How John McCain Nearly Destroyed the Internet

John McCain has a strong interest in the internet. The Arizona Republican Senator, by all accounts, is savy in the use of web for his campaigning purposes. His campaign in December 2006 generated $1 million through the internet. His Chief of Staff has blogged on Huffingtonpost.com. John McCain has been providing content for PodCasts. He also pays a consultant fee to the prominent conservative blogger, Patrick Hynes. Would this be considered to be an integrated internet strategy? It seems so.

On the other hand John McCain is known to have a vehement problem with bloggers. This is unusual because it is clear these bloggers bring him important, relevant information and keep him in tune with his constituency, and opposes. Blogging, it seems is also a key component of John McCain’s campaign and constituency management strategy. These bloggers want to be heard, listened to, and want to be part of the solution generation process. They do not want to be told the standard political line. This technique may have worked in the past, but the public are savvy and want to be treated as such.

John McCain is 70 years old, a Vietnam Veteran Prisoner of War and is part of the baby boomer generation. Not really the profile you would put together for an Internet champion.

Is John McCain’s interest in the internet for censorship purposes or does he have a higher agenda? It is difficult to tell, but he does have a history of introducing Acts concerning the internet. In May 17, 1999 John McCain introduced the legislation Internet Regulatory Freedom Act. This legislation was not controversial at all and was lauded as bringing high speed access to much more of the population. Million of Americans could now get access to high speed internet services. What the Act introduced on December 6, 2006, called the Stop the Online Exploitation of our Children Act, and this previously discussed internet act have in common is clearing up the confusion or the loopholes surrounding federal legislation.

Does the public believe that the internet needs policing and that censorship is the way to best go about it? Is the United States an open economy in the area of censorship or is it heavily policed by government, for example in countries such as the People’s Republic of China? What is it that the public truly wants for their children, because isn’t this really what our politicians should be doing. Not doing what they think is best for us, but listening to us whether it be the bloggers or on talk back radio and doing what we ask. For we, as the public, have a fair idea on how we want to be governed as a society.

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Internet providers are already responsible for reporting any obscene information or suspicious behavior that they come across, and the Act put forward by John McCain proposed this same responsibility on web sites and bloggers, although with higher penalties for non compliance. Internet service providers already work with the police and see this as a corporate citizenship responsibility. So why shouldn’t this same requirement be extended to web site providers? Shouldn’t all citizens have a social responsibility to their fellow citizens? Why should it be acceptable to turn a blind eye to crimes that you witness? These are all good questions but we are all well aware that the messenger is generally the one that gets shot, and why would you want to court trouble when you can avoid it.

The real question is why did John McCain try to extend the Act to bloggers, and we say try as the proposed Act was latter amended to exclude this group of internet users. Aren’t bloggers actually providing a service to society and the community by voicing their opinions, by letting the politicians know what they think is write and wrong. Why be bothered to burden bloggers with a piece of legislation that they are already doing, and offer them the stick of a fine greater than $300,000, rather than an incentive for good citizenship. The police and crime shows are already using bloggers to assist with information in the follow up of unsolved crimes. Of course, some of the leads end up being false but in amongst the make believe there are usually enough leads to help the police to solve the crime.

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The Act actually says “ISPs that obtain actual knowledge of illegal images must make an exhaustive report including the date, time, offending content, any personal information about the user, and the Internet Protocol address. The report is sent to local or federal police by way of the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children.” To effect this, ISPs, and commercial web site providers need to report any illegal images they see in the form of a video, photos, drawings or cartoon involving minors. The interpretation of inappropriate images by Judges is where the problem lies. Some of the precedence’s currently involve, what could be considered commercial shots, and had the permission of the parents. Can’t we remember a little while back the furor over the Calvin Klein advertisements? Should we really be using prepubescent teens to sell adult clothing and underwear? Probably not is the safest answer, and the answer that the majority of the public would agree with.

The other main part of the John McCain legislation deals with convicted sex offenders. These people, already when released from jail, need to be registered for their own protection as the condition is not curable only manageable with medication. So why not extend this requirement to the internet. Obviously, this is the thinking process involved. Convicted offenders would have their internet email addresses and any other internet identifiers logged onto a federal sex offender register. Any sex offender not complying with this provision will receive a jail term of ten years.

So you are now wondering about the social networking sites, where the teens, provide usually factual information about their age, where they live and likes and dislikes. What is the responsibility of the provider of these sites? What is the responsibility of a site holder who sees what appears to be a suspicious advance or profile? There is only one path, under the legislation, and that is to report and provide information on what is seen otherwise face a steep fine.

In the end John McCain’s legislation plays the role of toughening up and smoothing out the already in place federal legislation. In society we are not able to slander, accuse or threaten someone without them wanting to right this wrong through the court system. The internet is not a forum for the worse of society’s behavior, for the internet is a society of users. Should we worry about censorship when we are blessed in living in a country where we can freely express our rightful opinion, probably not, for in the end all that is important is to contribute to society in a meaningful and honest way, and this legislation should not get in the way of what is already a corporate and social responsibility for us to perform as users of the internet, or site owners.