Internet and internet security (Click to select text)

The Internet is an awesome way of contact and a great source of information that is becoming a lot more popular for people who are interested in, and have the time to surf the ‘information superhighway’. The major problem with this much information being reachable to this many people is that a lot of it is called inappropriate for young people. The government wants censorship, but a small amount of the population does not. Legislative regulation of the Internet would not be a good thing for our government. “The Communications Decency Act” is an amendment that stops the Internet from becoming a computer "red light district." On June 14, 1995, by a vote of 84-16, the United States Senate passed this amendment. It’s now being taken through the House of Representatives. The Internet is owned AND operated by the government, and that would give them the right to restrict the things that you can get through it. Even though it looks like it has sprung up overnight, the vision of free-minded hackers, it was born in the ‘Defense Department Cold War’ projects of the 1950s. The US Government owns the Internet and has the responsibility and right to decide who uses it and how it is used. The government HAS to have control on what information people are able to get from its agencies. This information is not lawfully available through the mail OR over the telephone, so there is absolutely no reason why they should be available otherwise. Since the idea a network of computers, the industry has wonderfully advanced some good blocking devices, but they are not an alternative for a well-reasoned law. Because the Internet has become one of the biggest sources of information in the whole wide world, legislative security is necessary. The government gives citizens the privilege of using the Internet, but it has never given them the right to use it. The government seems to think that the makers of the constitution planned & plotted at great length to make certain that the corrupt pornographer and the pervert has to be free to practice their hunt in the company of childrenon a multi-million user network that is paid for by taxpayers. People like this are the ones in the wrong. Taxpayer's dollars are being spent bringing foul text and graphics into the homes of adults and kids all over the world. The government has to take control to stop pornographers from using the Internet. They seem to fit because they are breaking laws that have existed for years. ‘Cyberpunks’,those most normally associated with the Internet, are members of a rebellious society that are corrupting these networks with information that contains pornography, racism, and other forms of explicit information. When they start looking around for a crime, new ‘cybercops’ are coming into a pretty mean environment. Cyberspace, especially the Internet, has a ton of people who look for a culture that hates authority and scared that any trespass of police or government will destroy their own little world. The environment that the ‘cyberpunks’ want is a way to do whatever they want. The Communications Decency Act is an attempt of the government to control their "free attitude" displayed in homepages. What the government is doing is making the same laws. To keep the explicit pictures off home computers, the government must control information on the Internet, just like it controls explicit stuff through the mail or on the phone. Legislative rules and regulations have be made to control the information on the Internet because the displaying explicit material is illegal. The courts usually say that explicit material is illegal under all circumstances for all ages, while “indecency” is usually allowed to adults, but that laws protecting children from this “lesser” form are acceptable. It's called protecting people among us who are children, from the nasty minds of some adults. The constitution of the United States has set regulations to determine what is categorized as obscenity and what is not. In Miller vs. California, 413 US at 24-25, the court announced its "Miller Test" and held, at 29, that its three part test constituted “concrete guidelines to isolate 'hard core' pornography from expression protected by the First Amendment”.9 By laws previously set by the government, obscene pornography should not be available on the Internet. The government must ‘police’ the Internet because there are people who are breaking laws. Right now, cyberspace is like a huge city without a police department. Right now, anyone can put anything he or she wants on the Internet with no penalties. The Communications Decency Act gives law enforcement new tools: to prosecute those who would use a computer to make the equivalent of obscene telephone calls, to prosecute 'stalkers' who terrorize their victims,to clamp down on electronic distributors of obscene materials, and to better the chances of prosecution of people that would provide pornography to children by a computer. The government has to regulate the flow of information on the Internet because some of the commercial blocking tools used to filter this information is not enough. Cybercops really worry that ‘outlaws’ are now able to use powerful cryptography to send and receive uncrackable secret communications and are also aided by anonymous ‘re-mailers’. By using features like these it is impossible to use blocking devices to stop children from accessing this information. Tools that are set up to detect specified strings of characters will not filter words that it cannot understand. The government has to stop obscene materials from being transferred via the Internet because it violates laws dealing with ‘interstate commerce’. It is not a good argument that “consenting adults” should be allowed to use the computer bulletin boards and “Internet” systems to receive whatever they want. If the materials ARE obscene, the law can forbid people from using the facilities of interstate commerce and common carriers to ship or spread the obscenity. When supplies and information are passed over state and national boundaries, they are subject to the laws that apply to interstate and intrastate commerce. When information is passed between two computers, it is subject to the same standards. The government having the power to regulate the information being put on the Internet is a proper extension of its powers. With an information based system like the Internet there is no doubt that there has to be material that is not appropriate for minors, or adults for that matter, to see. If we could get the government to pass more amendments like the Communications Decency Act, the government would be given the power to regulate that material. That is what most people want, and that is what they should get! America should learn about Internet security because over 53% of America’s households are now connected to the Internet. America has been altered by the Internet because it opens up new dimensions or communication. It is much faster and much more efficient then going to a library. I selected this event because nobody knows very much about it. People need to be informed!