WARNING: THIS WEBSITE MAY CONTAIN SEXUAL MATERIAL OR MATERIAL OBJECTIONABLE TO CHILDREN AND BIG BROTHER

Thanks to Senator "Bridge To Nowhere" Ted Stevens, the above message may be required to be placed prominently on the first page or any subsequent pages on any website, including blogs or any other 'social networking' site that might contain sexual material.

It's all included in S.49, called the Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act, aka DOPA Jr. (DOPA was the Deleting Online Predators Act that died in the Senate last session.) While protecting children from online predators is a good and noble goal, this is a bill that goes too far, for not only does it attempt to crack down on internet child pornography (the good part) it also launches a frontal assault on the online community that has emerged in the form of personal websites, chat rooms, even contributer based information sites like Wikipedia.

At issue is Title II of the proposed act which would prohibit schools and public libraries from accessing commercial social networking sites unless used for educational purposes with adult supervision. The law would prevent any school or library receiving federal funding for internet subsidies from allowing 'social networking' sites to be accessed from school computers. Such a law would almost certainly require schools to increase their computer filtering capabilities, essentially locking classroom teachers out of any online educational sites that are determined to fall under the 'social networking' definition. A definition so broad that it could include just about anything.

Under the bill, a commission (of unelected individuals) would use this criteria to determine whether a website would be defined as a 'social networking' site:

-is offered by a commercial entity;
-permits registered users to create an on-line profile that includes detailed personal information;
-permits registered users to create an on-line journal and share such a journal with other users;
-elicits highly-personalized information from users; and
-enables communication among users.

Buh-bye Wikipedia. Buh-bye online publishing sites. Buh-bye search engines. Think I'm kidding? Here's a comment from reader Vickey on the PBS article (2nd link in this post):

"In our district the blocking and restrictions have already arrived. This is the message our district puts out as we search on the computers and reach a restricted site:Web based email is not filtered for content and may contain as attachments, inappropriate images or other undesirable content. Search Engines Major search engines (MSN, Yahoo!, Ask, Dogpile, AltaVista, etc…) often cache or proxy inappropriate material, they also link to inappropriate sites. We do not block Google, feel free to use Google to search the internet. Unknown Sites These fall under the “better safe than sorry” category. Streaming Media With the exception of purposed “education” sites, streaming media (audio and video) is blocked for two reasons, inappropriate content and severe bandwidth limitations Social Networking Unmoderated social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook are blocked because there is no “responsible” party involved in what content is displayed Lyrics, Music, Poetry, etc… Sites that offer content for free are typically in violation of the intellectual property holder’s copright, and as such need to be blocked."

So far, the bill is in the early stages, so we don't need to get too worked up quite yet. But we do need to watch and see where this goes. Anything deemed 'for the children' can gain popularity, especially in the run up to presidential elections.

But is this really about protecting children or about regulating and limiting the effectiveness of the online community? After all, the world of 'social interactive' websites has been very vocal in protecting free speech as well as highlighting the excesses, abuses, and mistakes of the government and their corporate benefactors.

This bill can do nothing to prevent child pornography on the internet- much of it comes from abroad. It will do nothing to prevent predators from gaining access to children either. It will not regulate private schools that don't take federal funds for internet programs, leaving wealthier districts (and by caveat, wealthier families and children) with an advantage to access information and educational materials. And by extending the law into public libraries, places widely used by adults and children, this law would unnecessarily limit access to information and social networking by adults too.

There ia a better way to protect children than to decrease their exposure to information. It's called parental guidance.

And there are better ways to eliminate child predators. They're called law enforcement and stiff prison terms.

Of course, if the goal is to silence free speech and stifle the flow of information between people, this bill looks great!

(cross posted at Bring It On!)

Fool Me Once...Can't Get Fooled Again

The big problem with lying repeatedly over the years, is that when you actually have something to say that could well be based on real facts, hardly anyone believes you. Enter President Gerorge W. Bush.

Here is a man who claimed to be a uniter. Who claimed to be a compassionate conservative. Who claimed to have had no idea that terrorists wanted to attack the US and might use jumbo jets as a weapon. Who claimed that every wire tap done in the US had a proper warrant from the court. Who asserted time and again that the US did not torture prisoners. Who insisted that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Who said Iraq had mobile bio-terror vans. Who said that Iraq was trying to buy uranium in Africa and aluminum tubes for centrifuges to enrich uranium. Who said that no one ever thought the levies around New Orleans would break. Who insists that Iraq in not in civil war. Who insists that he's doing everything he can to keep America safe.

And these are just the big things he's said that have been refuted by actions and evidence. Too bad Barbara never read him The Little Boy Who Cried Wolf as a child. Maybe if she had he'd understand the reasons so few are listening to him regarding Iranian involvement in Iraq.

Listen...Iran likely is providing assistance to some of the sectarian groups battling each other in Iraq. We know they supported Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations over the years. They probably still are. But short of indisputable photographic evidence of some official Iranian agent transferring weapons or intelligence into the hands of a disputed terrorist or sectarian leader, no one (excluding the die hard neo-con hawks and rapture literalists) is going to believe American intelligence, delivered by the Bush Administration, that Iranian activities vis-a-vis Iraq are worth another war. No One. Period.

That is a real shame.

Don't get me wrong. I do not want to see America and Iran at war. But the fact of the matter is that America's reputation abroad just isn't what it used to be, thanks to the disasterous presidency of George W. Bush. The rest of the world has clearly decided to 'not get fooled again' to paraphrase the bumbler in chief. Regardless of the situation in Iran, it will take a long time before anyone trusts American intelligence without a whole lot of proof.

We may be right about Iranian nuclear intentions. We may be right about Iranian involvement in Iraq. (I think we are wrong on the first and close to right on the second for the record.) But it doesn't make any difference so far as the world is concerned. And America can no longer act unilaterally in her war making without serious repercussions from the world community- there may not be a military threat we can't handle, but there are plenty of economic threats that could bring us to our knees, and our quasi-allies know this all too well. Further, many of these 'friends' are none too worried about their own populations that they wouldn't absorb some pain to bring us down a few notches.

Fool me once...can't get fooled again.

When first uttered, we just assumed that Bush was making another tragic attempt to be hip.

Turns out he was speaking for the rest of the world regarding his own blundering administration.

(picture gratuitously lifted from the internet- no infringement intended)

(cross psoted at Bring It On!)