Pennsylvania stops kiddie porn.(not)

how in hell did this go by un-noticed. i didn't hear anything about it.

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Pennsylvania orders ISPs to censor the Net
By Thomas C Greene in Washington


Child-protective mania has given State of Pennsylvania a pretext to indulge in Internet censorship. The legislature has passed a law requiring ISPs to block access to kiddie porn Web sites. Under the scheme, PA residents will have to be prevented from accessing the sites, which will be identified by the state attorney general's office.

The law is backed up with penalties ranging from $5,000 for a first offense to fines of $30,000 and seven years' imprisonment for a third offense. The PA legislature doesn't offer any guidance as to how the blocking is to be accomplished.

The legislative measure was brought to our attention by Richard M. Smith of ComputerBytesMan.com. "ISPs are going to have to filter by URLs. I think this is a hard technical problem. I'm not even sure what kind of software can deal with ISP traffic volumes," he noted during an e-mail exchange.

Add to this the fact that active KP URLs often change on a daily, sometimes hourly basis, and you see that PA is going to be issuing constantly out-of-date URL lists to ISPs throughout the nation and expecting them to dutifully filter them for its residents.

So, will this reduce the amount of KP circulating on the Web? Will it protect children from exploitation by pornographers? Obviously, it will do neither. It's pure self-congratulatory legislation with no appreciation of the practicalities, and no hope of accomplishing anything worthwhile.

It will, of course, accomplish Internet censorship for PA residents, which may later be expanded once the necessary tools are in place; it will tax the resources of ISPs struggling to comply with impossible demands; and it will impress the uninformed with Pennsylvania's devotion to child protection.

But it will not make the slightest dent in the trafficking of this filth.

No online KP haven is going to be put out of business merely because it can no longer accommodate the diseased sexual desires of Pennsylvania's perverts. No pornographers will be prosecuted -- only ISPs will be. No KP sites will be disabled; and no online archives will be erased. Trading via IRC, ICQ and AIM will go on unimpeded.

Business will be burdened with extravavant requirements and Draconian penalties; and the public will be burdened with censorship, all for no good reason. The Pennsylvania legislature has pulled a terrific fast one here. It's granted censorship rights to the state on the pretext of child protection. It's created a superficial image of concern over KP, while laying responsibility for it as far from the source, and from itself, as humanly possible. And it's got away with it. Governor Mark Schweiker signed the bill into law last month. It takes effect in April. ®

http://www.theregus.com/content/6/24375.html

Why in heaven's name don't they just go after the websites themselves...I'm sure if you look you could find one or two based in PA. It seems riduculous to me to try to make the ISP's become law enforcement agents. This stuff is illegal I'm sure pretty much everywhere....why don't they just shut down the websites producing and presenting the porn, and leave the ISP alone. If the job was being done by the FBI and whomever else is responsible for the prosecution of kiddie porn, then the ISP wouldn't have to do the job for them!!
Argh! Another example of government bodies that won't make the people who are supposed to be doing a job do it and foisting the responsibility on completely unresponsible parties.

If I may reply to that, "This stuff is illegal" pretty much nowhere. Oh, sure, in the so-called "civilized countries" - I.E. UK, Canada, States, etc. but there are over 150 countries in the world today, the majority of which don't practice any forms of censorship.

SSJVegeta-Sei

All self-respecting nation could go after KP pushers internally and 'black-hole' or block any isp that is allowing it in countries that don't care. maybe that will get them to respond. hit'em in the pocketbook. The people who arn't involved with porn in thes countries will be forced to find an isp that dis-allows KP or be cut off from the rest of the world.

Any self respecting nation, certainly--but there are many nations out there with no selfrespect whatsoever. Is the president of East Borduria going to say anything about KP, when the owner of the site slips him a large bribe?

KP has to be stopped but not by censoring the Net... the Net musn't be censored in any way. KP presents 2 problems. Prob no. 1 is the sick ppl who produce and spread it and prob no.2 is the ppl who download it... Put these ppl behind bars or send them to a shrink but don't touch the Net. First it'll be KP, ok, that's fair to ban, but then they'll start on everything else. Before we know it they own the Net and we become a bunch of puppets just wating for the puppetmaster to show us something new to spend our cash on... they have tried so many times to make the Net a commercial nightmare and if they get permission to censor it (even if they have good reasons) they'll abuse it later. Don't trust the government with your Privacy or Freedom of Speech, they'll just throw it away in the name of security. The Net is pure Freedom og Speech and it will become the victim.

I think it's the same ole crap about the internet, things that reflect 'bad stuff' in real life are always about to be, or are, censored on the net, but why don't they go after the producers of the KP, in the first place?? You can hoot and holler all you want about how bad KP is, but by the time it's on the net, the deed has been done, and should have been stopped way before it could be published.

Doesn't East Brduria have a population of 10000? Less then a small city in the states? If you can pull the connection from the larger countires, the site owner won't have the money to pay the bribe.

they slipped this one by everyone. even the isp's. they are as surprised and upset about it as everyone else. the way it is set up is not to stop kiddie porn. anyone can see that. if they were really trying to stop it, they would go after the source. the dealers and traders and websites.
but this is about control and censorship. this about who has control of the media. if they are allowed to get away with this, what is next? the people that were raided for trading were using yahoo groups. so does that mean that the goverment bodies of pennsylvania should be allowed to block everyones access to yahoo? this is a serious issue that they pushed down in the dark and was hoping everyone would blindly agree because it is in the name and benefit of our children. but is it really? i really do not think so. also just because someone happens to stumble upon a site that has imagery of people that appear to be under the age of 18, should they be deemed a criminal or child molester. there is a big difference between real child porn (images of children being sexually assaulted) and the types of pictures described in the laws they passed (any image that shows a suspected underage person doing anything sexually related or provocative, or that can be interpreted as such, even if it is NOT real, including computer generated or edited images and art.) that could be anything! most mainstream japanime portray imagery that most americans interpret to be underage. that is just the style of the art and what the japanese consider to be attractive. no age is even mentioned. but to deem it as kiddie porn and its appreciators criminals? that does not make sense. these laws are not being passed to keep the safety of our children. they are just to give the government more control over internet usage by the people.
and just look at the positions of the people that were caught for viewing and trading real kiddie porn. one was a priest! another was a cop! yet others were school bus drivers and daycare center workers! what we need is tougher back ground checks on the people that are near our children. they should be watched and restricted. not the general public.

zion1459

I agree with you 110% the government should not be involved at all, but all im seeing is a lot of what should not be done. if netizens are not going to do what should be done the government will.

as for what should be done, how about putting pressure to bear on our own service providers to black-hole forign isps that allow KP, it already looks like the feds here are actnig internally with the arrests of the yahoo freaks.

if we all turn in any KP sites running in our respective countries to the law, as a complaint from a person in RW, siting so-n-so at this street in this city, maybe the gov would have no reason to put cops in cyberspace. Or at least have one less excuse for their invasion.