Hat tip: Satharn
Millions of commercial Web sites and personal blogs would be required to report illegal images or videos posted by their users or pay fines of up to $300,000, if a new proposal in the U.S. Senate came into law.
The legislation, drafted by Sen. John McCain and obtained by CNET News.com, would also require Web sites that offer user profiles to delete pages posted by sex offenders
I have no sympathy nor mercy for child molesters. I support the death penalty for them. They are not sick...they are a sickness.
However...
According to the proposed legislation, these types of individuals or businesses would be required to file reports: any Web site with a message board; any chat room; any social-networking site; any e-mail service; any instant-messaging service; any Internet content hosting service; any domain name registration service; any Internet search service; any electronic communication service; and any image or video-sharing service.
Well....damn! That's not bloody onerous is it? Some troll posts guro in your message board or perhaps links to it in your comment section and you don't catch it? BLAM!
No...That looks bad, very bad.
At least they are going after child pornographers...that's cut and dried right? Oh wait....
The U.S. Justice Department, for instance, indicted an Alabama man named Jeff Pierson last week on child pornography charges because he took modeling photographs of clothed minors with their parents' consent. The images were overly "provocative," a prosecutor claimed.
Yes, someone in Alabama decided that fully clothed children photographed with their parents consent were provocative....now assuming the clothing was not clear plastic bags we may be dealing with serious repression issues here....that now have Mr. Pierson on kiddie porn charges.
Well perhaps there is more to that particular case....perhaps not. Cory Maye and the Duke Rape case don't instill limitless confidence in the prosecutors...nor are all accusers in good faith.
I know, I saw this overreach come close to happening to a friend.
Some years ago there was a fellow we will refer to as Doctor Lizardo...not because he had a degree in anything, but because...well...Doctor Lizardo was EEEEEVIL and MAAAAD...
Doctor Lizardo was a well known secret master of fandom, a cornucopia of eclectica and obscure trivia. Everybody loved Dr. Lizardo. I certainly thought he was a fairly cool cat for several years.
Well the Doctor fell on hard times. He got kicked out of the Navy, had no job no prospects and lived in his car. His skillset seemed to pretty much consist of Anime trivia.
Fortunately, a friend of his we'll call "Biff" took him in loaned him $4,000 bucks, put him up for a year....helped get him a job (which was like pulling hens teeth)....got his car fixed...you know..."did stuff". Dr. Lizardo repaid him by ....ummm....well he didn't....he mooched and went to sci-fi cons and bought >$4000 dollars worth of stuff. "Biff "got quite justifiably peeved, demanded his money back and threw him out.
Dr. Lizardo was a petty man and he had but one thing going for him...everyone (including me) knew he was a "nice guy". The existence of Biff was a reminder that he was anything but....so he plotted, he nurtured his mad-on and talked bad about "Biff" behind his back.
Meanwhile, Biff took over a failing comic book store, just as the comics market was collapsing... however, by diversifying and going big into anime, RPG's and video rental....he completely transcended the odds and made it quite successful. (Full disclosure: He hired me as a clerk.) He also became quite a hub of local anime fandom as fan-clubs would meet at his shop.
Given that much of Doctor Lizardos Fanboy mojo came from video piracy (for "free" of course)this infuriated him more than the eviction did. He made a big deal of not patronizing the store. at the time I considered both "Biff" and "DL" friends so I just wracked it up to some fan thing.
"WHAT DOES THIS DIGRESSION HAVE TO DO WITH INTERNET KIDDIEPR0N LAWS?" Is the question on all readers lips....well here...
Our conniving Doctor was (and is) small and petty...but he is a patient bastard. He wouldn't set foot in Mr Biffs Comix and whispered vile whispers about him for years.....then he acted.
Now given that Dr Lizardo would not set foot in Mr Biffs Comix...the good doctor asked your's truly to go to Mr Biffs Comix and rent all of the Hentai (Animated Pr0n) Laserdiscs (remember laserdiscs?) that were for rent in Mr Biff's back room. This was awkward...."I'll get some comic boxes and......"
Now the age of consent in Japan is 16... so some of these pictures of drawings of cartoon girls might conceivably be pictures of drawings of cartoon 16 year olds.....there was at the time a great hysteria over kiddie pr0n and the local govt. was waging war on it...and needed a victory, hence the evil Doctor Lizardo hoped to capitalize upon this.
Soooo...AFTER COPYING ALL OF THE ANIMATED PR0N FOR HIMSELF. He got the titles of the ones he thought could destroy Biff and called the vice squad. He tried to get me to back him up but when I realized that he was....well...EVIL I went straightaway and talked to Biff.
Fortunately the cop he called was familier enough with Japanese animation, and sane enough that he knew this was not actual kiddie pr0n...he was also ethical enough that he did not give his career a boost from a bogus kiddie pr0n bust. By a sheer fluke o' fate, the cop also was famillier with free speech issues and the CBLDF as well as the destruction of several comic book stores by hyperzealous community standards movements ....he investigated, determined that pictures of cartoon possibly 16 year olds did not constitute kiddie pR0n and confirmed that a complaint had been filed. A quick comparison of notes with "Biff" and myself convinced him that this was not an organized movement but rather one bitter, vengefull Otaku....and thus the DA did not get his piece of flesh
...and Biff did not lose his business,
...nor did he end up with AIDS in prison,
...nor did he end up on a sex offender database.
...But not for lack of trying on the part of one pathetic, looser fanboy.
One good cop is all that stood in the way of those things happening to "Biff"....and that is WITHOUT federal reporting laws.
Keep that long, rambling story in mind when contemplating the McCain bill.
UPDATE: John Lithgow is not "Doctor Lizardo"....he just played him OK and it's not even the same guy...so back off!
Update2: Fixed that incoherent paragraph and most of the spelling.
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