Wednesday, November 05, 2008

 

Net Neutrality is a First Amendment Issue

UPDATE: Here's a story from The Register about Internet censorship in Australia.

Harry Lewis, co-author of _Blown to Bits_, has a great op-ed in the Boston Globe that reminds us what happens when we, each of us, at the edge of the network, abdicates control of what we watch, publish, do online.

Here's an excerpt:

The dangers of Internet censorship
By Harry Lewis
November 5, 2008

SUPPOSE that government regulators proposed to read all postal mail in order to protect families from things they should not see. Anything not legally prohibited would be delivered. Any unlawful words, pictures, or videos would be thrown away.

Sound like Orwell's "1984," or China? Perhaps.

Yet change the technology from ink on paper to bits in wires - the zeroes and ones that flow through the Internet - and these are the plans of significant democracies. France is targeting copyrighted music and movies. Australian officials are going after child pornography - but may check for other bad stuff while they are at it. Objectionable snooping? Both governments say that law-abiding citizens have nothing to worry about.

Could such ubiquitous surveillance gain traction in the United States, with its Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches? A proposal pending before the Federal Communications Commission raises just that possibility. It would provide Internet service to all Americans - with a catch. Content would be censored, free of "any images or text that otherwise would be harmful to teens and adolescents" under 18 years old.
*snip*

[Whole essay here.]

[Hat tip to Tom Duncan for both stories.]

Technorati Tags: , , ,


PermaLink // posted by isen @ 9:29 AM // emailthis
Comments: Post a Comment

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?