Lets just jump right in, shall we?
From Press Esc.
Commerce Committee Chairman Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee Vice Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) both argued that Internet was a dangerous place where parents alone will not be able to protect their children.
This is a real danger, any time someone invokes "the children" to do something, chances are good they've got some kind of ulterior motive. The fact that Senator Inouye would let Tubes Stevens blindside him with this for-the-children crap is surprising, considering he's come out strong for Net Neutrality and opposed Tubesock in his earlier attempts to hand control of the internet to the ultra-rich.
Filtering of content should be done by the end-user, not by the infrastructure or the ISPs. But Tubey is shopping legislation to:
· direct the Federal Communications Commission to identify industry practices that can limit the transmission of child pornography;
You can read the hearing texts here.
Now, here is the part that worries me:
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.
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.
These are all difficult, yet critically important issues that parents and children face in an information age. If we search for a "silver bullet" solution, we will not find it.
That middle paragraph raises a few concerns. I'm all for stopping child pornography, but as we've seen when you give the government the power to do something with limits, the first thing they do is try and remove all the limits. Think about the FBI and national security letters (supposedly for fighting terror) and imagine what a politicized justice department could do with the ability to filter content at the ISP or backbone level.
Censorship is a tenacious bastard, and you have to keep extremely vigilant for even hints of it developing. Call Senator Inouye and ask him to repudiate Tubesock's plans, and to put out an affirmative statement opposing censorship and filtering of the internet other than at the end user point.
You can contact him via a web form on his website, or you can fax him at (202) 224-6747.
And if you're bored, call Tubesock's aides and remind them that their boss is an idiot. Phone: (202) 224-3004 or Fax: (202) 224-2354
UPDATE:
I had to put this comment from Catte Nappe below up to the top of the Diary, as they make a great point that I forgot to make originally. Scroll down and drop a rec on the comment if you would:
help parents to screen out offensive content
In that context, we must evaluate our current efforts to combat child pornography
These two things really don't go together "in context".
"Child pornography" is not "pornography viewed by children.". It is pornography that uses children, and is about the least likely subgroup of potentially offensive sites a child is likely to run across.