response 50 of 78:

Nov 13 14:02 UTC 1998

Re 48: Yeah, right when there was a lot of interest in the Mars Pathfinder,
a lot of people mistakenly hit "http://www.nasa.com". Which, yes, was
exploration of *sorts*...
 
I'm still unconvinced about the feasibility of web filtering. There was a
school system in England that put up one of the popular smut traps. It looked
for various naughty combinations of letters, and if it found any of them, it
wouldn't let the page through.
 
Apparently people in Scunthorpe only made the connection after their kids
couldn't find a single bit of information about their town.

response 52 of 78:

Nov 14 21:03 UTC 1998

Obviously you have no idea of what you speak.

You don't neee to spend any money to find sex sites on the net, very gaphic
sites as a matter of fact.  And while they may sell time on there sites, they
do offer a wide variety of pictures to lure you in for free.

response 54 of 78:

Nov 16 15:24 UTC 1998

re #51: I think you misread my message, just as you did my loginid.  (-:

response 56 of 78:

Nov 18 04:49 UTC 1998

The original CDA certainly did spill over into areas it wasn't "intended" to
cover, in that it both used such a vague definition of what it banned that
it banned almost anything that could possibly be objectionable, and it also
held operators of systems responsible for content posted to those systems by
their users.  To take a system like Grex, for example, as long as all the
discussion stayed "decent", we would have been fine.  However, if somebody
posted something objectionable, Grex would have been liable for what was
posted.  The problem with that is that, even if we were to accept that
everything the law said was bad was stuff we didn't want on our system, we
still couldn't enforce that without getting rid of our open access policies.
The choices would have been to shut Grex down, or to have the Grex staff read
every response before it gets posted to the conferences, and preread
everything said in party, or to ban minors from the system.  That didn't just
affect Grex, but would affect everywhere on the Net that allows the general
public to post content.  It was worse, too, at least in some versions.  I'm
not sure what finally got passed, but early versions of the bill would have
held operators of mail servers liable for the content of their users' e-mail,
even though it's generally not legal for a service provider to read a
customer's e-mail, and some early versions of it would have even held Internet
backbone providers responsible for data that flowed through their networks,
even if the originator of the data wasn't even a customer of theirs.

The current bill is vastly different, and as such probably should not be
referred to as CDA II.  It holds only originators of content liable for
content, and has a much stricter definition of what content it bans.  The
content that it bans follows what if I understand correctly is pretty much
the usual definition of what constitutes obscene material, except that they've
said it has to be obscene with respect to minors seeing it, instead of taking
the straight definition of obscenity, which is illegal anyway.  The legal
issue, then, is whether adults on the Net wanting anonymous access to content
should be allowed to access content that it's not legal for minors to be given
access to, or whether restricting what adults can do anonymously to the same
level as what kids are allowed to do is legal.  In the case of the original
CDA, one of the Court's objections to the bill was that it was restricting
minors in ways that it was not legal to restrict adults, and then holding
adults to the same regulations, so it seems likely that the courts will have
the same objection to this one as well.

In the practical matter, of what content does this law ban, yes, it's mostly
porn.  As such, while I agree that this is a free speech issue and it's
probably therefore bad legislation, I find it somewhat hard to get extremely
worked up against it.  However, given a still somewhat vague definition of
what got banned, overzealous prosecutors could proabbly use this against some
stuff that isn't porn as well.

response 58 of 78:

Nov 18 08:43 UTC 1998

Perhaps the people who drafted CDA II thought it was only aimed at
"originators", but the language of the bill is worded much broader and
isn't nearly so specific.  I'm sure someone who merely forwarded
material deemed harmful would be considered just as liable under the
law.  In usenet, the moderators of certain newsgroups could almost
certainly also be held liable.  If these interpretations of the law
survive the courts, then I would expect the prosecutors will next try to
go after some adult BBS operator (if there are any left that have any
sort of open registration system, or if the prosecutors are able to show
that whatever registration system is in use is somehow inadequate.)

If *those* court cases pass muster, then I would expect grex to be at
serious and direct risk.  When CDA passed, about half of the grex board
expressed *very* cold feet about assuming such a risk on behalf of grex.
It would be a very good thing to ask the current board candidates how
they would feel about grex if this should come to pass.

I would also expect prosecutors will also be interested in somehow
"controlling" the unmoderated newsgroups that contain material that was
found "harmful" in other court cases.  I don't know who the prosecutors
will go after there, but I suspect ISPs that offer unrestricted news
access will find it harder to keep these newsgroups.

response 60 of 78:

Nov 19 03:22 UTC 1998

Gotta agree with Rane on this one. I don't much care for porn myself -
B-O-R-i-n-g! But I oppose such stuff as CDA I and II on general principles
of minimum do's and don'ts.

What is so damn special about sex and "porn", anyways? And just how does
looking at a picture of a naked woman, or even people screwing, manage to
cause harm to a "minor" or anyone else? I note that at least one "minor" -
responded above - does not seem to feel the need for such "protection". And
that a lot of legislation passed in the name of "protecting children" pushes
children around more than anyone else.

response 62 of 78:

Nov 19 07:54 UTC 1998

We're banning hate literature?

that's terrific.  That means the Nation of Islam, The Religious Right, NOW,
and the "I Hate Barney" groups are all now illegal on the internet.  Finally.

response 64 of 78:

Nov 21 18:29 UTC 1998

It is Not to be redundant or anything, but I'd like to explore some of the
>fringes of "harmful to children"...I mean, from what I read, you could say
>pracitcally anything would be harmful to children.  What about those women
>who had that site about breast cancer that was shut down by AOL because they
>used the word "breast"?  WOuldn't sex ed be outlawed on line for this?
>(there are those who say that it still is, and would like it removed from
>public schools)  Why, this very item would probably be harmful to children
>by the oppinions of some!  Say goodbye to cites for queers and polygamists
>(even some mormon sites!), and other non-christian non-vanilla sites, like
>say the black panthers, the DSA, (might inspire little kiddies to riot, and
>we wouldn't want them to get that dangerous tear gas in their little eyes,
>now would we?   We wouldn't want children to learn too much or think for them
selves.  Just look at the way public education is designed, for passive little
>*obedient* citizens.  scg, I don't know if you remember public school or not,
>but thinking is a very big no-no.  You get a pinkslip for it. ;-)
>Now, knowing all that....I'm sure everyone can guess how I feel on the
issues.
>If you can ride topless in the NY subway, why not view breasts on the
>internet?  (Can see it now:  no photos of the NY subway on the internet! 
too
>dangerous!)  Before you know it, they are targeting sites on breast feeding
>and info sites on STDs.  Most info sites about biology (which has *lots* of
>sex in it, btw) will be banned.   Let's talk creationism, eh?  (oh yeah, we
>can't talk about that either....Adam and Eve were once naked)
>HOw about naturists, or the other word for them, NUDISTS?  Can't
>teach junior how to avoid contracting AIDS on the internet cuz they may learn
>about sex instead.  Even sites talking about what common household items are
>poisonous would be bad news cuz junior may get ideas about drinking bleach.
>This may *sound* like paranoia (and to some degree it is:  free-associating
>to make a point)  but I can see it happen, considering the wonderous talent
>the current administration has for streaching and bending the law like silly
>puddy forfill their party line.  This response shows you just how far *I*
>trust the government. <rant=OFF>

response 66 of 78:

Nov 22 00:54 UTC 1998

I'd love to see hard-core right wing religious sites nailed under twhis
legislation.  As far as I'm concerned, these zealots are *very* harmful to
children.

response 68 of 78:

Nov 22 15:52 UTC 1998

One of the best reasons for fighting censorship *is my child*.
I don't want to see his rights or choices degraded.

response 70 of 78:

Nov 22 20:30 UTC 1998

  At some point in their lives your children are going to have to learn
  to make choices; you can't be there for them forever.  If you choose
  everything they get to see, hear, or think until they're eighteen
  there's a mighty good chance they won't be prepared to make the right
  choices after society says you no longer get to do it for them.

  I doubt you really want to totally control your children's world but
  the principle still holds.  The more you rely on "because I told you so"
  the less prepared they'll be to live their lives when you're no longer
  there telling them..  If you give them the right reasons to choose
  responsibly and let them make their choices when they are mature enough
  to do so, you'll be doing them a favor that will last the rest of their
  lives.

response 72 of 78:

Nov 23 01:54 UTC 1998

and I've had this conversation enough times t orealize I'm not preaching to
the choir here.  It eats up too much time.  Have fun kidz.

response 74 of 78:

Nov 24 17:00 UTC 1998

Personally, I would be more in favor of requireing all the sex sites to have
the word .sex at the end of their address.  (make that porn sirtes.)  Then
we would know where these people and tah their porn were.

At this point, so many of them disguise what they really are under false names
and by linking them to noneporn sites..