Senator demands info on search engine subpoena

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That is what they are looking for Bhartman: No, sorry but your missing the point

"You're missing the point. This is a statistical exercise, not a question of who's getting exposed. They don't care if the person doing the searching is 5 or 35, and they don't care if it's accidental. What they care about is what search terms lead to what results."

That is exactly what they claim they care about IE from your own reference:

""The Court has repeatedly held that the government has a compelling interest in protecting minors from pornographic material that is not obscene by adult standards, but that is nonetheless harmful to minors. Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844, 864-865 (1997); Sable Communications of Cal., Inc. v. FCC, 492 U.S. 115, 126 (1989); Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629, 639 (1968). That compelling interest has two components. First, the government has an interest in aiding parents who wish to protect their children from the harmful effects of pornographic material. Ibid. Second, the government has an independent interest in the well being of the Nation's minors. Id. at 640; Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. at 865.""

So for the study to have any validity or make any sense it has to confirm the age of the person doing the search. Because the only compelling interest is access to porn by minors since access to porn by adults is legal and protected under the first amendment.

As an example: {as used in the court argument) If someone types in Whitehouse.com the study has no way of determining whether it was an adult or a minor wanting to visit that porn site or whether it was someone adult or minor that ran across it accidently while looking for White House.gov. In other words the study shows nothing other than the fact that that porn site was accessed.

The only thing the study can or will show is how many times porn sites were accessed out of X number of searches. Nothing of the why, or who.

""COPA doesn't require a registry of "known pervs". It requires either credit card access or an "adult id" to visit sites whose main business comes from distributing material that is "harmful to minors".""

And just what do you think happens when adult id's are purchased? A database is created of those persons who purchased them. Credit card purchases have the same result. Just a different database. Now lets look at just how secure databases are from major banks to data collection outfits such as Choice Point. Not very by the news headlines.

""You can see from the passage what the Google subpoena was about: They're looking to prove how easy it is to stumble upon porn, and how ineffective filters are. (They even tried to get Karin Schneider, of the American Libraries Association, to testify, but she refused.)""

And as you can see the subpoena does absolutely nothing to address that problem because once again: The only thing a random non-identifiable list of searches can or will produce is how many times porn sites were accessed per X number searches conducted. It will tell you nothing about who did the search or why. Its a fishing
expedition.

""I used to be a supporter of the .xxx domain, until I realized it would never work. In the first place, .xxx domains would necessarily have to be all one kind of content. You couldn't, for example, have one page for your porn site and another for your (relatively innocent) blog. (Well, you could, but it would be pointless, as you wouldn't get any readers.)""

That is the purpose of the .xxx domain is to have one kind of content. That way that type of content can be easily blocked on individual computers so that minors won't be inadvertantly exposed to porn. And why would anyone want to have an innocent blog in an area designated for porn anyway? Sorry but you make no sense. There are adult content blogs for members on some sites but that falls under the same goal of limiting access to adults.

""The other problem would be the fact that the Internet is international, and standards for harmful-to-minors material is different in, say, Sweden, than it is in the U.S.""

No kiddin, people are finally starting to realize that the world doesn't revolve around the U.S. and its laws. The only thing that can be regulated are sites that fall under U.S. jurisdiction and that is regardless of what law Congress passes whether its COPA or my solution or another solution entirely.

""Plus, it opens a whole can of worms, with people lobbying for more and more content (gay issues, abortion, bomb making, etc.) to be pushed over to the xxx domain.""

And just why would a porn domain be used for abortion, or bomb making issues? And just in case you didn't know, there are already Gay porn sites since being gay is already a part of the human sexual condition for some people.

Just as a last thought but this was also part of the appeals court finding when they struck COPA down as being unconstitutional:

The court of appeals next held that while COPA affords an affirmative defense to Web site operators that use credit cards or adult IDs to prevent minors from obtaining access to harmful material, those methods of compliance unconstitutionally burden adult access to protected material. Pet. App. 32a-38a. The court reasoned that "COPA will likely deter many adults from accessing restricted content, because many Web users are simply unwilling to provide identification information in order to gain access to content, especially where the information they wish to access is sensitive or controversial." Id. at 35a. The court also regarded COPA's affirmative defenses as deficient because, while they furnish protection against conviction, they do not provide Web site operators "with assurances of freedom from prosecution." Id. at 36a-37a.; Posted by: Looneytoon Posted on: 01/28/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use