Tim Fox Hates Your Internet

No that isn't a joke.  Attorney General Tim Fox wants your Internet under his thumb ... fer the childrens, o' course.  Read this.  I'm serious, read it.  Don't wait for the executive summery.  Just.Read.The.Damned.Article already.  I'll wait.

 

Are you done?  Good.  Here is that summery.  47 state Attorney Generals have a sent a strongly worded letter to Congress begging that free-speech protections on the Internet be gutted and discarded because the Internet hates children and innocence.  Here's the letter.  In short, it says that bad things happen to children and local law enforcement can't stop that because states don't have control over anyone who might possibly be accountable for communicating the intention for bad things to happen in the entire world.    Please, Congress, give states the ability to regulate what gets posted on the Internet by holding anyone in our jurisdiction accountable as we see fit, because, ya know, children!.

Do you think what I've written is hyperbole?  If so, then you didn't read the article, did you?  If not, go read it now.  I'm not making this up.  That is exactly the power the 47 state AGs have just requested, the power to let local legislation and enforcement decide who is guilty when bad things happen based on a method of communication, of supposedly free speech.

I don't know whether John Bullock would have signed such a letter.  I do know that Tim Fox did.  Such a short time into his tenure, and Tim Fox wants to control your comments, your website, your web host.  Tim Fox hates your free speech, and hates your Internet.

Comments

[Craig Moore]

The operative part of the letter:

In order to better combat such crimes, we recommend that 47 U.S.C. § 230(e)(1) be amended to the following (added language in bold):

Nothing in this section shall be construed to impair the
enforcement of section 223 or 231 of this title, chapter 71 (relating
to obscenity) or 110 (relating to sexual exploitation of children) of
Title 18, or any other Federal or State criminal statute.

So, Fox is just one of 47 state AG's who want to add the above language. Come again, why is this such a bad idea?

[Wulfgar]

Did you read the link from the EFF, Craig? If you had, you'd know why this such a bad idea.

[Craig Moore]

Rob, when website operators emulate, feature or hyperlink to other sites like backpagedotcom that traffic in the tenderloin, underage industry those operators don't deserve protection from prosecution. Allowing states to address that issue that affects the unprotected, vulnerable citizens of their states seems reasonable.

[Mike]

Basically a speech equivalent of saying, "Because some people use guns for bad things, no one can have any." They'd be run out of Washington if they made such a suggestion, and you can bet the pundits would be up in arms. I guess taking away free speech is a much better option than taking away the guns.

[Craig Moore]

Mike, no need to go all drama queen over this. What the AG's did was launch an opening salvo in an effort to get the lawmakers attention. Wouldn't surprise me a bit that they would drop the obscenity part to achieve their real goal, stop the sexual exploitation of children by holding website operators accountable for emulating, featuring or hyperlinking to sites like backpagedotcombackpagedotcom.

[Wulfgar]

You wanna bet, Craig?

Mike wasn't at all being a 'drama queen'. He stated exactly the analogy to undercutting section 230.

It wouldn't surprise me a bit if, rather than dropping obscenity statute pleas, the AGs double down on control and demand more legal censorship of non-criminal activity. What galls me the most about this letter is that it isn't all about the children. The claim being made is that sites fostering illegal activity need to be controlled up to and including any affiliate or loose association. Read the letter again. The AG claim that localized control will help law enforcement in capturing criminals when gutting Internet free speech protections will do no such thing. That's a lie. It will, just as Mike's analogy points out, simply punish law abiding denizens of the Web in a vainglorious effort to 'discourage' criminals from doing what those criminals have every intention of doing anyway.

Thank you, by the way, for not mentioning that website in a coherent manner. After all, if Tim Fox has his way, even a mention of that site in my comments could leave me liable for the activities of the 'bad guys'.

[jackie]

Who the hell is John Bullock? Steve Bullock's evil twin?

[Craig Moore]

Come on Jackie and give him a break. He is way past 50 these days. Old folks like Wulfgar may just confuse the point of their spear for a bar stool.