“At the COPA”…wait not the song

This week’s lectures focus on “protecting our children” and dealing with this issue.  This has been an ongoing and never ending discussion with no clear direction on how to solve or fix it.  Personally, I’ve been talking about this matter in several other blog entries and view it as a major topic that needs stronger polices in today’s society.

 

Since the internet has taken off and grown to be apart of our everyday lives, issues have come about on what is or isn’t legal.  By this I mean what is allowed to be shown over the internet.  By that I mean what breaks the almighty 1^st amendment and freedom of speech.

 

Congress has tried to come up with laws or guidelines as to what can and can’t be shown over the internet.  At first, they wanted to obstruct much of what the porn industry had to offer.  The Supreme Court quickly found out that it would be wrong to do so totally, so they focused on what our children shouldn’t be allowed to view.  So Congress came up with the Communications Decency Act.  The CDA was found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court for being to overbroad and ambiguous.  They found it to not be clear enough and would end up causing people to self-censor their own work.  An example of this would be people taking pictures of naked people, ones that could be considered art, in the fear of being arrested.  Congress’ next attempt was with the Child Online Protection Act of 1997.  Better known as COPA, this act was often referred to as the brother of the CDA but a leaner and better version of it.  It allowed for graphic material to be shown as long as there was an adult verification process to insure children couldn’t obtain the material.  This act was flip flopped back and forth in Congress with it being ruled unconstitutional in 1999 for being considered to be to broad, then in 2002 was considered to be ok with the use of the Miller test, then ultimately ruled to be unconstitutional in 2004 due to it not being narrowed down as to what is illegal.

 

This now leads to the current act in place to protect our beloved children.  The Children’s Internet Protection Act of 2001, or CIPA, is what guides us today.  It was ruled to be constitutional by the Supreme Court by how it manages to work its way around the 1^st amendment.  It says that children in schools or public libraries shouldn’t have access to pornographic images and should be done so with filters.  These filters would be put into place on public libraries but if an adult with a valid reason wants to view these images, then he/she can ask a librarian to remove the filters.  That’s what makes this legal and for an act to finally be put into place.  Critics often argue that filters don’t work and that even the best ones still allow 10% of porn to get through and even block out 25% of valuable health related information.   

 

After listening to all of these “acts”, the only thing clear to me is that changes still need to go a lot further.  I realize that the 1^st amendment should never be broken, but when a common sense issue comes up, the rule should be bent.  When I say bent I mean just that.  The fact that children are viewing disturbing images should negate the whole freedom of speech rule and those images shouldn’t be shown.  I also realize that people would complain about how this amendment shouldn’t ever be altered for fear of the government taking it away completely, but when it hurts our children, I feel it should be.  Congress and our judicial system should crack down on this hard and promptly.  There is now room for any of this nonsense.  This problem has lasted to long and shouldn’t even have to be talked about anymore; it should just be resolved without confrontation.  Congress needs to address this problem without feeling that they will harm somebody else.  These children are our future and should be taken care of just as the voting public are by the politicians.