The terrible, no good, rotten, horrible, really bad Web site list ( YES YES djf)

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

________________________________________
From: Brock N Meeks [bmeeks () cox net]
Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2008 6:08 PM
To: David Farber
Cc: ip
Subject: The terrible, no good, rotten, horrible, really bad Web site list

ISP's vowing to block access to Web sites based on "no-no" lists;
saving our children from The Evil that lurks in the back alleys of the
Internet.

Either I've been asleep since ACLU v. Reno or AG Cuomo is channeling
the ghost of Sen. Jim Exon.  [For those of you playing without a
scorecard, hit the Easy Button, er... Google it.]

Oh, let's take care of the crazies right now:  Child porn is
abhorrent; I have five kids of my own; I am not defending child porn;
I am not implying that child porn deserves any kind of protection.

First, I want to know who anointed the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children as judge and jury of what constitutes a child porn
Web site?  What genius in the government turned NCMEC into a de facto
arm of the Justice Department, cause I sure didn't get that memo.  But
here we have this private organization suddenly holding the "Keys to
the Keys to the Kingdom" (see Easy Button instructions above).

Quoting the NYT:  "The agreement is designed to bar access to Web
sites that feature child pornography by requiring service providers to
check against a registry of explicit sites maintained by the Center
for Missing and Exploited Children."  Shades of Brian Milburn (see
Easy Button).

Child pornography (making, possessing, distributing, etc.,) is a
crime.  Question:  Has the NCMEC "registry" been adjudicated in a
court of law and found to, indeed, hold illegal Web sites?  Or is
NCMEC's list simple stocked with someone's opinion of what a "registry
of explicit sites" should contain?  And consider the source of this
scorching NYT quote: "Attorney General Cuomo has developed a new and
effective system that cuts online child porn off at the source, and
stops it from spreading across the Internet.”  Yes, that would be the
guy that runs NCMEC.  I mean, c'mon!  "stops it from spreading"??

Am I being punk'd?? When is one of my former journalistic tribe
members going to put NCMEC on a spit and roast that sacred cow?

Is Cuomo angling for the governor's mansion or what?  Because none of
this makes [rational] sense.

The Spartans had better odds at Thermopylae than this plan has at even
putting a dent in contagion of child porn.

I'm just saying....




On Jun 10, 2008, at 5:16 PM, David Farber wrote:

> ________________________________________
> From: Declan McCullagh [declan () well com]
> Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2008 4:36 PM
> To: David Farber
> Cc: Lauren Weinstein
> Subject: Re: [IP] ISPs Agree to Block Access to C-Porn Web Sites and
> Usenet Groups
>
> The news is better, and worse, than early coverage suggested.
>
> It's worse in that although New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo
> found
> child porn on just 88 Usenet newsgroups, the ISPs are pulling the plug
> on tens of thousands as a response. This is a little like burning
> down a
> library because you don't like one book in it.
>
> Here's an excerpt from our coverage:
>
> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9964895-38.html
> Time Warner Cable said it will cease to offer customers access to any
> Usenet newsgroups, a decision that will affect customers nationwide.
> Sprint said it would no longer offer any of the tens of thousands of
> alt.* Usenet newsgroups. Verizon's plan is to eliminate some "fairly
> broad newsgroup areas."
>
> It's better in that the actual statement from Cuomo doesn't talk about
> Web blocking of, say, overseas Web sites (something that Verizon, for
> instance, strenuously denies it is doing and raises questions about
> multiple-hostnames-per-IP-address and deep packet inspection). It
> merely
> talks about the broadband providers agreeing to "purge their servers
> of
> child porn websites."
>
> Which is something they already do.
>
> The interesting thing is that Cuomo did this through strong-arm
> tactics,
> rather than working with the legislature to enact a law, the usual
> process. I guess he's taken lessons from his predecessor and has
> probably read this court opinion:
> http://www.cdt.org/speech/pennwebblock/20040910memorandum.pdf
>
> -Declan
>
>
>
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