Saving children and losing voters

Senator John McCain has drafted legislation that would require millions of Internet sites, from commercial sites to individual personal blogs, to report any illegal images or videos posted by users of the site. The reports would have to be filed with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which would forward them to police. Site owners could be fined $300,000 if they fail to find and report the illegal content, or if they fail to keep records and information about the incident for a minimum of six months.

Senator McCain calls his proposal the "Stop the Online Exploitation of Our Children Act." He might as well call it the "Get Rid of Bloggers I Don't Like Act."

That's because anybody, even a senator, can post material in the comments area of somebody else's blog. The proposed law would make the blogger responsible for reviewing the images or other content, checking it for obscenity and legality, filing reports with the authorities and retaining every bit of documentation. One mistake on any of it would mean a fine steep enough to buy a house in most cities.

This is the kind of thing East Germany would have rejected as a little too Russian.

When CNET News reported Senator McCain's proposal, readers posted comments. Here are some of the titles of their posts:

"Shifting the responsibility of raising a child away from parents"

"McCain hates the first amendment"

"What if a website was defaced with porn?"

"McCain=One of the most dangerous..."

"Suppose you are a congressman, suppose you are an idiot..."

"CONGRESS LACKS THE POWER TO DO THIS"

"Bad idea for many reasons..."

"John McCain: Nanny State Advocate"

"The Man Who Would Be King!"

"So if someone wanted you in trouble..."

"Bad Idea, bad law."

"America becoming Big Brother state as in '1984' George Orwell fiction"

"The most dangerous politician in America"

"Encroachment on civil liberties"

Remember this if, during the next round of campaign finance reform, Senator McCain tries to get the comment area of CNET News closed down during the ninety days before an election.

Republicans aren't the only ones dressing up like Mary Poppins. Senators Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman opened their umbrellas and floated into a press conference on video game ratings last week. The video game industry is paying for public service announcements on more than eight hundred television stations across the country. The TV ads will urge parents to pay attention to the ratings on video games.

The thinking, if you can it call it that, is that parents who don't know or care what games their kids are playing will be inspired by the commercials to become more involved and attentive.

Needless to say, the video game industry wouldn't have wasted its money on this nonsense if not for the constant pressure from lawmakers like Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman. The fact that the First Amendment prohibits Congress from legislating on the content of video games doesn't seem to have entered into the calculations at all. If you run a business in America, politicians in Washington can make your life a living hell, one way or another. If a TV ad campaign and a press conference will mollify them, it is understandable that businesses would comply.

That doesn't change the fact that we are witnessing an abuse of government power. When politicians pressure businesses to take action "voluntarily" because the Constitution prohibits them from requiring that same action through legislation, they are violating their oath to uphold the Constitution.

Of course they don't care about that, but they might care about this: there are many, many voters in their early twenties to late thirties, college graduates and professionals, who grew up playing video games. And they might agree with the one who told me he would never vote for Hillary Clinton.

Knowing him to be a liberal Democrat, and too young to remember Whitewater or Travelgate, I asked him why.

"Because she wants to censor video games," he said. "Who does she think she is?"


Copyright 2006

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