Content Regulation

Content Regulation -- Not only does this administration shut down newspapers it doesn't like in Iraq; now it's going after hotel movies, according to a story commented on by Jeff Jarvis...

"The government wants to regulate content in this country. Let's say that again: The government wants to regulate content in this country.
That should be sending a shiver up your American spine. It's not just about the FCC. It's not just about Howard Stern. It's about free speech, people.
First they went after Stern and radio.
Next they will go after cable.
Then they will come after the Internet."

From the article, an interesting point...

"Industry lawyers and top executives contend that the courts should rule that because the tapes were ordered on the Internet, the "community standard" demanded by the law should be the standard of the whole community of the World Wide Web.

"The Internet is filled with ample evidence of even more hard-core or offensive material from abroad, they say, and someone in Pittsburgh should not be able to determine what someone in Hollywood can order."

Hey. Like Jarvis, while I live in NJ, the web is my community. If Ashcroft thinks his buddy Rumsfeld is having a hard time in the Suni triangle after shutting down a newspaper because we didn't like the content, just wait 'til they try to come after the internet."

[Later...] More good commentary...

"The Baltimore Sun article quotes Attorney General John Ashcroft saying that porn "invades our homes persistently though the mail, phone, VCR, cable TV and the Internet." No, Mr. Ashcroft, that's incorrect; Americans persistently invite porn into our homes through the mail, phone, VCR, cable TV and the Internet. According to Eric Schlosser's Reefer Madness, Americans spend between $8 and $10 billion per year on adult entertainment, about as much as on first-run (non-porn) movies. Show me a videocassette that forces itself into an American's home at gunpoint, ties him to the couch, and plays itself, and I will concede that your claim makes sense; otherwise, you're wrong."

...from the Harvard Republican Blog.