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Morality in the Media President's Statement on Child OnlineProtection Act and Search Engine Google Data
22 January 2006 In preparation for an upcoming trial to defend the federal Child Online Protection Act, a law intended to restrict children's access to online pornography, the Justice Department has requested search-engine data from Google. Google has refused the request, and Google defenders say the Department's request raises "Big Brother" concerns.
MIM President Robert Peters had the following comments:
"The Child Online Protection Act (COPA) was enacted by Congress in 1998 to require websites that commercially distribute sexual materials deemed harmful to minors to take reasonable steps to restrict minors' access to such material. Had this necessary and reasonable law been upheld, as it should have been, the current subpoena dispute with Google would not have happened.
"In 2000, however, the Supreme Court overturned another law that required cable TV operators to completely scramble the signal for pay-porn channels (so that the signals don't 'bleed' into the homes of non-subscribers) or to air such programming after 10 pm. In invalidating the cable TV law, five Supreme Court Justices set forth a virtually impossible-for-the-government-to-meet test for determining whether a restriction to protect minors from smut is constitutional.
"In the COPA case, the same five Justices have applied the same foolish test and have refused to uphold COPA, persisting in the belief that screening technology alone, and parental use of screening technology in particular, can protect children from Internet pornography.
"Parental use of screening technology is, of course, an important part of the solution —- especially for younger children. But as children get older they have more and more opportunities outside the home to access the Internet, including cell phones. Tech-savvy children can also circumvent screening technology, and no screening technology blocks access to all pornography. Furthermore, for a variety of reasons including cost of blocking technology and parental ignorance, naivete and indifference, many parents don't use screening technology.
"Freedom of speech is, of course, a 'fundamental' right -- but so is the right to raise children in a safe, healthy and decent society. Our nation's founding fathers viewed the First Amendment within a framework of ordered liberty -— not as a license to commercially distribute sex material harmful to minors without any legal obligation to restrict children's access.
"Increasingly, however, the Court's libertarian Justices foolishly ignore the warning enunciated in Columbia Broadcasting System v. Democratic National Committee:
Thus, in evaluating the First Amendment claims ... we must afford great weight to the decisions of Congress ... Professor Chafee aptly observed: 'Once we get away from the bare words of the (First) Amendment, we must construe it as part of a Constitution which creates a government for the purpose of performing several very important tasks. The Amendment should be interpreted so as to not cripple the regular work of government.'"
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Headquartered in New York City, MORALITY IN MEDIA works through constitutional means to curb traffic in illegal obscenity and to uphold standards of decency in the mainstream media. MIM operates the http://www.obscenitycrimes.org website, where citizens can report possible violations of federal Internet obscenity laws, and the National Obscenity Law Center, a resource for prosecutors, law enforcement agencies and legislators.
http://www.usnewswire.com/
Source: usnewswire
All trademarks and copyrighted information contained herein are the property of their respective owners.
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