a sexy model doing whatever…
Then once your in the store the children are exposed to adult conent, beer, magazines and some scary looking people.
What I find alarming is the adult content hat is in this generations cartoons Like king of the hill or the simpsons.
So whats the alternative…. a represed society where woman wear veils and people have no rights.
#16
I knew you’d say that 🙂
We don’t need any regulation of the internet.