there is no friend
So I catch news today about the Combating Child Exploitation Act. A new bill being proposed in congress to fight child porn on the internet. As if the Communications Decency Act of 1996, Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996, Child Online Protection Act of 1998, Children’s Internet Protection Act of 2000, and the PROTECT Act of 2003 just weren’t enough.
I will leave aside for the moment the issue of government spying on its own citizens without a warrent when they monoter P2P file sharing networks.
The part that jumped out at me was the ‘digital alteration’ adnment. That a picture could be clasified as child porn even if no actualy children were harmed in its production. The thing is, we already went through all this before. Back in 2002, the supreme court struck down a ban on virtual child porn. I remember when this was going on because the BDSM newsgroups at the time were all a buzz about how the evil bush dictatorship was cracking down on adult-baby/diaper-lover and ageplay fetishists. All this despite the fact that the law banning virtual child porn was passed into law in 1996, over four years before bush even took office.
So why make a law over again when it has already been declared to be unconstitutional? Could it be that politicians WANT the laws they write to be declared unconstitutional? Maintain the status quo but still have the apperance that they are ‘doing something’. The fact that every law I posted in the first paragraph has been declared unconstitutional either in whole or in part kinds of backs up this theory.
The thing is, this new round is getting pushed by Joe Biden. High ranking democratic senator.
I get so sick of getting told that political party X is evil and wants to invade all our bedrooms and that everythign woudl be perfect if only we could vote in political pary Y instead.