Supreme Court lets Internet porn law die

[scytherius]

Source: L.A. Times

A 13-year legal drive to shield children from pornography on the Internet ended in defeat today when the Supreme Court let the Child Online Protection Act die quietly.


Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-su...

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What is REALLY sad is that politicians could propose a law that would protect children and be constitutional. But because of their overreaching, religious zealotry, gotta snuggle up to the religious extremists they won't back off enough to get it passed.

[sasquatch]

1. Sic Semper Tyrannis douchebags

[hunter]

2. If you don't want your kids seeing porn on the internet...

...supervise their internet use. If you want a little more control over their internet use subscribe to a good proxy service or see if your ISP provides one. (My own ISP offers a good filtering proxy at no extra cost, although I've never used it.)

If you are already having problems with your teenagers and internet porn you can take away their computers but the problem likely goes beyond that -- they can always climb out the window and have real sex somewhere instead of solitary pornography fueled sex.

[Akoto]

3. Ain't that the truth!

I fully believe that children should be shielded from pornography. However, inflicting all kinds of rigid censorship upon the internet is not the way to do it.

Ironically, perfectly legal porn played its own part in making the internet a success. I guess there's no appreciation there.

[Tyler Generation]

5. Exactly!

There is way too much technology for parents to take advantage of for there to be ANY excuse for censorship in 21st Century America.

[DainBramaged]

7. What do you do when your kids aren't home and out of your circle of protection?

[bitchkitty]

9. I guess you're careful who they hang out with.

One thing I know you don't do, though, is push your responsibility for parenting on the rest of the population.

[DainBramaged]

10. I guess that as a parent, you are in control of their actions 24 hours a day

who they are with, where they go, what they see.

[bitchkitty]

17. I'm not a parent.

But that doesn't make me responsible for how you raise your kids. Supposedly, a child's upbringing has a lot to do with how they respond to peer pressure. Not being a parent, I wouldn't know.

I do know that I shouldn't have to restrict my activities because others can't control their kids.

[hunter]

11. I let them hang out on Main Street to smoke and drink with the pedophiles.

Seriously a kid needs real world street smarts as much as they need internet street smarts. In a lot of ways the two are the same thing. I hope I've taught them well.

We don't watch much television in my house so my kids think they are getting away with something when they watch The Simpsons or That 70's Show at their friends' houses.

I've never seen anything that worried me much on their computers or cell phones, and I trust them enough that I don't do any more snooping than keeping my eyes and ears open. We did go through a few spells where they were downloading P2P music and I took away their computer privileges a few times for that. I think it really doesn't make any sense to them because "all their friends do it" but they are not deprived. Every birthday someone inevitably gives them iTunes or Amazon gift cards, but that seems to be a bigger bother to them than P2P.

Myself, I'm always astonished by the amount of crappy porn on the internet. Turn off SafeSearch in Google images, type in any womans name, and you'll see all sorts of things.

[BR_Parkway]

14. Same thing the last generation of parents did before the internet

came along.

Tried to prepare us to live in the real world (and most of us got our hands on someone's copy of <insert name of magazine here> at some point along that journey.

[bunnies]

4. Leaving the parenting to the parents...

what a novel concept!

[ManiacJoe]

6. Good call.

Better no law than a bad law. If Congress really wants to do this, they need to do it the right way.

[fascisthunter]

8. Repressed Control Freaks

[kskiska]

12. I could have predicted that Clarence Thomas would vote to block the law

Clarence always votes on the side of porn.

[PfcHammer]

13. All your pRons are belong to us

[Vogon_Glory]

15. Let Them Get Net Filters

For those people genuinely bothered by on-line erotica, let them buy internet filters. Let the rest of us go to Hell in our own way.

Personally, if I were a prosecutor seeking to shut down Internet porn sites, I would go after the ones that DIDN'T register with outfits like Surf Watch, Net Nanny or other filtering outfits. To me, those websites that do register ARE trying to make a good-faith effort to respect parents' wishes regarding naughty pics and bedroom frolics.

[customerserviceguy]

16. Kids got it good these days

I had to go to the library to find National Geographic if I wanted to see a woman naked!

[Scurrilous]

18. I read Nat'l Geographic for the articles.

[customerserviceguy]

19. Me, too

Became an expert on African and South American tribes!

[blogslut]

20. Good riddance to the law that would not die

Ashcroft took it to the Supers. Gonzales took it to the Supers. And finally, Mukasey took it to the Supers and the be-robed ones finally killed it. C.O.P.A. was a badly written law and Bush's DOJ went beyond reason in attempting to have it ruled constitutional.

Finally!