Those hounding for American ISPs to censor the Internet have a new scheme up their selves. This time, surprisingly, it has nothing to do with “protecting the children.” The new bill titled the Investor Protection Act has been introduced by Representative Paul Kanjorski, a dumbass from Pennsylvania.
The bill would require ISPs to block sites hosting financial scams. Let me rephrase that, the bill would require ISPs to block all electronic material related to financial scams. This of course sounds like a good thing right? Wrong.
This is what I call the negotiating with terrorists maneuver. As a country we have an official stance to never negotiate with terrorists. It’s a good policy because if you negotiate with terrorists you open the floodgates to other terrorists attacking you in the hopes of negotiating something out of you. If you legally require ISPs to filter any single thing it opens the floodgates to legally force them to filter other materials using the last bill as precedence. Gun control laws often get passed now because way back when somebody decided bills restricting constitutional rights were OK in one situation.
As it sits right now ISPs are not forced to filter any traffic. If you get scammed that’s your fault. But alas don’t be stupid and you won’t get scammed, just like real life. On the other hand if you do something illegal your ISP will cooperate with law enforcement to take you down. The system right now works and keeps the Internet an open medium here in the United States. We need to shoot this bill down less we start dealing with other filtering bills.