Sunday, January 15, 2006
Alito on a more restrictive Internet
Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, in his Senate confirmateion hearing before the Judiciary Committee, answering a question about Internet pornography, said
"I think that the problem of protecting children from pornography on the Internet illustrates the fact that, although the task of the court is to apply principles that are in the constitution and not make up its own principles, [it has to] apply those to different factual situations when the world changes.It sounds like new laws, new executive rulings and new court decisions would restrict Internet content in an Alito future.
"And in particular, in the First Amendment context, when the means of communications change, the job of applying the principles that have been worked out, and I think in this area worked out with a great deal of effort, over a period of time in the pre-Internet world to the world of the Internet is a real difficult problem.
"Congress and the judiciary have been struggling with it. Constitutional law, as you know, draws a distinction between obscenity, which has no First Amendment protection, but which is subject to a strict definition, and pornography which is not obscenity but is sexually-related materials.
"With respect to minors, the Supreme court has said it is permissible to regulate the sale of pornography to them and has greater authority than it does with respect to distribution of pornography to adults.
"In the pre-Internet world, the job of preventing minors from purchasing pornography was a lot simpler. If they wanted to get it, I guess they would have to go to a store someplace and buy it.
"On the Internet, of course, it is readily available from any computer terminal, and a lot of minors today are a lot more sophisticated in the use of computers than their parents. The ability of parents to monitor and supervise what they are doing is greatly impaired by this difference in computer aptitude.
"I can't say much more than that, but it is a difficult question. And I think there needs to be additional effort in this area, probably by all branches of government, so that the law fully takes into account the differences regarding communication over the Internet and access to materials over the Internet by minors."
Technorati Tags: Content-Conduit, Scotus
Comments:
Is it possible that such laws could be drawn up in such a way as to be beneficial? For example, a household could register itself as "child-free" and the porn site would benefit from safe harbour provisions in the delivery of such content?
Think "enabling regulation" rather than "constraining regulation".
Think "enabling regulation" rather than "constraining regulation".
David, your belief has much more to do with the lens through which you filter these comments than the comments relationship to the issue at hand. Clinton's FCC was far more likely to make rules than the current FCC, so what's your point about Alito, who has one vote out of nine and who is anyway saying nothing that is not factually correct.
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