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ACLU, EPIC, NetNanny
There are things available on the internet that are
fairly universally considered inappropriate or obscene. One
reaction to these things, is that we should censor them. To
censor something is to look at it more closely, in order to determine
whether or not it is obscene, and most often to ban it if it is.
Few things are actively censored here in America, due to the First Amendment
to the Constitution. You
may have heard it. It goes a little something like this:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;
or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government
for a redress of grievances.
Any law to amend free speech online must be able to pass by the Supreme Court
and be found not to violate the First Amendment. But, does the government
need to try to regulate the internet? Can the online community regulate
itself?
Attempts have been made to censor the internet.
In 1995, Congress passed the Communications
Decency Act (CDA) attempting
to impose penalties on those that published obscene pages on the
internet where they are available to the general public. This
act included many provisions, some of which covered telecommunications
company buy-outs and anti-trust laws.
The greatest argument against the CDA was that it meant that
images and statements perfectly legal in print were censored on
the internet.
The internet was now, according to the The Center for
Democracy and Technology (CDT), centered in Washington, D.C., the "most
heavily regulated communications medium in the United States!" The
CDA, while protecting children by declaring it indecent to proposition
minors online (as it is offline), also punished those who sent
indecent material directly to minors or made it available for them
to view. This means that not only could an individual
be arrested, but their Internet Service Provider (ISP) could be
punished as well. Any provider that gives web space is
responsible for the content.
The CDA states that "[if] by means of telecommunications device makes
or makes available any obscene communication in any form including any comment,
request,
suggestion, proposal, image..." they may be punished up to up to $100,000 and/or
imprisoned up to two years.
Organizations such as American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Privacy Information Center
(EPIC) banded together with 18 similar groups to challenge
the CDA in court. They brought the case Reno vs ACLU to the
Supreme Court, where online censorship clauses were found unconstitutional
and in violation of the first amendment by a 7-2 margin.
The two greatest flaws in the Communications Decency Act that will make any
and all legislation designed to censor the Internet impractical and impossible,
are as follows:
First of all, the World Wide Web is just that - World Wide. It's too big to patrol. A law in Washington might not apply to someone from Sweden, because they're in a different country.
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Second of all, it's individual choice that controls what is seen online. The Center for Democracy and Technology believes "that individual
choice and individual control of access to information are the
key to protecting the First Amendment online." The CDT says
that the most effective weapon available to censor the internet
is not legislation, but programs like NetNanny. These
programs allow parents to restrict their children's internet access
by blocking certain web pages deemed inappropriate and monitor
where a child has been. These pages may be blocked by being
on a list of unacceptable sites, not being on a list of acceptable
sites, or containing words that have been deemed obscene.
Question to consider:
Should it be up to the individual or should it
be up to the Congress to decide what should be allowed on the internet?
Current
Internet Censorship Efforts
http://www.epic.org/free_speech/censorship/
The
Internet Censorship FAQ
http://www.spectacle.org/freespch/faq.html#1
CENSORSHIP,
THE INTERNET, INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM, AND YOUTH
http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~kvander/censorship.html