California pols ask ISPs to block child porn

Update: This story was updated at 2:55 p.m. PDT to add comments from AT&T.

California's governor and attorney general are asking Internet service providers to help stop the dissemination of child pornography.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. issued a press release Friday asking Internet service providers in California to follow the lead of Verizon Communications, Time Warner Cable, and Sprint in "removing child pornography from existing servers and blocking channels" that disseminate the illegal material.

"Protecting the safety of our children must be a top priority, not just for government, but also for businesses with the direct power to reduce the ability to conduct illegal activity," they said in a joint letter to the California Internet Service Provider Association.

Earlier this month, Verizon, Time Warner, and Sprint announced an agreement with New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to purge their servers of existing child pornography and eliminate access to user groups that distribute child pornography.

Schwarzenegger and Brown said in their letter that it's important that ISPs in California take action that is similar to the steps Verizon, Time Warner, and Sprint have agreed to in New York. The Internet Service Provider Association is the largest association of Internet service providers in the country, representing more than 100 ISPs. These providers include small ISPs, as well as big ones such as AT&T and AOL.

"It is not enough for only a few Internet service providers to join the fight against online predators," the letter said. "Child pornography is not protected by the First Amendment, and distributing this material is illegal."

While no one disagrees that distributing child pornography is illegal, some civil liberty experts worry that the way in which ISPs will block access to it could limit free speech for people discussing and distributing perfectly legal content.

Verizon, Time Warner Cable, and Sprint have said they have no plans to actually block access to any Web sites. Instead, they plan to purge or erase any child pornography that has been cached in their servers. They also plan to limit or block access to some of their own Usenet or news groups, which can be used to disseminate this material.

For example, Time Warner Cable said it will cease to offer customers access to any Usenet newsgroups, a decision that will affect customers nationwide. Sprint said it would no longer offer any of the tens of thousands of alt.* Usenet newsgroups. Verizon's plan is to eliminate some "fairly broad newsgroup areas."

My colleague Declan McCullagh points out in a story he wrote following the New York announcement that this tactic will most likely silence thousands of legitimate user groups that use the alt.* hierarchy for Usenet discussions.

It's not surprising that the American Civil Liberties Union is opposed to this action. Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's technology and liberty program, told CNET News.com in McCullagh's earlier article that service providers shouldn't be blocking wholesale sections of the Internet, including Usenet groups, because it could eliminate legitimate discussions. "That's taking a sledgehammer to an ant," he was quoted as saying.

Indeed, this could turn out to be a big issue as California's politicians try to push for similar action among other Internet service providers. Some large providers such as AOL stopped carrying Usenet, but AT&T still does.

AT&T said that it is already working to fight online child pornography. "AT&T has long-standing and established procedures for the removal of illegal child pornography from our servers, including servers that host newsgroups," said Marty Richter, a representative for AT&T. "Consistent with these procedures and federal and state statutes, when we receive a report of any illegal content being hosted on our servers and we have a good faith basis for concluding that the content is illegal, we will remove it."

[unknown unknown]

With so many distributions options and third party Usenet access providers, it's hard to believe this will do much to curtail child porn.

[roggnel]

It looks like we are getting closer to the end of the "free" Internet. Poiticians don't seem to realize that many computers are dissemenating "Porn" without their owner's knowledge due to "Man in the middle" attacks and "bandwidth hijacking", perhaps even the politicians themselves. Before they ruin the Internet experience for everyone, perhaps they (and we) should understand how the Internet works or doesn't work and fix it - don't censor it out of existence!

[ChrisWWalsh]

The free internet died years ago, when the government stopped paying for it. <br /><br />The funny thing is, this initiative targets Usenet groups. Many ISPs would take any excuse to stop carrying Usenet groups! Usenet is a huge resource sink, requiring almost unjustifiable bandwidth and storage. And the vast majority of the traffic on Usenet is at best a copyright violation, and at worst is on par with child pornography.<br /><br />If the government targets illicit use of Usenet, many ISPs will get rid of it for economic reasons. I say more power to them, there are more than enough licit ways for legitimate conversations to occur. (Like this one, for example.)

[ExWinUser]

Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn't want the world to find out about all the underage girls he slept with.

[JoeF2]

Politicians again show that they are completely clueless about the Internet.<br />It is not just Ted "System of Tubes" Stevens. Even politicians in the state that is the cradle of the computer industry with the Silicon Valley are idiots.<br />Usenet has lots and lots of legitimate discussions. Blocking them is the height of stupidity.

[ti99_forever]

Hail, they all use Yahoo! Groups anyway!<br /><br />What with the photo section to share photos, file area, database and links sections and the ability to limit viewing only to members, it is the perfect place for such a thing as child porn.<br /><br />Especially with Yahoo!'s lack of responsibility when it comes to issues with its products... doubt there is any policing at all.

[scifi139]

Its good to see that the Gov. of California is asking the ISP"S to block porn from the internet .Some people needto be protected from themselves for the greater good

[scifi139]

Its good to see that the Gov. of California is asking the ISP"S to block porn from the internet .Some people needto be protected from themselves for the greater good

[boracho1]

I know this may be a crazy comment, but might the elimination of access to child porn media (pics, videos) only drive pedophiles to produce their own images instead of looking at existing material? I don't know just saying, maybe it's worth studying before you do something like this.

[malcarada]

And who will be held accountable when they block legitimate access "by mistake" as censorship filters always do.

[Had_to_be_said]

The sad fact is that this is NOT being done because politicians are ignorant, or mistaken, or mis-informed. This is part of an on-going, very-intentional, concerted, nation-wide effort (local, State, and Federal) to USE "child-porn" as an excuse to censor, monitor, and control many different levels of (and applications on) the Internet. <br /><P><BR><br /><br />The targets of this political-SHAM include; "Usenet", "web-access", "IM", and especially "P2P" (Yes... all those- terrible-, -terrible-, elements that the government, and numerous corporate, interests are simply DESPERATE to control).<br /><P><BR><br /><br />In short, this has NOTHING to do with "Child Porn". It is nothing more than a well-orchestrated LIE, being told to the public, and used for all manner of political, and control, purposes.<br /><P><BR><br /><br />And, (according to various political-sources) there is much, much, more of this planned for the near future. You are going to see an, almost unending, series of alarmist stories about "child porn", "investigations", and well-publicized arrests and prosecutions, everywhere... over the next few months. In fact, if you check the various news-sites around the country, it is clear that this has already begun.<br /><P><BR><br /><br />I guess since, "The War on Drugs", and "The War on Terror" have lost so much public-credibility (thanks to their obvious, artificial-nature, and clear abuse, by those in power)... this simply HAD to happen. It was absolutely inevitable, because these lying, manipulative, control-freaks will not stop until they are forcibly reigned-in (history has, repeatedly, proven this).<br /><P><BR><br /><br />This really is PATHETIC. But, what is even more pathetic is how many people are taken-in by this type of propaganda... over, and over, and over, again.<br /><P><BR>

[Dalkorian]

I'm glad someone here gets it. To those who think this is legitimate and a good idea, I have a question for you. What happens when the sick perverts who make this stuff available picks another avenue, say your favorite religious chat group? Will you still support censorship when it is obvious that it infringes upon your rights? Better yet, explain to me how we're supposed to stop these sick perverts when we're literally sweeping them, along with all their exploited children, under the rug instead of trying to find and punish them? How does this protect the children in any way?

[juggernt]

'Had_to_be_said' is (generally) QUITE correct. <br /><br />The US is a CAPITALIST society..which is both great &#38; very bad.<br /><br />While there are, likely, a handful of legitimate interests out there that want to block porn...(or get votes for claiming to aggressively defend against it) .. the driving motivation &#38; force that rallies legislator support is [primarily (1)] corporate &#38; mercenary greed &#38; [secondarily (2)] restrictive political agendas bent on constraining, minimizing, or completely eliminating Internet 'channels' deemed difficult to control.. like P2P, IM ,etc.<br /><br />In sum, it comes down to MONEY &#38; POWER..with a (very) small tip of the hat to legitimate moral intention. It's quite sad.

[Lsavagejt]

I recall an article in CNET news a while ago about how the FBI is now placing links to child pornography in some websites. What's up with that?<br /><br />The onus of responsibility for ensuring that child pornographers not pedal their garbage on otherwise legitimate (adult only) sites like YouPorn must rest with the ISPs and webmasters, not the consumer, otherwise it's like blaming the smoker for his cancer.

[benjaminstraight]

Good motive, but we will see if any bill would survive constitutional challenge.

[humanssssss]

Politicians are stupid. Why don't they block child porn on their system requesting the help of ISP to write a software program for them?!?! Instead ask ISP to block child porn for all people. What are they going to do next? Ask ISP to block biochemical process, nuclear research paper, patent to build ballistic missle, rocket to fly out into space?!?!<br /><br />Knowledge cannot be stopped by any government or authority. It is knowledge that helps me advance themselves to becoming human (self-actualizing individual). Politicians should go and learn about Abraham Maslow hierarchy of needs. Sad we have an idiot politician who get elected because he is famous not because he is educated.

[ChrisWWalsh]

Where illicit material can be identified and isolated easily, reasonable law enforcement efforts should be taken to eliminate it. California is just recognizing that Usenet groups provide specific channels for certain types of illicit information, and is asking ISPs to stop disseminating those groups. That's not censorship! California isn't asking anyone to do anything, other than stop supporting patently illegal activity.<br /><br />When ISPs go beyond the California request, and stop carrying large portions of Usenet (particularly the alt.* hierarchy), it's economics, not censorship. Usenet frankly doesn't pay the bills for the costs it entails for the average ISP. The investment in bandwidth, storage, personnel and processing power, or even the costs to outsource Usenet to a third party provider, is generally NOT returned in new customers. Instead, ISPs get asked to spend even more money regulating the content of 'outlaw' groups. So where's the incentive for ISPs to continue to subsidize USEnet as a free service?<br /><br />Free speech is free from political restriction, not economic. ISPs are not required to lose money providing USEnet as part of their basic services. There are third party providers out there who will sell individuals access to completely uncensored USEnet feeds. If your right to free speech on USEnet is that important to you, then feel free to pay for it.