Government Internet Intervention
Section: Technology Essays
The school administration quickly removed access to all these pictures, and to the newsgroups where this obscenity is suspected to come from. A total of 80 newsgroups were removed, causing a large disturbance among the student body, the American civil Liberties Union, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, all of whom felt this was unconstitutional. After only half a week, the college had backed down, and restored the newsgroups (Emler- Dewitt 102). This is only a tiny example of what may happen if the government tries to impose censorship. Regardless of what types of software or safeguards are used to protect the children of the information age, there will always be ways around them. As stated by Michael Miller When it comes to our children, censorship is a far less important issue than good parenting. We must teach our kids that the Internet is an extension and reflection of the real world, and we have to show them how to enjoy the good things and avoid the bad things. This is not the government's responsibility. It's ours (Miller 76).
An example of the government trying to get around something is the whole issue with Napster. "Shawn Fanning an 18-year-old college dropout wrote the code that changed the world. His fate, and ours, is now in the court's hands. It is now in the government's hands to decide whether worldwide file sharing shall stay legalized" "Napster is not harming the industry, certainly not so much that it has to be shut down before trial" (Greenfeld 64). Many people feel this way about the program. Many artists even feel this way about the file-sharing program. Actress/grunge rocker Courtney Love says," Why aren't record companies embracing this great opportunity? Why aren't they trying to talk to kids' to learn what they like?" (Greenfeld 66). Her and many other non-greedy musicians feel this way about the program. It is shown that Napster has not made a difference in CD sales.
"Although Napster might seem to be taking sales away from the record companies, CD sales have actually increased in the Napster era ' by $500 million this year alone (Greenfeld 66). This shows that Napster is actually a promoter for CD sales. This is probably because the people sample the music and then go and buy it. Until the development of the Internet, the U.S. government controlled most of the new communication techniques. With the development of faster personal computers and the addition of the worldwide web, they had no control over the vast range of this style of communication. To stop the spread of data the U.S. government has imposed strict laws on the exportation. This is explained in an article by Phil Zimmerman To send a encoded message to someone, a copy of that person's 'public' key is needed. The sender uses this public key to encrypt the data, and the recipient uses their 'private' key to decode the message (Zimmerman 3).
As with any new technology, this program has allegedly been used for illegal purposes, and the FBI and NSA are believed to be unable to crack this code (Zimmerman 4). Zimmerman's reply to his knowledge of this rumor was quoted in Steven Levy's article in Newsweek If I had invented an automobile, and was told that criminals used it to rob banks, I would feel bad, too. But most people agree that the benefits to society that come from automobiles taking the kids to school, grocery shopping and such outweigh their drawbacks (Levy 56). As the Internet continues to grow throughout the world, more governments may try to impose their views onto the rest of the world through regulations and censorship.
It will be a sad day when the world must adjust its views to conform to that of the most prudish regulatory government. If too many regulations are incited, then the Internet as a tool will become nearly useless, and the Internet as a mass communication device and a place for freedom of mind and thoughts, will become non-existent. The government should rethink its approach to the censorship and the encryption issues, allowing the Internet to continue to grow and mature. The users, parents, and servers of the world need to regulate themselves, so, as not to push the government into forcing these types of regulations on what might be the best communication instrument in history
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