FC: Slashdot's Jamie McCarthy reports from "chat room evils" hearing

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

---

Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 10:57:01 -0400
From: Jamie McCarthy <jamie () mccarthy vg>
Subject: Re: FC: Replies to Feds getting way serious about "Chat Room Dangers"
To: declan () well com
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020508001622.024a87d0 () mail well com>

> Previous Politech message:
>
> "Feds take matters firmly in hand: Hearing on 'Chat Room Dangers'"
> http://www.politechbot.com/p-03494.html

> Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 12:55:33 -0700
> To: declan () well com
> From: Jim Warren <jwarren () well com>
>
> >This hearing is entitled "Chatting On-Line: A Dangerous
> >Proposition for Children."
>
> Geee ... with a hearing-title like that ... do ya think maybe
> it'll be a biased, prejudicial, "loaded" hearing?  Huh?  Huh?
> Do ya?! <sigh>
>
> --jim

Good news:  the hearing was not prejudicial.  The topic was how to
protect children who chat (and email and IM) online, so that was the
thrust of the discussion.  But the witnesses mentioned several times
how the internet was a great opportunity, and chat was valuable --
and the messages everyone agreed on were just that parents need to
be aware of what their children are doing online, and children need
to be given the tools they need to protect themselves.

As for how the government can help, the only concrete proposals were
that law enforcement agencies, especially state and local, need more
training and a larger budget to handle child predators online.
No new legislation was proposed.  In fact, as the witnesses got
talking about the importance of parental involvement, Rep. Barr had
to remind everyone not once, but twice, that he and Rep. Upton were
_lawmakers_ and did anyone want a law passed or anything?

My report on the hearing is here:

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/05/14/0630258&tid=103




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