The Best and Worst US Internet Laws

An anonymous reader writes "When a US legislator describes the Internet as a 'series of tubes' you just know that you're going to end up with some wacky laws on the books. Law professor Eric Goldman takes a look at the best and worst Internet laws in the U.S. Goldman offers an analysis of the biggies such as the DMCA, but also shines light on lesser-known laws like the Dot Kids Implementation and Efficiency Act of 2002. And he actually finds four Internet laws that aren't all bad."

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Re:US lawmakers dont understand global Internet

[Lithdren]

Its not about actually getting anything done.

Its all about being sure you can say "Look, look what I did!" when re-election comes. Even if what you did, is completly idiotic, if it 'protects consumers/children/women/whatever' you get more votes, because people dont bother to research..anything, when it comes to things like this.

Most, if not all, of the people in office realize this, realize these laws are utterly pointless, unenforceable, and overall useless. Thats why they're writing them. Easier then actually making something that WORKS.

Re:Best and worst?

[morgan_greywolf]

Agreed. The NET Act is horrible public policy. Not only that, the guy himself says that "criminal sanctions do not deter warez traders", linking to this paper on warez trading and the law [ssrn.com], which "...discusses the motivations for warez trading, how criminalizing the behavior may counterproductively encourage it, and why legislators and prosecutors continue to target warez trading despite the counterproductive effects," in order to state his case, but then turns around and says that "[r]emoving warez traders from the Net, one by one, is a crude but ultimately effective method for curtailing warez trading" becuase "a couple of hundred warez traders have been busted by the law." (Whoop-de-doo!) So, uh, which is it? The law doesn't deter warez traders, or is the law effecting in curtailing them? You can't have it both ways.

Laws which assume that small children

[Burz]

...have the right to play in the middle of the 'Information Superhighway' are almost always rotten.

Handing over the keys to the car is something you do when your kid turns 15. There ought to be a similar ethic WRT Internet access.

How about law by sponsor, support, opposition?

[mnemotronic]

What would help me is a chart of the laws, who sponsored them, who voted for them and who voted against them. Granted, the "voted for" and "voted against" columns are rendered useless by porcine pork politics and the absurd nature of the American legislative process. All legislation receives the benefit of "earmarking" [heritage.org]. A truely bad bill may become law, not for it's primary purpose, but because of the attendant special interest amendments and good-ol-boy reach-arounds. How strange that HRBF George feels that the line item veto is a vital tool [whitehouse.gov] to combat ineffective laws, yet no-one believes that the Congress should be endowed with complementary powers, as in a line item vote. Legislators have the time to meet with the money (campaign contributors, special interests), construct loopholes, graft them onto other laws, and schmooze their compatriots, but do they actually have the time, as a body, to research and vote on each and every issue? Not likely.

Still, knowing who sponsored the bills would be useful (yea, I could look it up myself, but I'm a complainer, not a doer).

Re:US lawmakers dont understand global Internet

[Lockejaw]

I don't get it. What's so "anti-US" about the suggestion politicians do stupid things and waste time? "Kneejerk reactionism" describes almost every use I've seen of the term "anti-US."

Re:US lawmakers dont understand global Internet

[owlnation]

10 out of 10 laws, good and bad, fail to take into account that these laws have no jurisdiction in other countries.

I know this isn't news to anyone on slashdot, but as an European it never ceases to amaze me how American lawyers and politicians are misguided in over-thinking their importance.

Pass dumb law in the US, and for the most part those of us outside your borders just point and laugh. The DMCA (as one example) is of no interest nor value to 90% of the World, and why it should be so absorbing to the other 10% is difficult to understand.

There's not really any such thing as a sensible Internet law. Since for a law to be sensible it needs to be internationally enforceable - there are no laws whatsoever that currently meet that criteria.

The only thing that going to work is adoption of something similar to International Marine Law.

2 + 2 + 10? Some how I think it's a bit biased.

[kinglink]

Ok, we can all agree that the government has not been able to understand the internet, and I think that's pretty sad, but I have a feeling that there has been more than 14 laws put into place about the internet. He even admits there's been 100s of laws passed. My problem is that we can only find 2 good laws, 2 questionable laws and 10 bad laws? This sounds like the article's writer has a bit of an axe to grind and decided to take it out on laws while pretending to maintain impartiality. He admits he's biased, but I could admit I'm biased and repeat some of the stuff that Venezuelan president Chavez says about out country and Bush. Doesn't make what I say news, or even worthy of a title "The good and bad of Bush".

Personally I find this article to be subpar for our standards. Slashdot isn't a soap box, something we seem to have forgotten.

Re:US lawmakers dont understand global Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

The problems are that you have to prosecute the receiver, not the supplier of information.

The trouble with prosecuting the receiver of information is you don't know what your getting until you load a page and even then you don't know everything you got unless your an expert and scan and identify every bit that comes in over your internet connection. Virtually anyone that uses default Windows setup for browsing and email and particularly those that open every email are going to have at some point child pornography on their computer. P2P you could very well have a similar problem on, even though the computer owner never intended to transfer anything illegal or in violation of copyright laws with it.

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