Germany Legislates For Mandatory Web Filters 309
An anonymous reader writes "Germany's Minister for Families has announced a legislative initiative to force ISPs to implement a government-mandated block list (in English), which will be updated daily. The BKA (Germany's equivalent of the FBI) will be in charge of generating and maintaining the list. As usual, this is being brought in under the 'fight child porn' guise. The minister is quoted as saying: 'We must not water down the problem' in reply to being challenged that this law and technology could be used to censor other content. She then went on to say: 'I can't know what wishes and plans future governments will develop.' She has agreed the principle of the legislation with the interior minister and the technology minister, which in German coalition government terms means it's pretty much a done deal."
Re:Well, someone has to say it. (Score:2, Interesting)
Voters' apathy has consequences... (Score:4, Interesting)
I am opposed to elitism in general, but people who are so easily manipulated with FUD tactics and those who think voting expresses only ideological affinity, should not be allowed to vote.
book burning (Score:2, Interesting)
Why would anyone have a problem with burning pages deemed degenerate by ze deutsche government? Only degenerates themselves (who'll be next).
Goodwin's Law (Score:3, Interesting)
*evil laughter* indeed. (Score:5, Interesting)
What's most worrisome is that the excuse is so, so bad.
Child porn? On the open web? Really?
I'm pretty sure at this point, anyone peddling child porn is entirely doing it through encrypted networks and through isolated darknets even. All the low-hanging fruit of publicly available actual child porn has either been dealt with or can be dealt with in a manner far, far less heavy handed than web filtering. What good does filtering the general web do?
Crying "child porn" is just the sugar to make the poison go down.
Re:Well, someone has to say it. (Score:3, Interesting)
It isn't Godwin if the topic can be directly related to Nazis.
Germany restricting rights is a topic that historically can be directly related therefore no Godwin.
Re:The statistics are mind-boggling. (Score:3, Interesting)
Simply blocking the general public from hitting sites creates new opportunities for abuse of power, poor implementation, etc. and doesn't seem to actually do much to advance the effort to stop the exploitation of children. At best it forces it further underground.
Ordinarily, you'd be correct. Inexperienced criminals are caught early, leaving only experienced criminals. So methods of catching criminals become more sophisticated, and eventually the only players are experienced ones. It's logical. But some criminal misconduct is not rational. White collar crimes, theft, burglary, drug dealing -- these are often crimes committed by people who think rationally and consider their risks and exposures. But people driven by passion or emotion -- murder, rape, and assault, often do not consider their circumstances. They simply take the risk, not knowing what the risk actually is. And then there are crimes fueled by addiction. Child pornography is a crime fueled by an addiction, an emotive source. It offers no monentary or social status benefit. It's illogical to engage in, and the people doing so keep doing so regardless of risk. The recidivism(sp?) rate for this is so high it's almost pointless to attempt therapy of any kind. Almost (I still advocate it, but out of hope rather than reason).
Conducting fishing expeditions for this class of criminals will give results even if the methods remain crude and never evolve. I know this statement weakens my argument against such surveillance tactics. If the methods were wholly unsuccessful they would be abandoned. However, I'm more concerned with collateral damage. The methods are defensible. The consequences are not. Privacy is an intangible -- its violation often has no effect on the victim, provided the victim remains unaware of the intrusion. But irregularily, the intrusion becomes known to others outside of the group/individual who has violated the person(s) privacy and in these cases damage is done. Sometimes it is irrepairable. In the case of investigations of sexual misconduct, it is usually severe and irrepairable.
And a fundamental precipt(sp?) of our judicial system is that it provides a redress of a person's greviances against another, which includes the government. These investigations destroy lives and yet the government is never held accountable because privacy is an intangible with no assigned value. Therefore, it becomes source of continual damage to the social contract we have with the goverment -- namely that it protects and serves us. Damaging that social contract weakens the entire governmental construct because when people routinely mistrust the government is becomes increasingly ineffective and will counter with even more violent methods of enforcement and investigation which further damages its relationship with those it is supposed to serve. Eventually, this systemic failure, and subsequent loss of trust, leads people to become immoral or amoral, and a marked preference for vigilantism, gang behavior for protection, and a general disregard for the law. Which in the end harms everyone, both inside and outside the system.
I am neither for nor against such surveillance tactics, in and of themselves. But when the government is not held accountable for damaging the lives of people who are wronged -- both to the public at large and the individual(s) harmed, I cannot in good conscience support such actions and advocate actively resisting them.
Re:I'm less concerned (Score:3, Interesting)
But in principle, I have no problem with the government banning unprotected stuff like this. Never, including at our nations founding, was this sort of material considered protected free speech.
I'm sorry, but the founding fathers didn't have child pornography in mind as a possible exception to the rights protected by the First Amendment. In fact, the Supreme Court only ruled that child pornography was unprotected speech in 1981 (or 82?).
Despite the predominant groupthink of the past few years, the possession of certain pictures being considered the most heinous crime imaginable was not always the case.
And it's not a black and white issue. Child pornography has always had a vague and fluid definition, as evidenced by the latest inclusions into the category, Simpsons cartoons and anime.