New York ISP Held Liable For Newsgroup Content 226
jmoloug1 writes: "The New York State Attorney General has secured a guilty plea from an ISP for providing a newsgroup to its customers that peddled in child porn. While kiddie porn is a tough practice to defend, what is the next subject that an ISP will be held liable for due to the actions of its subscribers? Since the Attorney General is calling this a 'groundbreaking case' it's clear they intend to use this as a precedent. Do ISPs now have to monitor the content of newsgroups?" The question keeps coming up: how responsible is an ISP for content available through them?
I can shed some more background light on this (Score:3)
But as for context, the orginal "raid" on Buffnet and another ISP (in Syracuse) happened just before elections a year or two ago. The Attorney General was up for reelection, and this was nothing but a set up to get him publicity. The way it worked was not that some J. Random User found the kiddie-porn, but someone from the AG's office posing as J. Random User setting them up. I'm not sure to what extent an ISP should be responding to every random caller on the line who is complaining about a Usenet article. If so, any ISP should start doing it to their competitors right now full time - that would tie up there customer service abilities!
Anyway, it didn't work and the AG lost the election. However, the new AG now had the case on his books and had to carry it through.
Let's hope Ashcroft does the same with the cases he inherited at the Federal level. I can think of one in particular ;-)
Re:alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children? (Score:1)
failed to take action ... (Score:1)
Beginning in 1998, the Attorney General's Office and the State Police began an investigation of a group that called itself "Pedo University," whose members used the newsgroup to possess and exchange child pornography. After a series of successful prosecutions that helped to dismantle "Pedo U," the investigation turned its focus from the users of the newsgroup to the ISPs that provided access to the newsgroup. One of these was Buffnet. When Buffnet was made aware of the content of the newsgroup, it took no action.
They plead guilty, does that mean they conceded that they broke the law or did they bargain for a lesser charge to avoid the hassle of a trial? There aren't enough details in this press release for me to judge for myself if the ISP was really guilty of 'looking the other way'. I'm left with the impression that BuffNet was asked to cooperate and refused.
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Re:CDA Immunity (Score:1)
Re:Key quote (Score:1)
Re:alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children? (Score:1)
Not a single newsgroup include ONLY "illegal" material. On the other hand, ANY newsgroup may contain SOME "illegal" material. (Kiddie pr0n, by the way, is just the tip of the iceberg.. What about MP3s for example?? Or warez?? Or bomb-making guides??)
Is it ISP's job to decide what is illegal and what's not? No it's not.
The conclusion: newsgroups are going to get banned. ISPs can't afford to take the risk that somebody may post "illegal" material to their newsservers.
HOW USENET WORKS: PART DEUX (Score:3)
- If the AG had asked, BuffNET would have cut off the newsgroup.
Uh... that doesn't work either. Let me 'splain.When an NNTP gets a feed for all of the Newsgroups is subscribes to, it gets all of the messages that exist in any of those groups, including messages crossposted to other groups.
For example, a few years ago, I had a UUCP node and my upstream node would give me all of the "clean" heirarchys such as soc.*, rec.*, comp.* and so forth, but only hand-picked alt.* groups. The sysadmin refused to give me alt.drugs because he disapproved of it. He was doing me a huge favor giving me the UUCP feed, so I didn't make a fuss about it.
Anyway, I ended up subscribing to some groups that I could get, like soc.college that occaisionally had cross-postings from alt.drugs. When a discussion was cross-posted like this, it would end up getting into my feed. Of course, posts in this example should have had to do with recreational drugs and college social life, not just recreational drugs, so a lot of material was filtered out.
A year or so after I switched to a different feed, the newsgroup rec.drugs was finally approved amongst much controversy.
Anyway, if the ISP cuts off alt.porn.kids, then they still may end up with content from that group if (as many alt spammers do), there are cross-posts to similar groups such as alt.porn.very-young (these are not real groups AFAIK).
Followup-To: rec.birds
I miss the old days...
Re:So what? (Score:3)
For whose values of "morally wrong"? And what values of "displaying"?
Has nobody realised yet that usenet doesn't work by what the servers do, but by what people post to them?
"(I could be wrong, there could be people who believe it is not wrong). "
I'm prepared to consider that it might not be. I don't know about `believe', that's my opinion and I reserve the right for it to differ. But it needs an occasional return to brass tacks to ask why kiddie-pr0n *is* wrong. And why it's illegal, and whether "wrong" & "illegal" are related in some way.
"ISPs who ban child pornography should be commended for fighting against obvious morally-wrong materials."
I think you'll find the vast majority do explicitly ban just about everything interesting you could ever want to do, in their T&Cs. And that's where this sort of thing should be left, between the user & the ISP.
I don't see how an ISP can be held liable for content. If you don't *like* content, that's your bad look-out. If you have a sociological problem, deal with it sociologically, don't sit there making up silly rules and having potentially devastating precedent-setting cases with all the force of the law behind it.
~Tim
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articles v. newsgroups (Score:5)
Delete the offensive articles? No problem.
Delete the offensive newsgroup? Big problem. Do you delete the entire comp.os.linux.* hierarchy because some idiot spams it with a single explicit picture? A dozen? What about the soc.motss.* hierachy? The alt.pagan.* groups? The soc.catholicism.* groups?
Oh, you said that this is different because it was (at a guess) alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pre-teen.hardcore? Have you actually looked at the content of that newsgroup? I have, before complaining to *my* ISP, and determined that there was literally nothing there (at the times I checked) which wasn't cross-posted to every other abpe newsgroup. Damn spammers! But since I didn't see anything other than "hot 14-year-old babes" who were clearly old enough to have 14-year-old daughters I didn't see any reason to contact my ISP.
On the one hand, there's nothing "there" so I shouldn't mind if the newsgroup is deleted. On the other hand, I've seen far too many people who don't understand why gay or (legitimate) pre-teen sexuality or wiccan/pagan or illicit drug information or any of a dozen other topics shouldn't also be banned. After all, "in this state sodomy is illegal (and it's against God's law everywhere)!" and "in this state the age of consent is 18 so no teenagers are fucking other teenagers and that's why the schools give absolutely no sex education lessons" and "drugs are illegal so nobody is taking them and therefore nobody needs to know how to recognize their friends are overdosing" or
Of course the ISP should remove specific articles containing obscene material. (Arguably, it should have forged a "cancel" message for it, so it would have been deleted from other servers as well.) The ISP should have probably had somebody monitor the newsgroup for a while after the complaint.
But it does not follow that it should have immediately deleted that newsgroup, or entire hierarchy, or entire fscking news server, because some of the articles were obscene.
Re:NYS declares internet access illegal (Score:2)
As others have (thank God) pointed out, a guilty plea does not a precedent make. Furthermore, attorneys general do not make "decisions" of any more far-reaching weight than your decision to sue your neighbor for running over your dog. All they do is decide which cases to attempt to prosecute. The courts still decide who wins (not to mention who even gets to trial).
From reading the cited materials, it looks like the ISP rolled over because they took stock and realized that they failed to reply when notified of the presence of the objectionable materials, as required under the CDA, which - like it or not - is the law of the land.
I think (and hope) the case would have turned out very differently if the police had just shown up one day unannounced - or otherwise without following appropriate and published procedure - and attempted to bust them for materials which unbenownst to the ISP had passed through their network. This is exactly what happened in New York State a couple of years ago, and as you'll recall, it all turned out fine in the end.
For what it's worth, I wrote an angry letter to the tone-deaf demagogue attorney general (Dennis Vacco) behind the 1998 action, and his subsequent re-election bid failed. According to elementary cause-and-effect theory(*) the stirring moral resonance and excellent argumentation of my letter caused him to lose faith in himself and stumble in the polls (granted, the only outward sign was that he had an aide write me back with a bunch of press clippings about what a great guy he is, but I can read the writing on the wall), so you all owe me a debt of gratitude. If this current business turns sour, you can bet I'll dust off my fountain pen again and it'll all get taken care of.
- - -
* Elementary cause-and-effect theory states that if I take a certain action with the intent of causing an outcome, and that outcome is later observed, then I was 100% responsible for that outcome. Unless it turns out to be a bad outcome, in which case it was all a coincidence.
Re:case of legal requirements (Score:1)
2^32 generates an overfflow error. Therefore you get spanked.
I guess that's what you get for using an ancient 32 bit system these days.
Guilty PLEA .... (Score:1)
CONTEXT=NULL;. (Score:1)
Re:Very simple answer (Score:1)
I agree. Microsoft is almost universally hated. We should ban *.microsoft.* newsgroups also.
this can be dealt with (Score:2)
Instead, the ISP should have asked the attorney general for identifying information other than the newsgroup present on offending messages that they could have used to remove those postings. If that information was forged at their site, they should have referred the attorney general to the upstream site and stopped the problem there. This is no different from spam or other USENET abuse, and there have been mechanisms for dealing with it since the beginning.
Now, there are two possibilities. Either the ISP was incompetent and didn't know what it should really do to stop this. Or the ISP was receiving forged headers from their upstream site and the attorney general interpreted the ISP's referral to the upstream site as inaction. It's hard to tell from the press release. I would, however, blame the ISP for not standing by its convictions: once it decided that it wasn't going to act on the request as made by the attorney general, it should not have settled later without going to court.
Of course, a more general question is whether we should shut down established communications channels because they can be used in this way. For example, should we consider shutting down the US post office because it can be used to mail offending material? Should we shut it down because header information can be forged with just a pen? Should we shut it down because it provides untraceable anonymous distribution of gigabytes of data for a few cents per giant packet? Should we require the post office to open every letter and inspect it for offensive content? I think there are still a few countries that do that sort of thing...
Re:Huh? (Score:1)
Re:The buck has to stop somewhere. (Score:2)
Sure, there are child pornographers all over the place that are producing this trash and they're the ones that are actually posting it, but its the ISP's that make it possible, so the ISP's are COMPLETELY to blame.
-Restil
restil@alignment.net
PS. This message is an example of sarcasm.
Re:Common carrier status (Score:1)
I think that if an ISP is notified of something like this, they should check it out, and if there really is something illegal going on, they should remove it. That's different than requiring ISPs to constantly scan their own newsgroups for illegal content.
Basically, if the ISP doesn't know about it, they can't be responsible for it, but if they are informed, they must do something about it. Seems pretty fair to me.
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Re:Very simple answer (Score:2)
Child pornography, no matter who you talk to, is deplorable. We're talking common sense here: if you're an ISP don't let your servers have illegal stuff if you can help it. Period.
How USENET works (Score:2)
"Ok, children, gather 'round. Old Tom's gonna tell you about some old school technology. Back before the web, we had something called USENET..."
"USENET?! Isn't that nothing but spam?"
"Well, maybe so these days, Junior. But once upon a time, it was the way to get information around. And in fact, one of its main principles is coming back around these days. See, USENET is basically a peer-to-peer network.
"If I wanted to post to, say, alt.sex.goats, why, I write up my post and send it off to my local NNTP server, asking the server `Please post this to alt.sex.goats.' Now, the server has no way of knowing whether my post has anything to do with goat sex or not. That's why USENET fell to the spammers...damn Cantor and Siegal...green cards...
"Sorry. Mind starts to wander when you're actually old enough to remember USENET. Anyway, the NNTP server holds on to the message and makes it available for anyone else who uses that server and reads alt.sex.goats. And - now here's the clever part - other NNTP servers connect to this one every so often, and say `Give me all your new messages.' Then my post gets copied to the inquiring server. Then other servers will ask that one for new messages, and my post will get propaged around the world!
"(Way, way back when, some of that propagation happened over dial-up lines, via the UUCP. But that's really old school tech.)
"There's no central server, no central authority, and no one owns or controls a newsgroup. (Yeah, there's moderation, but that's more of a convention that a real technical feature.) All that NNTP servers know about messages are what the author provides, including the newsgroups name. And there's cancelation messages that other people can send out to say `ignore that message', but they're inherently no more authoritative than the messages themselves.
"All right, you whippersnappers, that's enough. If you want more, use that new-fangled web thing and go search Google [google.com] or something."
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Thoughts (Score:1)
Re:Very simple answer (Score:1)
alt.porn.child.fourteen (Score:1)
Now, I didn't have time to READ the article, so if this isn't the case, feel free to flame.
--------
Genius dies of the same blow that destroys liberty.
Re:The buck has to stop somewhere. (Score:3)
I think if cyberspace were thought of as a physical location then most (if not all) existing laws would naturally apply as intended.
Phone companies should be liable (Score:1)
content (or illegal threat, etc.) so I guess
I can sue the phone company for allowing that
content to be transmitted over their lines, right?
According to the napster decision, Its up to the company to monitor all uses of its product, and
stop the illegal ones.
Re:Lawyers == Knights of U.S. feudalism? definatel (Score:2)
Since the laws against duels passed during the 19th century made an individual's appeal of last resort words, rather than the non-verbal fair contest of the cultures ancestral to Common Law, it is incumbant on those who confiscated the monopoly on force to recognize that they are transforming words from, primarily, a mode of communication into, primarily, a means of manipulation. That is the nature of appeals of last resort.
I don't think you solve the problem with feudalism by extending its errors to confiscating the power of words as well as weapons from the commons, with or without a parliament (including the Icelandic Althing circa 1000AD). The solution I have proposed is closer to a pre-feudal system of insurance enhanced up by actuarial technologies that clarify the economic relationship between protector and protected. It might even be called "warrior insurance [geocities.com]" as distinct from the gangster "insurance" of feudalism and its parliamentary spawn.
Re:Apples and Oranges time.... (Score:1)
Re:We can see the beginning of this in 1998... (Score:1)
Well, no, but I doubt that the US Postal Service would have willingly continued to deliver mail like that had it recieved a request from a customer or a law enforcement agency to discontinue... as a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure that it's against USPS regulations to knowingly deliver illegal material.
You don't understand USENET... (Score:2)
The answer of course is that news admins shouldn't have to worry about it and should just censor nothing, being common carriers as they are. They aren't responsible for censoring illicit material, any more than the phone company is responsible for censoring people plotting crimes or seducing young boys/girls. It's just not their job, or their fault. If presented with a court order to trace a user who's posting illicit crap, fine. But to eliminate a newsgroup based on its name or part of its traffic--bullshit. This one case isn't telling. if the news provider had fought, I'm sure the Court would have recognized it as a common carrier not responsible for content.
Even in groups where more questionable, sometimes downright heinous, material is posted, there is still often a wonderful flow of constructive discussion. As an example, the group mentioned in this articleisn't actually called "Pedo University"--if you know anything about USENET, you know this isn't a proper name--is alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pre-teen , and it's full of text discussions as well as binaries which I wouldn't ever risk downloading. But I have downloaded the text, as there's nothing illegal about that, and I've found the discussions to be amusing, entertaining, and sometimes even educational.
See, when you connect to a newsgroup, assuming your news server carries it, you retrive the header data for each article--subject line, line count, etc. Then you can choose which articles to download, based on that information. Now, I started writing a novel some time ago in which one of the characters frequents the electronic underground, and one of the places I went for research was the newsgroup alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pre-teen, because it was well-publicized when the then-Attorney General of NY Dennis Vacco led a bust which included some of the people who posted binaries to that group. Some of those people were members of a fictional, cyberspace-only "club" called "Pedo University," which in reality is a bunch of people who post mostly text to one another in that newsgroup, interacting as the fictional faculty members of an imaginary girls' school. They have nicknames like "Dean Groucho" (who started the imaginary institution, and "hired" the other "faculty" members from among people who consistently post interesting text commentary for a substantial length of time), "Wildman, Professor of Genealogy," "Herod, Professor of Classical Studies," "Frank McCoy, Director, Family Counseling Office," "Dr. Stein, Dan of Anatomical Studies and Pre-Admission Physicals," "Godfather, U.S. Customs Liason," and "Pall Mall, Director of Psychotropic Plant Research." Ony 1 member of this P.U. group has ever been arrested for child pornography, as far as I know; I believe his handle was Pancho. Some members openly use their own names and such, as they aren't into illicit pictures at all--Frank McCoy, for example, writes stories about sex with young girls, which he's free to do under the First Amendment, and possesses/posts nothing ilegal, so uses his own name and says the police are welcome to drop by and look at his PC.
Now, I went to the newsgroup after the original Vacco bust--the guilty plea by this ISP is a result of this bust 2 years ago--to read text posts to try to learn how to write the character I had planned. Well, what I found was a vibrant group of very funny people with a running joke about being faculty members at an imaginary girls' school. From what I read, there's a lot of illegal binary material posted to the group, though I haven't seen any of it--text only, since I have no desire to be arrested and since I'm not sexually attracted to anyone under about 16 or so, like most heterosexual males. Some of the material posted even offends many members of PU--like a series of an 8 year old being raped by her father, who thankfully was arrested recently after censored pics of the girl were shown on *America's Most Wanted*. The members of PU all cheered when that guy was arrested, and rightfully so. It's just a bunch of people with an unfortunate sexual orientation and a damn fine sense of humor, not a bunch of child molesters, who post text on the group, not molest children. Though I came with the intention of reading text for a few weeks for character research, I liked the people and their humour so much that I still read the group and occasionally talk with the group's regulars.
So, how is the group, in and of itself, illegal? It isn't. Only some of the binaries are illegal; the text isn't. If you want to advocate that ISPs and news servers block binaries in these groups once the authorities give them the message IDs, fine. That puts the burden on law enforcement, where it belongs--and it's easy enough for a news admin to cancel/delete a message by mesage ID. But for law enforcement to try to block entire groups based on name and a portion of content puts an undue burden on both the ISP and free speech. For one thing, it's clearly prior restraint. Niow, an ISP has every right to voluntarily choose not to carry certain groups, and many do. Many others carry all groups, advocating free speech. To strong-arm them into erasing certain groups from their group files is unconstitutional prior restraint on speech, period. As I said, LEA should give news providers lists of illicit message IDs, if they want to censor USENET. That would be constitutional. But what they have done now, in this case, isn't, and I wish the ISP had had more backbone. We need to start fighting for our rights, not buckling under because it's the expediant thing to do. While the right to make-believe about an imaginary Pedo University may not be a right you like, it's still free speech, and shouldn't be put under prior restraint. The police are trammeling rights all over the place, unfairly jailing people like the now-cleared suspect in the Gallaudet murder case, publicly pointing the finger at innocent people like Richard Jewell, trying 10 year olds as adults to appease a lynch-mob-like public witchhunt spurred on by the ratings-whoring media, and murdering innocent civilians like at Ruby Ridge. We need to draw a line, and hold them accountable. We need to start saying, I may not like that, but it's a right and should not be abridged. I hope we all start dropping your own type of attitude, and cring about principles over shortsighted rhetoric.
My ISP is also liable... (Score:1)
It's time to hold the ISPs accountable!
Re:alt.porn.child.fourteen (Score:1)
Even if the newsgroup WAS intended for binaries, not nearly all of the content would be illegal. And it sure isn't ISP's job make a judgment about the legality of a particular message.
no precedent set (Score:2)
This is not a precedent in any way -- the ISP pled guilty under a plea bargain. It would only be a precedent if this was a judgement based on evidence presented to the court -- the only thing the court saw in this case was motions and a guilty plea.
I can only assume that the NYSAG used some nice arm-twisting threats with a sentencing recommendation in exchange for not burying this poor ISP with 10 years worth of bankruptcy-inducing legal procedures. If the ISP were larger, I'm sure they'd have fewer qualms about defending their common carrier status...
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I'd love to see some "Kittie porn" (Score:2)
Re:Legal Kiddy Porn (Score:1)
Re:case of legal requirements (Score:2)
Newsgroups are not like websites. They can't peddle a damn thing.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Re:How USENET works (Score:1)
Re:A little education about the law (Score:1)
Well I think that free speech (or the 1st amandment as you Americans call the same thing) should be unconditional. No exceptions. I don't like kiddie pornography, but trading those pictures is pretty much a victimless crime, and for the sake of free speech, we must accept it, because if we make ANY limitations to free speech, we're ultimately no better than authorities of communistic China, for example.
Re:alt.porn.child.fourteen (Score:1)
Besides, is it ISP's job to decide what content is illegal and what is not?
Re:alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children? (Score:2)
If, on the other hand, you are arguing from personal knowledge, please turn yourself in.
Re:Problem is (Score:1)
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children? (Score:3)
If it was content being posted to comp.os.linux.advocacy I think it would be questionable for the ISP to know anything about this.
However if it was alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children or any of the other usenet groups which obviously contain child pornography, the ISP is responsible for not doing something about it.
Too bad they didn't put the ISP in Canada (Score:2)
A thousand mistaken goatse.cx redirects on their heads.
Breakthrough in war against IP stealing (Score:2)
"In a law of physics knowing no geopolitical bundaries, electricity providers are morally and socially obligated to patrol their power grid for inappropriate usage.
The songs were those recorded by Metallica, which clearly goes beyond any policy for acceptable use.
Re:I agree they should be held liable (Score:2)
Sexual fantasies are all about fiction. If some perverted person posts a story in alt.sex.stories entitled "How I Raped My Neighbor's Great-Grandmother", we could conclude that this person had very strange and disturbing tastes, far outside our social norms. We would not, however, take it as a factual account, without some other evidence.
That's what a lot of child porn viewing is about - a fantasy. Yes, a strange and disturbing fantasy, and I would gladly break the neck of anyone who tried to force such a fantasy onto any young kid I know. But so long as it remains in their brain, their fantasies are none of my business.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
case of legal requirements (Score:2)
Sounds kinda like common sense to me
Re:failed to take action ... (Score:2)
Ok, yes this is a different matter entirely... and wasn't clear to me at all from reading the press release. This is bullshit. If the newsgroup isn't under their control, I don't get how they are expected to block passthru traffic.
So, did they really break the law then? Or, did they just cop a plea to make it stop?
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Re:The buck has to stop somewhere. (Score:2)
You know of some software than can accurately (say... 99.9%) judge whether a picture is porn of a young-looking 18 year old, or porn of a 17 year old? Last I knew, software couldn't do this... or even accurately distinguish between 10 year old porn and 25 year old porn.
Yes, it'd be nice to put a lid on things, but pretending a problem is easier than it is won't do anything, other than unnecessarily give a lot of ISP's headaches (and worse) that they don't deserve.
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How Responsible must an ISP be? (Score:2)
That is indeed an interesting question. One might say that they have a responsibility to AT LEAST get a peer review service into place. What is meant by that is that they have an email address where, upon users finding illegal material on a newsgroup, that the users write this email addy and someone at the company checks it out. Someone might say that this would be a "Good Thing," and I would to, except for a few problems...
For starters: what is the ISP supposed to do if it finds a news group FULL of illegal contact... they monitor it for a while and it never chances.. illegal contact all the time. The easy answer would be to remove it.
For something a little harder: It finds a news group that has been "Taken Over" by an illegal internet ring. Example: Say there is a Disney(c) newsgroup and it was unmoderated. Say that a group of child pornographers who start posting their content on this newsgroup, bothering the 50% of the people who use the newsgroup for its intention. So, 50% of the messages are from an illegal group, the other 50% are from users (legit users) of the group... what then? How would you deal with that? Close down that group too?
Next example: How about we use our previous example.. say there is a Disney(c) newsgroup that has 10-15 messages that contain illegal content out of 500 messages that are "legit newsgroup messages".. how would you deal with that then? Get rid of the group too?
I do believe that the ISP's should not knowingly carry newsgroups whose intention is to disseminate illegal content, but the questions are "What do they do??" and "How much illegal content is too much?" If X messages that are illegal can be enough to shut down a newsgroup we could have people trying to shutdown specific newsgroups by doing this. Of course I am ignoring the term "Illegal Content" -- what is illegal in one country, is legal in another, etc etc but please forgive that...
Precedental speach (Score:2)
Since the defendants * plead guilty * no arguments were heard, no judicial decision was made and * no precedent was set.*
Sheesh.
kfg
Re:Blanket immunity isn't good... (Score:3)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Re:CDA Immunity (Score:4)
Re:articles v. newsgroups (Score:2)
1. Drop the groups that are *intended* to carry kiddie porn.
2. Run a filter on the incoming feed that drops articles cross-posted to them.
3. If you get a lot of complaints about misplaced kiddie porn, bitch to the admins at the injection point(s).
Item 1 is viable if only a symbolic gesture. Then comes the matter of exactly what is kiddie porn?
Item 2 won't work because once you thwart kiddie porn posters from posting to alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children, they will start posting to other newsgroups. There's no way to filter this.
Item 3 is considerable work. Maybe it would be effective. Hard to say. The key work is complaints.
Re:articles v. newsgroups (Score:2)
Obviously the situation is very different if there's a significant amount of obscene material in the group. But that's something that needs to be investigated - simply deleting groups because of their name or an isolated article opens the door to broad attacks on "undesirable" sites. The last thing we want is to implicitly encourage posting this type of material because it's the fastest way to shut down something like alt.abortions or talk.politics.guns.
Re:Very simple answer (Score:2)
You know it isn't a good idea. After all, who's to decide what's "not popular?" I'll tell you that more than half of the countries in the world would allow a 15 year old to get married. In America, it's a crime.
If child porn groups are prosecuted successfully, than the next will be warez groups, and then the mp3's. Just because something is unpopular doesn't mean it's supposed to be ruled against. I don't see much difference between carrying illegal copies of mp3's and child porn, they are all illegal.
Whoah boy are you off base! (Score:2)
PS: Occam's (or Ockham's) Razor [davis.ca.us] is "plurality should not be posited without necessity." Your supposed quote was a bastardization of Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity" by Robert Heinlein (Logic of Empire, 1941), the primary use of which has historically been either by or in defense of those engaged in some sort of malfeasance of office. My, less abusable, quote, with which I always rejoin is Bowery's Razor: "Never attribute to sheer stupidity that which can be adequately explained by unenlightened self-interest." Live by it.
Whoops! (Score:2)
If I've made the world a better place, it isn't because I, for a time [geocities.com], chose a political route [geocities.com] to do so. What my successes in politics have shown me is that it is time for Mr. Smith to go home [washingtonpost.com] and work around the system with technical innovation, rather than within it through political action.
Re:case of legal requirements (Score:2)
Re:Blanket immunity isn't good... (Score:4)
I'd like to know just what it is that you find so offensive about this [kittyporn.org].
Honestly, seek counseling, or learn to spell. Or both.
Re:We can see the beginning of this in 1998... (Score:2)
I am sure of that too, but how would they know they are delivering illegal content (the USPS that is) -- by going through each letter? I believe I will let Buffnet speak for itself... -- found at http://www.buffnet.net/ag/ [buffnet.net]
Re:alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children? (Score:2)
The majority of posts to comp.os.linux.misc do not contain information on Bicycles. That's sort of the reason why usenet newsgroups have descriptive names instead of numbers. I know if I want linux information I go to c.o.l.m, and not group #2048.
I don't think it's much of a leap of logic to assume a group named alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children contains erotic pictures of children. aka. kiddy porn.
Especially after they've been notified that is what the group contains.
Re:alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children? (Score:2)
See also 18 USC 2251 is also closely related which makes it illegal to advertise child pornography.
It harms the victims (Score:2)
Providing access to child porn harms the children in the photos. That is the legal basis [asacp.com] why pedo stuff is regulated more harshly than just about anything else (except for media content owned by multinationals, sigh). Many organizations [yahoo.com] argue this position much more clearly than I do.
Re:CONTEXT=NULL;. (Score:2)
Re:Should have RIP in the USA (Score:2)
Re:Scary (Score:2)
I think the "knowing" part is important, and the "storage" part is not. Akamai stores illegal content temporarily, just as ISP's do with usenet binaries. But ISP's get to choose which data streams to pass along, and it chose one which is well-known to contain a large amount illegal content.
So, from a legal standpoint, how much illegal content can exist, before the chooser can no longer legally pass the group on? Certainly groups that have only one illegal post per year should be let through, it's bound to happen on the internet. But is 10 okay? 40? 200? 500?
--
quick commentary (Score:2)
bye,
-jimbo
Apples and Oranges time.... (Score:2)
Is a restaurant owner really liable if someone gets food poisoning from the food that they serve?
I think I made my point.
Re:The buck has to stop somewhere. (Score:2)
China: "There is nothing to stop someone from hosting pro-democracy material in Outer Mongolia and hence avoiding the law."
The fact that national borders stop laws but not communication is a good thing, not a bad thing.
The best way forward is for people to get over the idea that someone is looking at stuff they don't like.
Yes, child sexual abuse is horrible. Find the people who do it and lock them up. But don't use the spectre of "child pornography" to restrict free speech.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Re:Very simple answer (Score:2)
There's not much "there" there. I'm tempted to say there's nothing there.
All a newsgroup-name based ban would do is establish a precedence for banning newsgroups on the basis of their name, not specific objectionable content.
The Bottom Line. (Score:2)
No, the bottom line is that people like you will either be the downfall of liberty, or (hopefully, but doubtfully) be stamped out by the more reasonable and tolerant.
I need not quote the two similar Jefferson and Franklin quotes usually brought up in situations like these, but needless to say, you don't deserve to be an American. That's not a flame, it's just what our Founding Fathers would have said. People such as yourself kill freedom, for silly mistaken reasons. In another thread on this discussion you said that neighborhoods with a high rate of criminal activity should be bulldozed. Instead, people like you should be bulldozed. You advocate mass censorship of media which have legitimate uses in discourse, calling them a "public menace." Sir, places and media are not a public menace; people with your censorious attitude are.
As for how you say things should be handled in terms of jurisdiction: bollocks. The Federal government has authority to regulate interstate commerce; however, it has not the authority under the Constitution to regulate interstate morality. That is the whole reason we have state governments--so that they can legislate based on the customs and temperaments of the people living therein. The Federal government has no more right to hold an ISP in New York City accountable for being a conduit for something which is illegal in Oklahoma City, than the government of Singapore has to hold the U.S. responsible for something it allows to be put online. Unfortunately, we've been in a Federalist mode in the Court for the past several decades, but the tone is changing and with a Bush appointee or two in the next few years the Court should once again begin respeting Amendment X of the U.S. Constitution.
The same holds true for International accords--the EU notwithstanding, what an ISP in The Hague or Madrid or Berlin or Osaka or San Diego can and cannot be held accountable for, will still remain as different as can be. Fortunately, some countries are blessed with a citizenry which relishes freedom more than that of the U.S. now does.
As for your understanding of USENET, it cannot be as extensive as you seem to believe if you think newsgroups are ever, as you put it, "shut down." It is a well-known fact that there will always be another server which carries any given group if one's ISP stops carrying it. Almost all people serious about USENET use a "premium" news server in addition to their ISP, and despite your wishing it so, this case is not a precedent and the Court will definitely hold that government attempts to stamp out a newsgroup based on some of its content is unlawful prior restraint of speech. You conveniently neglected to address such points as that when I made them in the post above.
soc.motss, or How Do You Know What's In It? (Score:2)
Any guesses as to what this newsgroup contains? If you're baffled, you are supposed to be. soc.motss was the first USENET forum for homosexuals. "motss" stands for "Members Of The Same Sex." The people who created this forum in the 80's felt that soc.gays or soc.homosexual would make the newsgroup too visible to online gaybashers. It wasn't an attempt to hide in the USENET closet -- the forum was publically accessable to all -- just an attempt to avoid bigots looking for someone to harrass.
Anyway, after reading a zillion posts from people who've probably never even used NNTP claiming that "it's obvious what's in alt.picture.erotica.children," I had to comment. Sure, that newsgroup is easy to spot, but anyone can create an alt group if they want to. Would an ISP block alt.asdf.jk.hasd? I mean, would you even have time to find out what the hell was in it?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Apples and Oranges time.... (Score:2)
I don't know about the laws protecting people from crummy food in a restaurant, but civil action does and often happens when this is the case (and provable) and the restaurant can lose their license, etc.
Re:Common carrier status (Score:2)
That's what courts are for.
If someone posts something I don't like can I tell the hosting company that it's illegal - or get the police to do it for me?
If the matter of legality is decided by the LEAs we have a police state.
I know that somethings may be easy to judge as illegal or undesirable and kiddie porn is despicable (to put it mildldy) but while I would censor paedophile porn (if it was up to me) I don't know where or how the line can be drawn between free speech and porn.
To me the ISP possibly fouled up by not pulling the posts based on it's AUP - and yes I know it was usenet but their AUP should cover this to, if only to protect themselves from this.
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Re:Should have RIP in the USA (Score:2)
Are you trolling, or are you really that fscking dense?
"Only people with something to hide need fear," indeed. I suppose you would have no objection to the government reading your mail, searching your house, or performing full body cavity searches, without at least a warrant?
"People with something to hide" often includes anyone with opinions contrary to those of the current regime. Go do a little research on the US COINTELPRO operation in the 1960s. Read about about the unjustified raids on groups protesting at the WTO and World Bank meetings.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Buffnet's Version of the Story (Score:2)
Re:I agree they should be held liable (Score:2)
And how is the ISP admin to know that a photo titled "16 year old" isn't actually 18? Or a Photoshop composite?
The cops should be out finding people who are actually sexually abusing children, not stomping on free speech in the name of preventing people from looking at pictures -real or faked - of that abuse.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Re:I agree they should be held liable (Score:2)
Well in the US we have the principle of innocent until proven guilty.
But usually if someone admits guilt, we trust them. Well now if the admission of guilt was beaten out of them, then we have other problems.
But your not saying the confession was beat out of the guy. The guy came right out and broadcast it to public.
You are saying if I rob a bank and then go to the FBI and say "I robbed that bank", that the FBI should just ignore me because they didn't see it happen.
What an odd reality you must live in.
This could be the end of news (or not) (Score:2)
If ISPs are forced to monitor every message that goes into and out of their news servers, that's easily understood as the final death of the once great Usenet. ISPs simply cannot monitor the contents of all the messages, even with more than a lot of resources. Seeing as Usenet newsgroups give no direct income to ISPs (you can't put banner ads in news postings), the only reasonable action would be to discontinue the service.
We'll see if this really sets precedence. There was an equivalent case in Sweden some years ago. They went over the content once and was forgiven. (I doubt American jurisdiction will be that kind though.) When the silly student's newspaper at our university screamed about how students could get pornography from the internet, our IT staff threatened to put the news server to sleep. They warned that if people were that hysteric about it, they'd simply have to deprive students of all internet access. The news server is still up and running and I can still access the internet, so I guess these hysterical waves are just that.. waves that'll pass
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Re:A little education about the law (Score:2)
Thanks for summarizing the prevailing view of tyrrany^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hthe law in the US.
I don't agree with everything in the Lawful Arrest FAQ, but it makes some interesting arguments. Like, if crime is not defined in terms of victims and injury, but instead is defined as a "violation of the law", it is paradoxial and self-referential!
Huh? This is the "Begging the question" fallacy. It's an infinite loop. Put these in your computer programs and they will generate heat, but do little else
Publishers (Score:2)
Of course, this is quite unfair because the webmaster does not have the same rights as a book publisher has. One of the rationalizations for making the publisher liable for what he or she puts out is that in most cases the publisher intends to make money from this endeavor. Thus, any highly marketable libel or slander that a tabloid would publish would be highly prohibited regulated by the government.
I don't see how weblog or newsgroup admins, who profit only indirectly from this work if at all, are in the same boat as publishes. These admins provide what is essentially a non-profit, free speech service in an overall package for their customers. The authors should be liable, not the admins. If they have any responsibilities at all, it should be to loudly notify their customers of applicable laws, thus further absolving themselves of responsibility.
Blanket immunity isn't good... (Score:3)
For example, if you are providing a channel, or hosting a site entitled Kittie Porn, you should be responsible. If you just pull everything down, you shouldn't. It's a judgement thing.
For example, Napster enables MP3 sharing. In and of itself, this is innocent. However, Napster will scan your hard drive for you and offer to share out all your MP3s. The problem with this is that while it is legal for me to rip a CD that I own (or I'll argue, a friend owns) for my own purposes, I can't legally share it out. Napster encourages you to do so. Intent matters.
For example, if google happens to index a kiddie porn site, they didn't intentionally do it and shouldn't be responsible.
If I provide a site that is a directory of kiddie porn sites, I SHOULD be responsible, even if I'm just linking. If I provide a link to a site that is legal porn, and they add kiddie porn, I shouldn't be.
Basically, if you are intentionally doing something shady, you are responsible. If something happens beyond your control, safe harbor should protect you.
Re:Blanket immunity isn't good... (Score:2)
But you are wrong. Sellers of blank VCR tapes are not held accountable because movies are bootlegged. There is a legitimate legal use, which legalizes it even if a majority of people used it for copyright theft. Read the Betamax case. Its the same concept.
Linking does not cause anyone to go to the site, nor store it. Granted its "shady" but does not constitute a crime. Telling someone that a blow to the nose driving it into the brain can kill someone does not make you guilty of murder.
The law must be black and white or it will be abused by those with money. They can hire lobbyists and lawyers until they are exonerated because of gray areas while those without such resources are jailed.
Intent is impossible to judge without a shadow of a doubt.
CDA Immunity (Score:5)
Guh... why aren't the courts looking at the laws? I don't really understand that.
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Re:failed to take action ... (Score:2)
There's a difference between asking a content provider to take down a specific post, and asking an intermediary access provider to block a section of the internet forever, because it typically has illegal content on it.
--
From the Dawn of the Internet (Score:5)
The question at hand is this: How do we mold the early videotex environment so that noise is suppressed without limiting the free flow of information between customers?
The first obstacle is, of course, legal. As the knights of U.S. feudalism, corporate lawyers have a penchant for finding ways of stomping out innovation and diversity in any way possible. In the case of videotex, the attempt is to keep feudal control of information by making videotex system ownership imply liability for information transmitted over it. For example, if a libelous communication takes place, corporate lawyers for the plaintiff will bring suit against the carrier rather than the individual responsible for the communication. The rationalizations for this clearly unreasonable and contrived position are quite numerous. Without a common carrier status, the carrier will be treading on virgin ground legally and thus be unprotected by precedent. Indeed, the stakes are high enough that the competitor could easily afford to fabricate an event ideal for the purposes of such a suit. This means the first legal precedent could be in favor of holding the carrier responsible for the communications transmitted over its network, thus forcing (or giving an excuse for) the carrier to inspect, edit and censor all communications except, perhaps, simple person-to-person or "electronic mail". This, in turn, would put editorial control right back in the hands of the feudalists. Potential carriers' own lawyers are already hard at work worrying everyone about such a suit. They would like to win the battle against diversity before it begins. This is unlikely because videotex is still driven by technology and therefore by pioneers.
The question then becomes: How do we best protect against such "legal" tactics? The answer seems to be an early emphasis on secure identification of the source of communications so that there can be no question as to the individual responsible. This would preempt an attempt to hold the carrier liable. Anonymous communications, like Delphi conferencing, could even be supported as long as some individual would be willing to attach his/her name to the communication before distributing it. This would be similar, legally, to a "letters to the editor" column where a writer remains anonymous. Another measure could be to require that only individuals of legal age be allowed to author publishable communications. Yet another measure could be to require anyone who wishes to write and publish information on the network to put in writing, in an agreement separate from the standard customer agreement, that they are liable for any and all communications originating under their name on the network. This would preempt the "stolen password" excuse for holding the carrier liable.
Beyond the secure identification of communication sources, there is the necessity of editorial services. Not everyone is going to want to filter through everything published by everyone on the network. An infrastructure of editorial staffs is that filter. In exchange for their service the editorial staff gets to promote their view of the world and, if they are in enough demand, charge money for access to their list of approved articles. On a videotex network, there is little capital involved in establishing an editorial staff. All that is required is a terminal and a file on the network which may have an intrinsic cost as low as $5/month if it represents a publication with "only" around 100 articles. The rest is up to the customers. If they like a publication, they will read it. If they don't they won't. A customer could ask to see all articles approved by staffs A or B inclusive, or only those articles approved by both A and B, etc. This sort of customer selection could involve as many editorial staffs as desired in any logical combination. An editorial staff could review other editorial staffs as well as individual articles, forming hierarchies to handle the mass of articles that would be submitted every day. This sort of editorial mechanism would not only provide a very efficient way of filtering out poor and questionable communications without inhibiting diversity, it would add a layer of liability for publications that would further insulate carriers from liability and therefore from a monopoly over communications.
In general, anything that acts to filter out bad information and that is not under control of the carrier, acts to prevent the carrier from monopolizing the evolution of ideas on the network.
You carry alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children? (Score:2)
God God Dammit! (Score:2)
Scary (Score:2)
If this becomes a real precedent, then:
- Any point on the Internet must block a site, once they're notified that a particular site is illegal (eg. a national blacklist, implemented in border routers).
- Entire websites or newsgroups can be blocked, if a sufficient percentage of its content is illegal.
I can't imagine how such a precedent could remain for very long.--
Re:Should have RIP in the USA (Score:2)
However I'm not in the UK, and I believe in privacy.
I think that illegal behavior should be prevented, but monitoring the activities of citizens in the privacy of their own home is wrong.
Why stop at kiddie porn, why not arrest people for visiting the website of the Republican party?
That's the danger of things like RIP, Carnivore, etc.
Ok, think of it this way. In London they have cameras on street corners watching what people do in public. I actually find this acceptable, just think of it as a guaranteed eye-witness.
But would you think it was ok to mount cameras in your home so that the government could monitor what you do in your living room?
Re:case of legal requirements (Score:2)
*snort* oh I get it. What they're doing is ok, but because you assume that they are stupid, it has to be opposed anyway on the assumption that it was just an accident that it was a good thing?
Its funny how there's such a fine line between paranoia and egomania, isn't it? You aren't that complicated. The net isn't that complicated. Anyone can understand the difference between opening a feed to the entire WWW that you have to make consious efforts to block, and a system (USENET) where in most cases the provider has to make a consious effort to add content to its own servers. Its not that difficult, even people with a significantly longer and more complex education than yours can understand it.
If you REALLY think that those dumb judges that only had to go to school for eight years and clerk for a few more and prove themselves as a lawyer to get where they are can't understand that, why don't you make a big contribution to the EFF with a request that they prepare a "friend of the court brief" (cue lawyers saying 'how could those stupid techies be expected to understand what that is?') to be submitted on similar cases that try to inapropriately use this as precident?
But that could actually accomplish something.
Kahuna Burger
Re:Common carrier status (Score:2)
If someone posts something I don't like can I tell the hosting company that it's illegal - or get the police to do it for me? If the matter of legality is decided by the LEAs we have a police state.
I disagree. LEAs must, by definition, make certain judgement calls on illegal activity in order to do their job. Do you want a judge to have to make a ruling on whether whats happening is domestic violence before the cops can even come into the house and remove the spouse who is attacking you? LEOs have to make arrests, issue warnings and begin preliminary (non warrent requiring) investigations without first proving the case in a court of law.
I see no problem with an LEA saying "we have a report of what appears to be a legal violation on your servers, if you don't take it down, we will begin an official investigation of it and have a judge decide if you should be punished." This is far more lenient than they would be with most crimes! Can you imagine if you were being mugged and a cop walked up and said "hey, this looks like a mugging, and if you don't stop now, I'm gonna have to think about arresting you."?
Now there are obvious reasons for being lenient, as this is more like a health or fire code violation than an assualt. But in those cases, the situation is handled exactly the same as what you are claiming is a police state. "There seems to be a violation here, but its the sort of thing that could be an aberation rather than on purpose, so I'm going to give you a chance to fix it before I begin official proceedings that would definitivly establish it as a violation and get you in major trouble."
Now if you really WANT it to go the other possible way, where the first hint of violation is carried all the way to a judge who then hands out an official judgement that they are criminals, we could do it that way. But I suspect we'd be hearing screams of "thought police" and "overzealous prosecution" then. ;->
Kahuna Burger
We can see the beginning of this in 1998... (Score:2)
There was only one other ISP that was cracked down on.. dreamscape...
Both of these ISP's are in upper state new york.
BuffNet itself has a VERY nice explanation of all that happened at http://www.buffnet.net/ag/ [buffnet.net].
For those afraid of the infamous Goat, a VERY VERY brief part of it had this to say:
"When someone sends illegal material through the U.S. Mail, they don't arrest the people in the Post Office." said BuffNET V.P. Mike Hassett. "It seems like the Attorney General arrested the people who posted. They didn't have BuffNET accounts." Hassett stated. "Federal law protects ISPs. Isn't it intriguing that he [Vacco] chose only 2 ISP's, both in upstate New York? Is it coincidence that Vacco won his last election relying on upstate New York votes? Why weren't the other 1000 plus ISP's in New York State a target of his investigation? Why weren't BuffNET's peers that provided the newsgroups under investigation?" inquired Hassett. "
Re:It's.. (Score:2)
Agreed, at least in a moral sense. But where do you draw the line? What if people start posting kiddie porn to alt.binaries.mp3? Are news admins supposed to know that? What if it becomes common knowledge that kiddie porn is showing up in alt.binaries.mp3? Should news servers drop the group? Should news admins who thought it was a group for music be held responsible because it's "widely known" that kiddie porn gets posted there?
Don't get me wrong - I AM NOT defending the type of material involved here. But to hold an ISP or a news admin responsible for something that someone else posted to a newsgroup (any group, regardless of the name) is inane.
Everyone seems to jump on kiddie porn, and say "kiddie porn is illegal, nobody should carry alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children." But hacking, for the most part, is illegal as well. Should ISPs be forced to drop alt.hacking? What about alt.2600? What about alt.cellular?
You see, once you step down the slippery slope... There's no coming back up.
Shaun
How are they supposed to monitor... (Score:4)
If I own a business and put up a bulletin board (physical, not electronic) for my employees to use for free and somebody posts a piece of kiddie pron on it, am I liable? Should I have to put that bulletin board behind glass, lock it down, and have an approval process for new postings? What if they tape it to the glass? How the hell are we supposed to regulate the actions of someone else? Shit the police can't even regulate the speeds of someone else! What if someone posts not a picture of kiddie pron but a short story about underage sex? Am I liable? What am I liable for? The 1st Amendment covers that. Now it may offend some woman and she sues someone for sexual harrasment. Whos' she going to sue? Me? Do I have to have hire someone to stand next to that board and check the content of everything that's posted as it's posted? Does anyone else think this is royally fscked up?
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A little education about the law (Score:2)
Please see the Lawful Arrest FAQ [faqs.org] for the defintion of "crime", "cause of action", and "probable cause". For your reference:
A crime (corpus delecti) must have:
- An Injury
- A criminal cause (not an accident or act-of-god)
Cause of Action requires:- A right
- An Injury
- A petition for restitution
Probable Cause is : Reason to believe that the accused caused the injury to the victimProbable Cause requires
Look, no one is denying that forcing a child to pose for nude photos (or worse) is a crime. And let's say some sicko scans them and posts them to Usenet. And let's say that Fred O. Phile likes to look at such pictures for erotic pleasure and downloads them from his ISP.
Ok, Fred is a pervert. But did he produce an injury to the child? No. The ISP is in the business of passing bits around. Did anyone at the ISP cause an injury to a child? No.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and assert that not every photo of a nude child actually produces an injury! BUT: if there was an injury produced, perhaps it was the guy that took the photo, and NOT the ISP, and not the guy that pulled it from a.b.p.k-p
Details from 10/98 story when charges were filed (Score:2)
The newsgroups in question were alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pre-teen and alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.early-teen; pretty non-subtle. There's a claim by the prosecution that the CDA had exceptions for child pornography, so the CDA's Good Samaritan provision (which was not struck down by the courts) does not apply.
The words "chilling effect" come to mind.
US Government Held Responsible (Score:3)
Dateline: Washington, D.C.
In breaking news today, the United States Government has been held responsible for the slaughter and oppression of thousands, at home and abroad.
"It's a fair cop," stated Representative Dick Gephardt. "What can I say? I like taking freedom and money from people."
"We've been playing our jackleg politico games for decades now. We've got a 2 trillion dollar budget and all of the guns, so what are you going to do about it?" asked House Majority Leader Dick Armey.
Including the massacre at Waco, the Body Count of the United States Government is now calculated as "more than you can shake a stick at, plus the stick" by most normal-thinking people in the country. "But, what can you do? They've got all the money and all the guns," exclaimed housewife Denise Smith.
In other news, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has been given a twirling wedgie by Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf. Hundreds stood idly by and watched, applauding in the end.
Very simple answer (Score:3)
Warez and regular porn is one thing. Child porn is almost universally hated.
Re:The buck has to stop somewhere. (Score:2)
Show me the technology to which you are referring. Unless you mean "everything" as being "restricting everything" that filter is known as "pulling-the-plug".
Seriously, filtering software is horrible, absolutely horrible. If anyone has been forced to surf the web through a filter proxy like Bess or another, they find out that bad stuff gets through at times and good stuff gets blocked.
In addition, to force an ISP to monitor all the content it hosts is IMPOSSIBLE. Imagine a webhosting site that offers $20/month hosting service. They may have a thousand sites or more, depending on the size of the company. To be responsible for the content of each of these sites is unrealistic.