[Infowarrior] - Feel-good (crazy?) propsed bill on child porn

[Richard Forno]

This is ludicrous.....since the mere posession (let alone transmittlal) of
child pornography already is a felony, is this law asking wireless
providers, ISPs, and individuals to break one law in order to "enforce"
another?  I havent read the legislation text year, but I wonder how this
will be handled - is there any 'safe harbor' provision for those who comply?
Right now this sounds like another knee-jerk "save the children!" proposal
that has no substantive analysis or critical thinking behind it.

-rf 



House vote on illegal images sweeps in Wi-Fi, Web sites

Posted by Declan McCullagh
http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9829759-38.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547
-1_3-0-20

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a
bill saying that anyone offering an open Wi-Fi connection to the public must
report illegal images including "obscene" cartoons and drawings--or face
fines of up to $300,000.

That broad definition would cover individuals, coffee shops, libraries,
hotels, and even some government agencies that provide Wi-Fi. It also sweeps
in social-networking sites, domain name registrars, Internet service
providers, and e-mail service providers such as Hotmail and Gmail, and it
may require that the complete contents of the user's account be retained for
subsequent police inspection.

< - >

This is what the SAFE Act requires: Anyone providing an "electronic
communication service" or "remote computing service" to the public who
learns about the transmission or storage of information about certain
illegal activities or an illegal image must (a) register their name, mailing
address, phone number, and fax number with the National Center for Missing
and Exploited Children's "CyberTipline" and (b) "make a report" to the
CyberTipline that (c) must include any information about the person or
Internet address behind the suspect activity and (d) the illegal images
themselves. (By the way, "electronic communications service" and "remote
computing service" providers already have some reporting requirements under
existing law too.)

The definition of which images qualify as illegal is expansive. It includes
obvious child pornography, meaning photographs and videos of children being
molested. But it also includes photographs of fully clothed minors in overly
"lascivious" poses, and certain obscene visual depictions including a
"drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting." (Yes, that covers the subset of
anime called hentai).

Someone providing a Wi-Fi connection probably won't have to worry about the
SAFE Act's additional requirement of retaining all the suspect's personal
files if the illegal images are "commingled or interspersed" with other
data. But that retention requirement does concern Internet service
providers, which would be in a position to comply. So would e-mail service
providers, including both Web-based ones and companies that offer POP or
IMAP services.

< - >

There are two more points worth noting. First, the vote on the SAFE Act
seems unusually rushed. It's not entirely clear that the House Democratic
leadership really meant this legislation to slap new restrictions on
hundreds of thousands of Americans and small businesses who offer public
wireless connections. But they'll nevertheless have to abide by the new
rules if senators go along with this idea (and it's been a popular one in
the Senate).

The second point is that Internet providers already are required by another
federal law to report child pornography sightings to the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children, which is in turn charged with forwarding
that report to the appropriate police agency. So there's hardly an
emergency, which makes the Democrats' rush for a vote more inexplicable than
usual.