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Originally Posted by jimthefiend
This guy is such a fucking douche.
By Alison Vekshin
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- College students surfing the Internet could be buffered from pornography under legislation introduced in Congress Friday.
Sens. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., and Max Baucus, D-Mont., proposed a bill that would require adult Web sites to block all ISP's on .edu domains from accessing them.
"The only way parents can really block or screen out or protect their children when they go to college is to literally go with them to school, stand there and look over their shoulder as they're online," Pryor said at a news conference. "And it really shouldn't have to be that way."
The Cyber Safety for College Students Act would require the Commerce Department secretary to develope and implement software that would detect any images of an adult nature residing on computers on campus.
Under the new law any University that fails to comply within six months could face civil penalties.
Pryor, the father of two children, cited a Kaiser Family Foundation study that found 99 percent of college students between the ages 18 and 24 have come across pornography online, mostly in the course of using the Internet to help with their homework.
The senators acknowledged the bill was a first step and would not completely protect college students from Internet porn.
Many of the companies that comprise the $12 billion Internet porn industry operate offshore and would be difficult to regulate, they said.
"We are not saying this is going to work 100 percent of the time in every single case," Pryor said. "We do think that this would be a dramatic step in the right direction."
Adult industry representatives say the bill if enacted would have a chilling effect on free speech.
"This is constitutionally protected speech -- we're not talking about illegal content," said Tom Hymes, a spokesman for the Free Speech Coalition, the trade association representing the adult entertainment industry.
"The likelihood is that this legislation would be challenged as being unconstitutional were it to go through," Hymes said.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., introduced similar legislation last summer calling for a 67% percent tax on Internet porn transactions that would pay for programs protecting college students online use. Lincoln's bill was sent to the Senate Finance Committee
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Pryor introduces .xxx domain name bill
Friday, Mar 17, 2006
By Alison Vekshin
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Children surfing the Internet could be buffered from pornography under legislation introduced in Congress Thursday.
Sens. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., and Max Baucus, D-Mont., proposed a bill that would require adult Web sites to have a .xxx domain.
"The only way parents can really block or screen out or protect their children is literally just stand there and look over their shoulder as they're online," Pryor said at a news conference. "And it really shouldn't have to be that way."
The Cyber Safety for Kids Act would require the Commerce Department secretary to develop a domain name for adult Web sites with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.
The group is an international non-governmental organization that designates domain names like .com, .edu and .gov.
Under the bill, companies that fail to register with the new domain name within six months could face civil penalties.
Pryor, the father of two children, cited a Kaiser Family Foundation study that found 90 percent of kids between the ages 8 and 16 have come across pornography online, mostly in the course of using the Internet to help with their homework.
The senators acknowledged the bill was a first step and would not completely protect children from Internet porn.
Many of the companies that comprise the $12 billion Internet porn industry operate offshore and would be difficult to regulate, they said.
"We are not saying this is going to work 100 percent of the time in every single case," Pryor said. "We do think that this would be a dramatic step in the right direction."
Adult industry representatives say the bill if enacted would have a chilling effect on free speech.
"This is constitutionally protected speech -- we're not talking about illegal content," said Tom Hymes, a spokesman for the Free Speech Coalition, the trade association representing the adult entertainment industry.
The proposal is an ineffective approach to the problem since many of the adult Web sites are based outside the country and the civil penalties would not apply to them, he said.
Hymes said the companies would find ways to circumvent the new designation, including moving their operations offshore.
Instead, he proposed setting up a .kids domain name for children-friendly content.
The industry would incur costs from new registration fees and losses from existing marketing campaigns on .com and .biz domains, Hymes said, but he did not think it would get that far.
"The likelihood is that this legislation would be challenged as being unconstitutional were it to go through," Hymes said.
If the bill passes, software could be developed to block the .xxx domain from Internet searches, Baucus said.
Pryor likened the proposal to the sanctions on adult magazines at convenience stores and zoning laws restricting strip club locations in neighborhoods.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., introduced similar legislation last summer calling for a 25 percent tax on Internet porn transactions that would pay for programs protecting children's online use. Lincoln's bill was sent to the Senate Finance Committee.
Clever