Legal
Clips this week linked to a Los
Angles Times story on a new
bill in Congress attempting to block public school access to "social
networking" sites such as MySpace.com.



The act is entitled the 'Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006' and it seeks to
protect children from Internet sites that are considered obscene, harmful to
minors, or contain visual depictions of child pornography as well as social
networking sites and chat rooms.



According to the Times article, there are 80 million registered users of MySpace.
There will be a lot of disappointed kids if this bill goes through. Perhaps
such a regulation of the Internet is a good thing, perhaps not. However, we
have to think a lot more about what we are doing with the regulation of
communication devices. I wonder if the Representatives who proposed this
legislation would be O.K. with the kids using a telegraph machine, or Morse
code, or carrier pigeon - they could be carrying sexually explicit images you
know. Maybe if we limited all forms of communication between children...oh,
wait…