Government And Internet Intervention

Government Internet Intervention

The Internet is a method of communication and a source of information that is becoming more popular among those who are interested in, and have the time to surf the information superhighway. The problem with much information being accessible to this many people is that some of it is deemed inappropriate for minors. The government wants censorship, but a segment of the population does not.

During the past decade, our society has become based solely on the ability to move large amounts of information across large distances quickly. Computerization has influenced everyone's life. The natural evolution of computers and this need for ultra-fast communications has caused a global network of interconnected computers to develop. This global net allows a person to send E-mail across the world in mere fractions of a second, and enables even the common person to access information worldwide. With the advances with software that allows users with a sound card to use the Internet as a carrier for long distance voice calls and video conferencing, this network is the key to the future of the knowledge society. At present this net is the epitome of the First Amendment: freedom of speech. It is a place where people can speak their mind without being reprimanded for what they say, or how they choose to say it.

The government wants to maintain control over this new form of communication, and they are trying to use the protection of children as a smoke screen to pass laws that will allow them to regulate and censor the Internet, while banning techniques that could eliminate the need for regulation. Censorship of the Internet threatens to destroy its freelance atmosphere, while methods such as encryption could help prevent the need for government intervention.

The current body of laws existing today in America does not apply well to the Internet. Is the Internet like a bookstore, where servers cannot be expected to review every title? Well, according to an article written by Michael Miller "Cybersex Shock." In the October 10, 1995 issue of PC Magazine (p.75) "The Internet is much more like going into a book store and choosing to look at adult magazines." Although the Internet differs from other forms of media in that one cannot just happen upon a vulgar site without first, either entering a complicated address following a link from another source or by clicking on the agreement statement at the beginning of the site acknowledging that one is of the legal age of 18.

This lawless atmosphere bothered many people, one such person is Nebraska Senator James Exon (D), who is one of the founding fathers of the Telecommunications Decency Act of 1996, Section 502, 47 U.S.C Section 223 [a], which regulates "any obscene or indecent material communicated via the Internet to anyone under 18 years of age." Exon's bill would also, according to an article written by Steven Levy in an April 1995 issue of Newsweek magazine (p.53), "criminalize private mail." Levy also stated emotionally, "I can call my brother on the phone and say anything-but if I say it on the Internet, it's illegal."

One thing that Congress seems to have overlooked in its pursuit of regulations is that there are no clear boundaries from information being accessed over the Internet from other countries. All it takes is a click of a mouse to access, even if our government tried to regulate information accessed from other countries, we would have no control over what is posted in those countries, and we would have no practical way to stop it.

Today's Internet works much like that of our own human brains, in that if one barrier or option is taken your brain tries to find an alternate route or option. Today's Internet works on a similar design: if a major line between two servers in two countries is cut, then the Internet users will find another way around this obstacle. This process of obstacle avoidance makes it virtually impossible to separate an entire nation from indecent information in other countries. If it were physically possible to isolate America's computers from the rest of the world, it would be devastating to our economy.

In an article published In Time magazine, written by Philip Emler-Dewitt(p.102), Martin Rim put together quite a large picture collection (917,410 images) and he also tracked how often each image had been downloaded (a total of 6.4 million). A local court had recently declared pictures of similar content obscene, and the school felt they might be held responsible for the content on its network. The school administration quickly removed access to all these pictures and to the newsgroups where this obscenity is suspected to come from. A total of 80 newsgroups were removed, causing a large disturbance among the student body, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, all of whom felt this was unconstitutional. After only half a week, the college had backed down, and restored the newsgroups. This is only a tiny example of what may happen if the government

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