FC: Annoy.com's Clinton Fein on Mary Landrieu's ".p0rn" bill

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Previous Politech message:
http://www.politechbot.com/p-03415.html

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Subject: RE: Sen. Mary Landrieu wants to force ICANN to create ".p0rn"
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 13:32:51 -0700
From: "Clinton D. Fein" <clinton.fein () apollomedia com>
To: <declan () well com>

Hi Declan:

Not sure whether this will amuse or depress you. It is a rather graphic
assessment of the Landrieu legislation.

I have attached a somewhat savory excerpt.

Harmful to Minors
.politicians

by Clinton Fein
http://annoy.com/editorials/doc.html?DocumentID=100332

[Exerpt]
Reading the language of a new bill carefully, some things remain
predictably the same. Politicians with no clue about technology and a
penchant for publicity at the expense of children, will keep American
children about as safe as hiring Osama bin Laden as a babysitter or
confiscating toenail clippers from grandmothers in Oklahoma.

Does Landrieu's legislation mean news organization web sites that
streamed a video file of, say, Yasser Arafat's wife suggesting the
sacrifice of children in the guise of suicide bombers would turn the
children into martyrs (and inspiring thoughts that might be considered
harmful to minors -- in some communities) will now have to register as a
.prn site? Or are "legitimate" media organizations exempt, so our kids
can happily access "Temptation Island" online (or Page Three of The Sun)
or if blocked, simply satellite surf between Al Jazeera and freeway
shootings live on MSNBC?

Or are minors only harmed by images of what their parents might have
done to 'create' them with to begin with, not what they might be
suggesting to 'destroy' them?

And further, if this brilliantly crafted legislation only applies to a
'commercial' online service, would subscription-based sites that
included such items as this very legislation (which would be harmful to
not only minors, but pretty much everyone else) be forced to register as
.prn sites?

Of course, Landrieu forgets to address who decides what is harmful to
minors. Could a vegan parent decide that a commercial site like
McDonald's that encourages the unhealthy eating of genetically
engineered meat is harmful to their children in their world view? Or
will Representative Bob Barr take time between marriages and the
disbursing of money to battered women (and their kids who are too
bruised to even use a mouse if they could afford the electricity) that
are being encouraged to stay married for a few extra government bucks,
to decide what's harmful to minors or not?

What about sites selling condoms? Harmful to minors if their lives are
nothing more than a mistaken result of their parents having missed the
site to begin with. Harmful if they're HIV positive because some idiot
decided that safe sex information is harmful to minors (who happen to be
the child's parents), and were blocked from access to .prn sites
offering safe sex information. According to Landrieu's own web site,
more than 20 percent of teen-age girls in Louisiana give birth before
their 18th birthday. Is she aiming for 30 percent?

Luckily very wealthy, albeit non-commercial, organizations like the
Boston Archdiocese need not worry about what they promote online since
they would be exempt. A child alone in a confessional with a pedophile
in a habit with a habit, shielded and protected at great expense, cannot
be as harmful to kids as seeing what goes on in the Oval Office when
Presidents are bored with government shutdowns.

And all of this because Ms. Landrieu arrogantly and neurotically
fantasizes that someone sitting across the table from her at dinner has
a mini-cam attached to their shoe! Clearly, she's never dined with
Richard Reid, or she would be focusing on more important issues.
[/Exerpt]

Clinton
_____________________________________

Clinton Fein
Editor & Publisher
Annoy.com
370 7th Street, Suite 6
San Francisco, CA  94103
Phone: 415-552-7655
Fax: 415-552-7656
http://apollomedia.com/
_____________________________________




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