High court bars Internet porn law enforcement

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.

www.cnn.com...

Wasn't this law one of the reasons public libraries felt safe not placing internet filters on thier public computers? Well, at least the free speech rights of pornagraphers is being protected. This may bode well for the free speech rights of the rest of us.

Sorry to say, but its not a "law" that supposed to protect the children from seeing porn or whatever the parents don't want them to see, ITS THE PARENTS JOB TO DO SO.

Some people may not mind that their children see porn, pictures posted on Ogrish or rotten and things like that. Its the parents choice to let their kids see or not see these things. Noone has the right to make that choice for every individual parent and every parent that is to lazy to educate and bring up their children theirself, should be bitchslapped into next year.

If you want kids, you damn better take everything that comes with it, like educating and protecting them from things YOU don't want them to see or hear.

If someone else does want their kids to see certain things, or doesn't mind they see it, or just raises his kids themself instead of relying on laws and other things to do it for them, then THEY should not be limited by YOUR way of raising a kid.

The problem with these types of laws and all the censorship going on is because of a few lazy ass parents not wanting to raise their kids by themself, but wanting the goverment and laws to do it for them. If you don't want to raise your own kids, then don't get any.

Absolutely thematrix.

And I think the Court, although not explicitly agreeing with you, has ensured that free speech is not censored by those who disagree with the message.

Responsible parenting is the the duty of all parents.

It may take a village, but it still requires parents.

I don't think the government should be poking their noses in where they don't belong. Especially regarding the internet. Like other people have said, it's the parent's job to regulate what their kids do on the internet not the government's. If parents stopped being so crappy we probably wouldn't have to worry about this kind of thing.

I agree that the law was bad. It was way too vague. The law could cover porn issues but also nude artwork and real movies where someone had sex with a minor, a movie like Lolita for example.

On the complete flipside I really hate the porn industry. I do not have children but I can imagine that it is very hard to protect your children against porn when the porn companies are coming after everyone on the Internet. Even with Spam filters I get hundreds of graphic porn emails every single week. Every Internet search that I do for common terms pulls up questionable websites. Something does need to be done about Internet porn, how it advertises and circulates material on the Internet.



[edit on 29-6-2004 by zerotime]

Originally posted by Faisca
If parents stopped being so crappy we probably wouldn't have to worry about this kind of thing.

Exactly, this is all about this culture of Blame we seem to be developing. What ever happend to assumed risk and personal repsonsability

Originally posted by thematrix
........

If someone else does want their kids to see certain things, or doesn't mind they see it, or just raises his kids themself instead of relying on laws and other things to do it for them, then THEY should not be limited by YOUR way of raising a kid......

The problem is though that a lot of the parents don't know how to work the software that will protect their children from the internet porn and such. And the nice V-chips that are installed in TVs the parents have no clue how to work them. I'm 17 and I'll admit I've been looking at porn for years probably since I was at least 10 and the reason is that I know how to work electronic equipment better than my parents. Even if my mother put a block on the computer I could probably get around it. I do agree with you though. It's the parents job how to raise their own children. If they want them to have sex, chain smoke, and drink let them.

I do think though that the parents who don't want their kids to view certain things should start to educate themselves on how to stop it from coming into their home. If they truly want it out of their house they need to learn how to prevent it themselves and not blame the TV companies and such for it. There have been books BANNED from my school library because certain parents didn't want them in there. I've read 2 or 3 of these books they have banned. They are good books whether anyone wants to admit it or not. But I don't think it's right to take away everyone's rights to these books in the school. If a parent doesn't want their child reading the book they should tell the child and not let the child read it. But in no way should they be able to interfere with the knowledge of other children. I think it's bullcrap.

It's the individual parents job to help their children in making right decisions. There should be no laws saying what you have to teach your children or what they can or can see. That's the parents job. That's why they have internet filters, and V Chips. Now we just need to teach the parents who want to hinder the learning of their children to use them.

I don't really have anything to contribute to this post, I just wanted to give a big thumbs up to thematrix for that awesome post. Very well written. Good job.

I am Glad the Court did the right thing there are MUCH simpleler ways to Keep Porn Off your computer ....Maybe The goverment should require that every System sold After a Certin Date should Be equiped with NET NANNY or the Equillevent.....something LESS invasive to your Average adult who LIKE to View Adult Materiall I am FIRMLY Against Censorship of Any kind I am A Republican But I think Ashcroft is Way off Base and maybe a Little bit Drunk on the power he Got from the Patriot Act....I am glad the Court put him and People who want to censor what we View in there Place

I don't agree with porn but I really don't care what an adult wants to see that is his choice as an adult, I see this ruling as an attempt of this and other administrations to take away the rights of adults using children right to cover up, and what people as adults have to understand is that religious organizations are behind all this effort to control what we adults watch on TV, internet or radio.

The job to safeguard children falls on parents or guardians not on the government or organizations that to force the community into following their hidden agendas.

Wait, I'm all for free speech, but doesn't the problem really lie in the fact that porn companies advertise to any and all and send unsolicited emails to young kids without caring what age they are? My little cousins were sent emails with links to porn in them and they are only like 7 and 8. I'm sorry, but that's wrong. If it's not wrong, then why have an age limit for R rated movies, or for buying porn? Why not have porn on cable tv? Why do people get so pissed off when they suspect cigarette companies use ads that are directed at kids?

We all know that unsolicited email is a BIG problem for all of us and you can't always stop all the unwanted stuff from getting into your account. So even if the parents are active and trying to shield their kids from adult material, they might miss an email or not get to checking it before their kid does. Come on, don't you think that it's wrong to target young people with porn?

SimpleTruth,

I have a firewall, an aditional piece of software in my computer that I have the choice to ban any site that have porno in it, if for a chance I get into a site with a porno adverstisment, I still get the page but the adverstisment will said "page can not be display"

If parents wants to protect childrens they can spend money to do it, after all is for the safety of their own children. Right? I get in my computer what I want, thanks to aditional programs I have invested in.

Originally posted by marg6043
SimpleTruth,

I have a firewall, an aditional piece of software in my computer that I have the choice to ban any site that have porno in it, if for a chance I get into a site with a porno adverstisment, I still get the page but the adverstisment will said "page can not be display"

If parents wants to protect childrens they can spend money to do it, after all is for the safety of their own children. Right?

I get in my computer what I want, thanks to aditional programs I have invested in.

I agree About Every thing you have said Software on ONEs computer is the Answer not MAJOR regulation....And Unsolicited E-mail Containing Porn Should be Illigall.....I dont think any of us really want the goverment telling us how to raise our kids

Truth_Hunter_1976

Thanks, I know children should be protected, but us adults have the right to choose what we want not the goverment, if I want to see something dirty as an adult or listen to profanity I don't need the goverment or religious organizations to tell me that is not good for me, I want my right to select what I want, and they can go and take a hike.

Originally posted by SimpleTruth
Wait, I'm all for free speech, but doesn't the problem really lie in the fact that porn companies advertise to any and all and send unsolicited emails to young kids without caring what age they are?

I gotta ask you and others on the Board about this. Both my husband and I have our own computers. I have my own email accounts as does he. I have never received porn spam or emails. My husband, who does check out porn sites from time to time, gets them periodically.

Just from my own experience it would seem that you actually have to visit a porn site to trigger the mail. Either that or I am the luckiest person I know.

Originally posted by SimpleTruth
We all know that unsolicited email is a BIG problem for all of us and you can't always stop all the unwanted stuff from getting into your account. So even if the parents are active and trying to shield their kids from adult material, they might miss an email or not get to checking it before their kid does.

Actually, NO we don't know that. I very rarely get any of those pesky porno emails. When I do, they go into my bulk folder, and get pitched. But, I get fewer than one per month.
I get very little spam. Like Marg said, you have fiewalls on your PC and ad blockers and filters on you email accounts. Get rid of the spyware!!!!
It IS NOT the government's job to raise kids. It does NOT take a village to raise a child. It takes parents or caregivers.

That ruling was righteous, as the matrix and others posted. Once you start interfering with the Internet, it will be a wild fire of controls and fees the likes of which

And it is true,

you can set your computer to ban anything you don't want, right now I had my computer in such a stealth mode that I could get into ATS but in order to go to BTS I have to lower the firewall settings because it will not let me, and I don't even have small children at home, trust me you can make your computer as safe as you want.

Originally posted by SimpleTruth
Wait, I'm all for free speech, but doesn't the problem really lie in the fact that porn companies advertise to any and all and send unsolicited emails to young kids without caring what age they are?

Two points to be made on that.

1: Porn spam directly from Porn sites is NEVER unsolicited. It is subscribed on sites you visit and register to, in most cases its in the fine prints. The only unsolicited porn spam is done by spammers, people that try to make money by sending out emails for company's they aren't affiliated with directly, except that the HTML based emails they send give hits on an Affiliation program thats ment for web based advertisement. Porn company's do not condone unsolicited spam at all.

2: Spam is in fact illegal by law, just like it is in your snail mail. Professional spammers are being aprehended, fined and emprisoned for damages done these days. Problem is, if some nigerian spam/scam artist does it, there is litle the laws can do about it.

Unsolicited spam in general is what needs to be fought, and is fought.

Freedom of what you watch and alow your kids to see is something every parent and person needs to decide for themself and can not and should not seek to be regulated by a law for the full population.


Another thing that needs to be fought is the fact that company's like Mirabilis(ICQ), AOL and others sell their user lists to whoever pays for it. Like this you mainly get all those Visodin, Lobster and Viagra mails.
In alot of cases its not the company's themselves who sell the lists, but employees with access to the lists.

Its a pitty to have to admit it, but even between my fellow IT admins and sysadmins, there are some rotten apples who illegaly sell lists like this to make an extra buck.

Its the people that sell the user lists that are most part to blame for the spam problems these days. Not the spammers themself really, they are just the effect.



[edit on 29-6-2004 by thematrix]

Ok, I want to say that I'm the LAST person on earth who would want the government to ahve anything to do with raising my child. I think the gov only screws things up more when they try. I was just concerned about kids being targeted by porn sites and such. I know that people should be able to look at porn if they want and I agree. I was focused more on the matter of the unsoliceted stuff. But I think some of you clarified some things for me, so thanks.

So it seems that someone won't get nailed with emails or whatever unless they've already been to the sites. Those that do send the unsolicited ones already are considered illegal and will get stopped. Ok, it sounds like the system seems fair. I'm not about to advocate taking anyone's rights away. We've had far too much of that already in the past few years.

Originally posted by thematrix

Unsolicited spam in general is what needs to be fought, and is fought.

yes! A child can always find porn if he really wants to. The only thing parents would not have as good an ablitiy to fight is the porn spam. If we could illimenate just that, then parents would have what they want(no porn in their kids emailboxes), porn ppl would have what they want(according to earlier on your post) and the government would have what it wanted(well, actually not...cause if its not one complaint, its another).

great posts thematrix!

---pineapple


[edit on 29-6-2004 by thematrix]