Bill Would Extend Online Obscenity Laws to Blogs, Mailing Lists

Erris writes "Senator John McCain has proposed a bill to extend federal obscenity reporting guidelines to all forms of internet communications. Those who fail to report according to guidelines could face fines of up to $300,000 for unreported posts to a blog or mailing list. The EFF was quick to slam the proposal, saying that this was the very definition of 'slippery slope', and citing the idea of 'personal common carrier'." From the article: "These types of individuals or businesses would be required to file reports: any Web site with a message board; any chat room; any social-networking site; any e-mail service; any instant-messaging service; any Internet content hosting service; any domain name registration service; any Internet search service; any electronic communication service; and any image or video-sharing service."

Wtf

[spellraiser]

From TFA:

The other section of McCain's legislation targets convicted sex offenders. It would create a federal registry of "any e-mail address, instant-message address, or other similar Internet identifier" they use, and punish sex offenders with up to 10 years in prison if they don't supply it.

Then, any social-networking site must take "effective measures" to remove any Web page that's "associated" with a sex offender.

Eh? Say what you will about sex offenders, but isn't this a little too much?

Re:John McCain loses more of my respect every day

[advocate_one]

He has cow-towed to the religious right.

I think you mean Kowtow, not cow-tow... nothing to do with towing cows at all... see here. [wsu.edu] Kowtowing is making a grand abasement to a superior officer... [wikipedia.org] prostrating yourself touching your forehead to the ground

Summary misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

After child pornography or some forms of "obscenity" are found and reported, the Web site must retain any "information relating to the facts or circumstances" of the incident for at least six months. Webmasters would be immune from civil and criminal liability if they followed the specified procedures exactly.

This is about reporting child pornography or "illegal" images, not about reporting someone saying "shit" or whatever.

Re:What's that smell in the air?

[bymiller]

Yes, let's be sure to tell him what we think of that: http://mccain.senate.gov//contact/index.cfm?ID=64/ [senate.gov]

Actual Bill

[Changer2002]

While I still think this is a bad idea, the bill is directed towards child pornography, not obscenity in general. Also, according to the bill there would be a duty to report if the administrator obtained actual knowledge that child pornography was posted online. I didn't read the bill over in great detail but I didn't see anything about an affirmative duty to monitor, just report when something is brought to your attention. Still it sets a bad precedent and I'm disappointed in McCain who I've always supported.

Re:What's that smell in the air?

[TheGreek]

Yes, let's be sure to tell him what we think of that: http://mccain.senate.gov//contact/index.cfm?ID=64/ [senate.gov]

Sending feedback to his Senate Office is less than worthless unless you're a resident of Arizona. If you're not, his staff will likely follow the custom of forwarding your correspondence to your state's Senators.

You're really better off writing your senators about the measure yourself.

Huh?

[cje]

McCain has an 85% strong conservative voting record. How in the world does that make him "far left"? Speaking from the left, I can tell you: We don't want him.

Re:hahaha

[Nasarius]

Browse through PollingReport [pollingreport.com] some time.

• 53-39 pro-choice
• about 60% for universal health care (and years ago)
• 50-37 for stem cell research
• 57-35 favor the environment over economic growth
• 54% favor stricter gun control laws
• 49-43 favor affirmative action
• 56-39 are against privatization of Social Security (various questions, same overall picture)
• 60% favor withdrawal from Iraq in six months

Tell me again how the public loves far-right ideas? On issues without broad public support, it's our responsibility to lead social change. The Dems don't pander to the base. They're to the right of the fucking majority of Americans on many issues!

Re:hahaha

[syphax]

To their credit, Polling Report [pollingreport.com] actually shows the full text of the polls. Because the reality is that I could conduct a poll that turned any of the numbers you cited upside down. It's all in the wording and the details ("Do you think it's OK for people to savagely club furry baby seals?" vs. "Should the government interfere with indigenous peoples' traditional family-oriented hunter-gatherer lifestyle?"). That's a lame one but you get the idea.

That's not to say that polls and surveys are useless, just that our media's interpretation and reporting of them usually is. Proper interpretation requires precision, and our MSM is not equipped to deal with that. And that pisses me off. The MSM may or may not be biased left or right, but what's far worse is that they tend to be biased toward vapidity and bad logic.

its not just McCain

[jdcope]

Democrat Charles Schumer is also one of the authors....why is it that the media never mentions stuff like that?

Yes, it's really censorship: some corrections

[Erris]

No more public discussion on American servers on the Internet. Seriously, who would risk running a public forum in the face of fines like that? Even major players like Amazon would most likely be forced to take down public comment sections lest something slip through. Slashdot, Fark, Kos, Pandagon, Redstate, LGF, whatever your online bitching kink is, it's going away.

The likely scenerio is to force everone into a two or three blanket carriers with the resources to deal with the paper work. All of these bloggers like truthout have been embarrassing to governments used to controlling three or four broadcasters. It won't put a stop to kiddie porn or the other four riders of the infopocalypse but it will make it next to impossible for forums in the world of ends. It is crap like this that will turn the internet into something that resembles webTV more than a flourishing free press.

Thanks, Zonk, for posting what I think is a very important issue, but I have a big correction to the summary. I made up the bit about "personal common carrier," and did not intentionally attribute it to the EFF. I was unable to find anything outside of the article about their stance on this and why they consider the bill unconstitutional. I'd love to hear more from them, but quoted everything I saw in the journal entry which I submitted [slashdot.org]. The part about "personal common carrier" comes from my own sense of justice, as expressed above, and views on freedom of press.

The article seems to have been updated, so I'll quote everything from the EFF here.

"This constitutionally dubious proposal is being made apparently mostly based on fear or political considerations rather than on the facts," said EFF's Bankston. Studies by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children show the online sexual solicitation of minors has dropped in the past five years, despite the growth of social-networking services, he said. ... "I am concerned that there is a slippery slope here," said Kevin Bankston, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. "Once you start creating categories of industries that must report suspicious or criminal behavior, when does that stop?"

Privacy is important and necessary for real free speech, but it's freedom of speech and press that is my primary concern. It's my opinion that recent obscenity laws have were made to crush porn sites through expensive reporting requirements because the authors were unable to directly outlaw what they consider objectionable material. Now that they have accomplished that goal, they are moving on to other content that bothers them. The obvious net result of this proposed law would be to run every forum off the net.

Others have pointed to my greatest fears: abuse by trolls and extortionists [slashdot.org]. Given the new Air Force mission to dominate cyberspace, various departments of missinformation and other funny business, I can also imagine government employees themselves abusing forums they want to shut down. No slippery slope is required for sites to be shut down this way. If this bill flies, it will be virtually impossible to host a site where people can post images and movies. The bill contains a "negligent failure" clause that's ripe for abuse.

Re:Wtf

[gessel]

I like the premise, but I think the metaphor is wrong: there is no actual debt, and in now way does being in prison function as repayment. Aside from other philosophical issues around the meaning of justice, individuals that demonstrate that they are a danger to society must be segregated from society at least until (arguably, only until) they are no longer a danger to society. The idea that someone presents such a danger that they need to be tracked suggests they are too dangerous to be "out." The theoretical streaker [findarticles.com] is unlikely to present any danger to society, whereas an unrepentant serial rapist with multiple prior convictions probably shouldn't be let out again, or at least until there's some plausible developments in psychiatry. But the same holds true for violent criminals, so clearly sex crimes are singled out solely for their prurient interest, by providing an opportunity to gratuitously describe sex in an offensive way that winds up voters but is without any political or legislative merit, which sounds a lot like a sex crime [wikipedia.org] itself to me...

On balance though, we should be grateful for Lawrence & garner v. State of Texas [sodomylaws.org]. It would be a great help to pass a constitutional amendment barring laws that dictate the private behavior of consenting adults. Ask your legislators. [congress.org]

As the "Won't somebody please think of the children" [wikipedia.org] subject alludes, the Simpsons have effectively commented on bogeyman politics, in particular with the bear patrol [wikipedia.org] episode. It's just transparent pandering, creating a false fear and exploiting it; and all the better that the subject be indefensible, though simply defenseless will also work when all the good ones are taken. Sex criminals will always be an easy target, but once that bandwagon has left the station (again), it's time to attack immigrants (poor Groundskeeper Willie [wikipedia.org]), or Albania [imdb.com], or homosexuals [bettybowers.com], or whatever [ufoevidence.org].

The best thing about this sort of moralist pandering and posturing is that politicians are just as morally complex as everyone else and their utter humiliation is a nice reward for the harm they do, so we should all thank Limbaugh [commondreams.org], Haggard [wikipedia.org], Barnes [denverpost.com], Bakker [weht.net], etc for the joy they've given us.

Re:hahaha

[MrMarket]

You can find more precise estimates here. [people-press.org].

The different brands of social conservatives make up about 20%; secular, anti-war liberals make up about 17%. The political landscape in both parties is actually quite diverse, but lately the Democratic party tends to foster more public debate within the party while the Republican campaign agenda has pretty much been ruled by the religious loony-tunes in the last ten years -- that "majority" is silent no more.

I've always wondered why McCain lets a bunch of red-necks in South Carolina decide the fate of the party. Nation-wide, the supply side Republicans probably out-number the values police. He just needs to get them engaged in the primaries. The backlash against the evangelical branch of the party is coming -- just look at what's happened in Kansas politics in the last couple years.