Those adults who turn to the web when they need a particular itched tickled and breath a sigh of relief. For the time being at least, what you seek will still be available online when you look for it, thanks to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a law meant to punish pornographers who peddle dirty pictures to Web-surfing kids is probably an unconstitutional muzzle on free speech.
The high court divided 5-to-4 over a law passed in 1998, signed by then-President Clinton and now backed by the Bush administration. The majority said a lower court was correct to block the law from taking effect because it likely violates the First Amendment.
In considering the issue a third time, the court did not end a long fight, however. The majority voted to send the case back to a lower court for a trial that could give the government a chance to prove the law does not go too far. …The majority, led by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, said there may have been important technological advances in the five years since a federal judge blocked the law.
Holding a new trial will allow discussion of what technology, if any, might allow adults to see and buy material that is legal for them while keeping that material out of the hands of children.
It reminds me of something I used to rant about when I was single and childless, and that still gets a rise out of me now that I've become a parent; the childproofing of nearly everything in our society. From the seconds-long exposure of Janet Jackson's breast (which, judging by the outcry, supposedly scarred for life children who probably see their mothers breastfeed their younger siblings several times in the run of a day) to the ongoing babble about "family friendly" television programming and all the way back to Tipper Gore and the PMRC, it just seems like some people are intent on putting childproof locks on just about everything in our culture, and sometimes those locks are adultproof too.
Now people want to do the same thing to the web. Where exactly does it end? That the law in question is supported by groups like the Family Research Council, only causes me to take an even dimmer view of it.
One COPA supporter said that the court is exceeding its powers. "This is akin to judicial tyranny," said Patrick Trueman, senior legal adviser at the Family Research Council and former chief of the child exploitation unit at the Justice Department's Criminal Division. "The court is dismissing acts of Congress which reflect the will of the people... This decision says to pornographers that you have a green light to distribute material to children."
Don't get me wrong. I'm a parent, and there are certain things I don't want my son seeing and hearing. He watches a couple of different children's shows. If he's in the room when we're watching television, it's on something that's OK for him to see or hear. He's only 20 months old, but I figure we'd better start watching it now.
But being a parent doesn't mean that I want all the entertainment I enjoy or absorb to be kid-friendly. As an adult, some of the things I find interesting and compelling aren't appropriate for kids, but I still want access to them. When it comes to television, it means I wait until the kid goes to bed to watch certain things. It means that I pay attention to what my kid watches, both now and when he's old enough to express a preference for what he'd like to watch. And when he's old enough to surf the web, it will be my responsibility to monitor that as well.
John Morris, staff counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington-based technology policy think tank, said that technology has advanced since COPA became law, but "the ability of a Web site to insure that a minor is not surfing to [a pornographic] Web site has not fundamentally changed." He predicted that the case would spend several more years at the appeals level and eventually come back to the Supreme Court.
Morris said that instead of restricting access, parents should educate themselves about the Internet and teach children "how to comport themselves online." [emphasis mine]
I've spent enough time online to know exactly what's out there, and there's much of it that I won't want my son exposed to. My partner and I even talked about it, and agreed our kid will not have televisions in their rooms (as I did when I was growing up) nor will they have computers with Internet access in their rooms. Those will be accessed in family areas of the house, where they can be monitored. Of course, I can't control web surfing outside of the home, but there should already be sufficient policies in place to guard against that.
While the Supreme Court has several times rejected attempts to limit what kind of material is available in cyberspace, it did uphold a law in June 2003 that withholds federal funds from schools and libraries unless they install software filters on their computers to block pornographic Web sites.
But even the things that are in place, like software filters, aren't perfect. Some have a tendency to block access to website that are not pornographic in nature but that do have information about sex and other topics; like websites about HIV/AIDS education, or websites containing information about gay and lesbian issues, or even breast cancer.
The problem is, there doesn't seem to be a way of restricting children's access, without also restricting adults' access somewhat too. You cant' take it away from the kids without taking it away from the grownups too. It seems like that's the basic point of the Supreme Court decision today: go back to the drawing board until you figure out how to protect kids without restricting adult access.
Folks, let's not become so kid-friendly, that we become adult unfriendly. Some of us still want access to adult-appropriate entertainment after the kids go to bed.
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