Internet Safety Act As Flawed As Online Gambling Bill
According to some legislators, the need to protect children is just cause not only to block the freedom to play at online gambling sites, but to censor the entire Internet. Once again using the scare tactic of kids in danger, two Republican lawmakers are seeking to require Internet service providers to make sure they aren't used as conduits for child pornography.
Once again, as with the UIGEA, Republicans are trying to swat flies with a cannon. Comedian Doug Stanhope tells a story about how he's seen thousands of hours of Internet porn, reaching into the most obscure perversities, but never once stumbled across or was offered child pornography.
But exaggerating danger leads to power, in this case power over information on the Internet. As the UIGEA is to online gambling and Internet casinos, so the Internet Safety Act will bloom beyond child porn to disrupt the entire Internet.
The law is undefined, like the UIGEA. And, like the UIGEA, the Internet Safety Act requires private institutions to act as police, or else they are in violation. So e-mail and social networking services may be seen as an ISP "knowingly engages in any conduct the provider knows or has reason to believe facilitates access to, or the possession of, child pornography," an act punishable by ten years in prison.
Kate Dean, executive director of the US Internet Service Provider Association, told Cnet.com, "The legislation, as currently drafted, appears to raise the specter of imputing criminal liability on ISPs and others for the provision of routine services, such as e-mail."
Once again, in a desire to wrap the US in a protective cocoon, conservative legislators have crafted a poorly worded law using censorship and placing illegal burden on private business to deal with a problem concerning the Internet, a tool they clearly don't understand. The online gambling industry surely understands the frustration.
