Some more good news on the DOPA front…it appears Senate action will be put off until next month. That’s not a guarantee or anything, but it’s a step in the right direction.
As is the fact that Internet safety expert Larry Magid has come out with a pretty provocative argument for why DOPA is dopey.
But even if the bill weren’t overly broad, it would still betroublesome because it is the wrong – and I would argue a dangerous approach – to Internet safety. While nearly everyone agrees that Internet predators should be”deleted,” this bill doesn’t address that issue. Unlike the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, which the President signed into law on July 21, DOPA does nothing to strengthen penalties orincrease prosecution of criminals who prey on children. Instead, it punishes the potential victims and educational institutions chartered to serve them, by denying access to interactive sites at school and libraries.
As Larry says, this might be better called the “Deleting Online Teenagers Act.”
Just my humble opinion, but I still think we have to take this fight outside of our community. Anyone writing any letters to editors? Calling up talk shows? E-mailing their friends? I’ve done the last and am working on the first. Doug Noon has a great sample letter to send to your senator.
What’s your source for this Senate news?
Source of the story is at http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1834600,00.html.
What we really need is a Deleting Incompetent Congressmen Act. Unfortunately, all the tubes are clogged again 🙁
I saw a great sample letter by Anne Davis on her blog: http://anne.teachesme.com/2006/07/31/another-dear-senator/
I just read the bill, and it looks like they passed a revision that allows for educational and adult uses (er… use by adults). Is that recent? Did the more substantive DOPA takedowns I read a while back account for the educational/adult override?
To my naive reading, the revision takes the bill from ‘end of educational blogging as we know it’ to ‘misguided pain in the ass’.
Frankly, I trust the wisdom of this crowd more than my own uninformed reading, so I’m working under the assumption that I’m wrong. But will somebody explain to me why? Or direct me to a post that addresses the exemption?
I think that the bill is misguided, but am happy to see that steps are being taken to think about this problem in a public realm. I would be most predators prey from home, not public libraries, and I also think that nixing all those sites in public settings would do a diservice to those who use them for fun or educational purposes.
I support the Adam Walsh bill in that it provides framework and funding for cooperation and enforcment on a variety of child explotation issues, including internet crimes.
Overall I’d like to see a wide spread effort to teach internet safety curriculum in schools or classes at public libraries. There are groups like Cybertipline that have done PSAs with some of these sites, and handle a bulk of internet reports – but getting information about groups like that into the hands of people that will use it is critical. There are so many great programs out there – I hope that the maximum number of kids are getting them – and that the creeps out there are receiving the stiffest penalities possible.