We need to work on this this together....Im going to post whatever I can find in the hopes it might help some of you when the gov't goes through on its plans to target the top 30 internet porn companies for tax-evasion....
What follows is testimony transcript from Bruce A. Taylor of The National Law Center for Children and Families, and future head of the Bush adminsitration task force on Porn...about the .kids domain.
Is the sky falling yet or are you going to sit around with your thumb up your ass and at least educate yourself?
EDITED NOTE: 12clicks had to go and play devils advocate. This isnt about protecting children or anything else related to that. It is 100% about controlling the policies that shape the Internet.
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I. A Dot Kids domain furthers a substantial governmental purpose:
This act will help solve the problem we face today of giving our children and grand-children access to an Internet, WWWeb, and Usenet that have inordinate amounts of ?adult? and pornographic and inappropriate materials, while balancing the ability of adults to use interactive computer services for lawful purposes without endangering such younger users. Among all the beneficial and potential means of balancing the means for making the Internet safe for children and/or providing a safe haven on the Internet for children, a separate and safeguarded Kids domain could provide an online playground, school, and library that real kids could enjoy and learn from without interfering with the content on the rest of the domains of the World Wide Web or other online services for adults or children. Building kids their own space in cyberspace is the least we can do for them amid the vast universe of information and services that the rest of us need or desire for ourselves. Whatever we adults do with our space, under the law or outside the law, need not and should not pollute the computer environment for those younger ones who need us for their protection, nurturing, education, and entertainment.
Whatever success or frustration there may be to make ?the Internet more safe for children?, whether through laws, law enforcement, voluntary Good Samaritan efforts, or parental supervision, a Dot Kids domain can be that safe-haven for the kids to go until we adults achieve more success in giving them safe-access to the public areas of cyberspace or until, if we continue to fail, they are old enough to fend for themselves as adults in the electronic adult world they will inherit.
For these reasons, I support efforts to create a children?s domain on the Web where the rules are written for their protection and the adults who build and supply that domain are bound by those rules. I adamantly oppose the creation of a ?dot porn? or ?dot sex? domain, because I don?t think we should elevate the pornography syndicates to a seat at the World Wide Web consortium or legitimize their ill-gotten gains and because I don?t trust them to stay on their own vice domain and get off the cash-cow of the dot com domain. They?ll take the red-light district and fill it with porn and prostitution, but they?ll never leave our children and families alone in the rest of cyberspace anymore than they do today. The pornography industry, by its very nature and purpose, has no respect for public morality and no respect for human dignity. Their nature is to exploit and their purpose is to seduce customers into continual addiction in pursuit of profit. Those are clear battle lines, on opposite sides of the law, and no one should expect more clarity or compromise than that. On the other hand, I do not oppose a Dot Kids domain, if created and operated for their benefit instead of ours. There are practical problems to face and solve, but I do not believe there should be serious constitutional problems with carving out a safe-zone for children, even though we don?t surrender a vice-zone for adults.
Constitutionally, the creation of a domain for minor children that is limited to information and images that are lawful and appropriate for them should be found by the courts to be within the surpassing governmental interest in protecting and educating our children. There will surely be challenges to the act, similar to those lodged against the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA), Child Online Protection Act of 1998 (COPA), and the Children?s Internet Protection Act of 2000 (CIPA). Such challenges will not likely oppose the creation of the Kids zone, but will seek to enjoin the rules set by Congress to restrict the presence of pornography and other harmful or objectionable content within the zone. There is even a probable likelihood that a judge will enjoin the restrictive conditions for the Kids domain during the years of litigation over the legal objections raised to those conditions. Congress should consider, therefore, making the existence of the domain conditional on the application of the conditions for the domain, so that the domain will not remain online as a ?combat zone? for kids if the courts strike down the restrictions against unprotected and inappropriate materials. Instead of adopting a ?severability? clause that could separate the domain from its child-safety conditions, the act could require or allow the domain to be closed in the event the protective conditions are taken away.
II. A child-safe Dot Kids domain is Constitutional:
A separate domain for minor children can and should be governed by the constitutional principles of what is lawful and appropriate for minors, rather than adults, and the ability or effort to service and protect children in their own zone would not affect the ability of adults to engage in protected activities on any other domain. In a children?s zone, there would be no constitutional violation in prohibiting the display or dissemination of sex or nudity that is ?indecent?, soft-core adult pornography that is ?harmful to minors? or ?obscene for minors?, hard-core adult pornography that is ?obscene? even for adults, or ?child pornography? that sexually dhahahahats children. Children have no constitutional right to any of those types of materials and adults have no constitutional right to display or disseminate such materials to minors.
My first suggestion is to amend Section 2 of the act, subsection (b)(2), to expand the ?Green Light Approach? to exclude not just that which is legally ?harmful to minors?, but all unprotected materials from which minors may be protected, to wit:
?The new domain shall be available for voluntary use as a location only of material that is considered suitable for minors and shall not be available for use as a location of any material that is harmful to minors or obscene for minors (as used in 47 U.S.C. § 231 and explained in the Report to accompany H.R. 3783, the Child Online Protection Act of 1998, H. Rept. No. 105-775); indecent (as used in 47 U.S.C. § 223 and explained in the Joint Explanatory Statement of the Committee of Conference, Report for Pub. L. No. 104-104, the Communications Decency Act of 1996, 1996 U.S.C.C.A.N. Leg. Hist. 200-11); obscene (as used in 18 U.S.C. §§ 1460-1470); or child pornography (as used in 18 U.S.C. §§ 2251, 2252, 2252A, and 2256).
Check out
http:// energycommerce.house.gov /107/hearings/11012001Hearing408/Taylor701.htm
for the rest of it. I've added spaces in the parent domain to eliminate linking direct to the site.
What follows is testimony transcript from Bruce A. Taylor of The National Law Center for Children and Families, and future head of the Bush adminsitration task force on Porn...about the .kids domain.
Is the sky falling yet or are you going to sit around with your thumb up your ass and at least educate yourself?
EDITED NOTE: 12clicks had to go and play devils advocate. This isnt about protecting children or anything else related to that. It is 100% about controlling the policies that shape the Internet.
*********************
I. A Dot Kids domain furthers a substantial governmental purpose:
This act will help solve the problem we face today of giving our children and grand-children access to an Internet, WWWeb, and Usenet that have inordinate amounts of ?adult? and pornographic and inappropriate materials, while balancing the ability of adults to use interactive computer services for lawful purposes without endangering such younger users. Among all the beneficial and potential means of balancing the means for making the Internet safe for children and/or providing a safe haven on the Internet for children, a separate and safeguarded Kids domain could provide an online playground, school, and library that real kids could enjoy and learn from without interfering with the content on the rest of the domains of the World Wide Web or other online services for adults or children. Building kids their own space in cyberspace is the least we can do for them amid the vast universe of information and services that the rest of us need or desire for ourselves. Whatever we adults do with our space, under the law or outside the law, need not and should not pollute the computer environment for those younger ones who need us for their protection, nurturing, education, and entertainment.
Whatever success or frustration there may be to make ?the Internet more safe for children?, whether through laws, law enforcement, voluntary Good Samaritan efforts, or parental supervision, a Dot Kids domain can be that safe-haven for the kids to go until we adults achieve more success in giving them safe-access to the public areas of cyberspace or until, if we continue to fail, they are old enough to fend for themselves as adults in the electronic adult world they will inherit.
For these reasons, I support efforts to create a children?s domain on the Web where the rules are written for their protection and the adults who build and supply that domain are bound by those rules. I adamantly oppose the creation of a ?dot porn? or ?dot sex? domain, because I don?t think we should elevate the pornography syndicates to a seat at the World Wide Web consortium or legitimize their ill-gotten gains and because I don?t trust them to stay on their own vice domain and get off the cash-cow of the dot com domain. They?ll take the red-light district and fill it with porn and prostitution, but they?ll never leave our children and families alone in the rest of cyberspace anymore than they do today. The pornography industry, by its very nature and purpose, has no respect for public morality and no respect for human dignity. Their nature is to exploit and their purpose is to seduce customers into continual addiction in pursuit of profit. Those are clear battle lines, on opposite sides of the law, and no one should expect more clarity or compromise than that. On the other hand, I do not oppose a Dot Kids domain, if created and operated for their benefit instead of ours. There are practical problems to face and solve, but I do not believe there should be serious constitutional problems with carving out a safe-zone for children, even though we don?t surrender a vice-zone for adults.
Constitutionally, the creation of a domain for minor children that is limited to information and images that are lawful and appropriate for them should be found by the courts to be within the surpassing governmental interest in protecting and educating our children. There will surely be challenges to the act, similar to those lodged against the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA), Child Online Protection Act of 1998 (COPA), and the Children?s Internet Protection Act of 2000 (CIPA). Such challenges will not likely oppose the creation of the Kids zone, but will seek to enjoin the rules set by Congress to restrict the presence of pornography and other harmful or objectionable content within the zone. There is even a probable likelihood that a judge will enjoin the restrictive conditions for the Kids domain during the years of litigation over the legal objections raised to those conditions. Congress should consider, therefore, making the existence of the domain conditional on the application of the conditions for the domain, so that the domain will not remain online as a ?combat zone? for kids if the courts strike down the restrictions against unprotected and inappropriate materials. Instead of adopting a ?severability? clause that could separate the domain from its child-safety conditions, the act could require or allow the domain to be closed in the event the protective conditions are taken away.
II. A child-safe Dot Kids domain is Constitutional:
A separate domain for minor children can and should be governed by the constitutional principles of what is lawful and appropriate for minors, rather than adults, and the ability or effort to service and protect children in their own zone would not affect the ability of adults to engage in protected activities on any other domain. In a children?s zone, there would be no constitutional violation in prohibiting the display or dissemination of sex or nudity that is ?indecent?, soft-core adult pornography that is ?harmful to minors? or ?obscene for minors?, hard-core adult pornography that is ?obscene? even for adults, or ?child pornography? that sexually dhahahahats children. Children have no constitutional right to any of those types of materials and adults have no constitutional right to display or disseminate such materials to minors.
My first suggestion is to amend Section 2 of the act, subsection (b)(2), to expand the ?Green Light Approach? to exclude not just that which is legally ?harmful to minors?, but all unprotected materials from which minors may be protected, to wit:
?The new domain shall be available for voluntary use as a location only of material that is considered suitable for minors and shall not be available for use as a location of any material that is harmful to minors or obscene for minors (as used in 47 U.S.C. § 231 and explained in the Report to accompany H.R. 3783, the Child Online Protection Act of 1998, H. Rept. No. 105-775); indecent (as used in 47 U.S.C. § 223 and explained in the Joint Explanatory Statement of the Committee of Conference, Report for Pub. L. No. 104-104, the Communications Decency Act of 1996, 1996 U.S.C.C.A.N. Leg. Hist. 200-11); obscene (as used in 18 U.S.C. §§ 1460-1470); or child pornography (as used in 18 U.S.C. §§ 2251, 2252, 2252A, and 2256).
Check out
http:// energycommerce.house.gov /107/hearings/11012001Hearing408/Taylor701.htm
for the rest of it. I've added spaces in the parent domain to eliminate linking direct to the site.
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