Senators threaten new Net porn crackdown
 

http://news.com.com/Senators+threate...3-6029005.html

By Anne Broache and Declan McCullagh
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: January 19, 2006, 4:44 PM PST

WASHINGTON--U.S. senators on Thursday blasted what they called an "explosion" in Internet pornography and threatened to enact new laws aimed at targeting sexually explicit Web sites.

At an afternoon hearing convened here by the Senate Commerce Committee, Chairman Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican, lashed out at an adult entertainment industry representative, saying that the industry needs to take swift moves to devise a rating system and to clearly mark all its material as "adult only."

"I think any adult producer would agree," said Paul Cambria, counsel to the Adult Freedom Foundation, which represents companies offering "lawful adult-oriented entertainment." It would just be a matter of organizing the industry, he added.

"My advice is you tell your clients they better do it soon, because we'll mandate it if they don't," Stevens said.

Though it wasn't mentioned at the hearing, Web browsers have long supported the Internet standard called PICS, or Platform for Internet Content Selection. Internet Explorer, for instance, permits parents to disable access to Web sites rated as violent or sexually explicit.

Many adult Web sites have voluntarily labeled themselves as sexually explicit. Playboy.com and Penthouse.com, for instance, rate themselves using a variant of PICS created by the nonprofit Internet Content Rating Association.

In addition, mandatory rating systems have frequently been struck down by courts as an affront to the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of expression. Judges have ruled it unconstitutional for governments to enforce the Motion Picture Association of America's movie-rating system. The Supreme Court has said that the right to speak freely encompasses the right not to speak--including the right not to be forced to self-label.


Sen. Blanche Lincoln, an Arkansas Democrat, talked up her bill that she and a handful of Democrats announced last year. It proposes a 25 percent excise tax on revenue from most adult-oriented sites and a requirement that all such sites use an age-verification system.

"Too few adult Web sites are taking the extra step to create another obstacle, another barrier, that can keep youngsters from accessing or stumbling on pornography," Lincoln said.

The proposals at Thursday's hearing were uncannily reminiscent of similar complaints from politicians a decade ago. In January 1996, Congress approved the Communications Decency Act, which was soundly rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court. Congress also approved a ban on computer-generated child pornography--which was also shot down by the justices on free-speech grounds.

The hearing occurred one day after U.S. Justice Department lawyers filed paperwork in a California federal court in an attempt to force Google to turn over logs from its search engine. The reason, the Justice Department said, is to prepare for an October 2006 trial over a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union challenging the Child Online Protection Act.

That 1998 law, which restricts the posting of sexually explicit material deemed "harmful to minors" on commercial Web sites, was effectively frozen through a 2004 Supreme Court decision. The justices forwarded it back to a lower court for a full trial.

"On the Google case, what is your reaction to Google's position that (the Justice Department's request) is an invasion of their privacy?" Sen. Daniel Innouye, the committee's top-ranking Democrat, asked Bush administration representatives.

Deputy Assistant Attorney General Laura Parsky declined to comment, saying it was a dispute currently before the courts.

Parsky and an FBI official applauded the idea of new laws, saying they would welcome additional tools from Congress but were doing the best with what they had now.

But congressional intervention has historically "provided anything but a panacea to the availability of pornography online," said Tim Lordan, executive director of the Internet Education Foundation, a nonprofit group that counts representatives from America Online, VeriSign and the World Wide Web Consortium among its board members.

Sen. Inouye of Hawaii took a similarly cautious stance, pointing to a poll that said 70 percent of parents were concerned about pornography but at the same time didn't want the government to step in.

"My concern is that this matter has incensed members of Congress to agree that if the industry is not going to act upon it, Congress will," he said. "And often times Congress does a lousy job."

adult industry police itself? :1orglaugh

You have to wonder if they realize that this is not just a US issue.

Ted Stevens is another one of those fucked in the head senile republicans

Yep, more of the old school fuckers who graduated high school like 35-45 years ago when it was evil to shake your hips or dance closer than 3 inches making laws. These fuckers are living in the wrong century........

The hearings are on C-SPAN right now.

can you capture it as a wmv?

Yet another failed attempt

getting rid of porn is like getting rid of Iraq,Iran and North Korea...

Are they gonna nuke us? Damn the sky is falling again. The point of the web being international is well take here. Does the US Senate have their collective blinders on?? Oh, we control the Internet through the root servers....

look, no matter what congress or parents try to do, kids/young teens will find porn SOMEwhere...either from Dad's stacks of magazines, moms 'weird looking' toys, or internet porn. im all about trying to help reduce the amount of "oops, didnt mean to see that porn pop-up!"

but its kinda hard when the kids themselves are typing in freeporn.com and such.
i know....i have a crazy idea....how about parents actually PARENTING and monitor what their kids are doing online at home..theres a fuckin thought!

"Stumbling across pornography"... Man I downloaded so much porn in high school... Before I got internet access when I was 12-13 I was shoplifting porn magazines from local stores.

Hey Now!

to access any 'free' porn on freeporn.com you need a credit card.

I would offer 'free' porn but then I would also be assraped and made into a poster boy for a provider of indecency.

The senators today explicitly stated to Paul Cambria that it's time for people to provide their own RATINGS or they will mandate them for us.

The government will do something this time, and you can either follow suit or be indicted by the justice department.

I support the government and their efforts to restrict childrens access to adult content.

As opposed to nowadays where grade 7s bump and grind while Fitty cent raps about cumming in mouths and fucking chicks in their ass at the school dance?

Haha

Well that is true, I guess.

I just mean that the old guys in the congress and senate need to be more sexually open lo :1orglaugh

So maybe they should meet somewhere in the middle?

so is it to presume that the biz and the government are cussing each other while shaking hands below the table?

I dont get that. we DO rate our websites now with ICRA.
What additional thing do they want?

What disappoints me about the whole panel the should seem obvious to the panel of senators, but isn't, is this really is a matter of parental responsibility. :(

parents cant monitor their kids 24/7, maybe when they're 6, but not when they're 15.

More big government proposals from the right wing of the Republican party.

Republicans want "less government"! :1orglaugh

Yeah..Mr. "Sanity" himself..who when asked to give back to money for the "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska so it could go to Hurricane Katrina cleanup..yelled at the top of his voice..."NO!!!"

Yep..that's who I want setting the morals in this country! LOL!