At the COPA...

When we read about the Child Online Protection Act, we're reminded of the episode of 'The Simpsons' in which prohibition advocates cry, "Think of the children!" (COPA is not to be confused with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which is a completely different law with a completely different purpose.) COPA isn't about protecting children from Internet smut but censoring what adults can see.

The 1998 law - which is a secret love child of the Communications Decency Act that had already been struck down - says commercial distributors of material that is deemed "harmful to minors" under "contemporary community standards" had to use a credit card or similar device to verify the ages of people accessing their websites - including adults. Website owners who didn't comply could have faced a $50,000 fine and 6 months in the paholkey.

Anyone who possessed these little things called brain cells could see that the law's real goal wasn't to protect the children. If they didn't know this from the get-go, they probably found out soon enough - like I did when I tried accessing a site that wasn't even pornographic. I don't even remember exactly what the site was, but it wasn't porn, it wasn't illegal, and it wasn't even anything bizarre. I think it was a site full of old newspaper photos of roads, but I don't recall. Not only that, but I had to have been at least 25 at the time, for COPA passed in 1998. In any event, when I tried accessing the site, I was told I needed to provide a credit card number due to COPA - even though it was a free website. Well, I had lost my job and all my money, and therefore I couldn't get a credit card, so I couldn't access this free site. All because of COPA.

The government must be a real bunch of perverts if they think photos of highways are porn.

Right then and there, the First Amendment was being violated. Not like I expected the Newtzis to give a shit.

COPA was challenged, and a federal court struck it down as unconstitutional. But in 2004 the Bush regime naturally threw a shitfit and went to the Supreme Court to try to get COPA reinstated. The name of the government's case was...Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union. There have been few fuckfaces scuzzier than John Ashcroft to occupy U.S. Cabinet positions in recent years, and that he'd fight the ACLU on something like this proves it. The Supremes, however, upheld the district court's injunction against enforcing COPA and referred the case back to the district court.

This past March, a federal district judge again ruled COPA unconstitutional, saying it violates the First and Fifth amendments. Ironically, when it was suggested that filtering software could be used in homes to stop kids accessing porn, Bush's officials said this software was too burdensome and ineffective - despite the fact that they had earlier defended requiring this software in public libraries even when it restricted what sites adults could access. Typical right-wing doublespeak.

Even after this ruling that declared COPA unconstitutional, the dominionists in the Bush regime still didn't get it, and they appealed this verdict. According to the all-powerful Wikipedia, this case is still pending.

Don't you just love how the conservatives are always complaining about there being too much government even though they're the ones who pass laws like COPA?

(Source: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/1310AP_Internet_Blocking.html)