Here we go again...

Submitted by acohill on Thu, 07/26/2007 - 07:28

Senator Ted "the Internet is made of tubes" Stevenson is at it again, calling for "universal" filtering of the Internet to protect us all from pornography. The Internet pornography problem is a serious one, and deserves serious attention, but Senator Stevens is not making a serious proposal.

First, the Federal government has no business filtering and checking everything we look at; it is as if the government planned to put an agent on our doorstep and insisted on looking at every book, magazine, and letter that we tried to carry in the house, and had the power to arbitrarily remove any item without explanation, including the pictures of your one year old niece in the bathtub that your sister in law sent in the mail (it would classified as child pornography).

Second, Senator Stevens reveals that his understanding of the Internet has not evolved much past the "tubes" analogy. There is no one central location for the "Internet." It is everywhere and nowhere. It does not stop at national boundaries. U.S. laws have no effect on servers and content providers in other countries. Stevens' proposal smacks of political grandstanding ("...it's for the children") at a time when there are much more serious issues that beg for attention.