With so much buzz on this out there, I’m not sure what else can be said.
Everybody seems to be acting like this is an informational issue. If we could just make the legislators understand the issue rationally, then they’d back down.
The problem is, it’s a political problem. The people who drafted this steaming pile knew exactly what they were doing because they’ve made it politically impossible for it to be defeated. “Senator X voted AGAINST keeping your children safe!!” is an ad that nobody wants to run against.
Facts — like this bill makes nobody safer, hampers access to virtually all school based access to important resources including many legitimate newspaper sites, and serves only as a political chip in the larger game of pandering to the public — will have no place in the cruel calculus intended to plot the path to re-election.
The only thing we can do is ride it out, vote ‘em out, and hope that the pendulum will eventually swing back to something approaching rationality while we still have free public education in the US.
July 29th, 2006 at 6:01 pm
I was surprised and disappointed that the vote was 410-15. Many of those who oppose DOPA do so because they believe that children should be educated and not restricted. I agree that they should be educated, but let us face it, not all parents do their job and the parents who are doing their job are left with schools and libraries that are not doing their job.
I can not speak on behalf of the US, but I know that surprisingly some Canadian public libraries and schools do not monitor children’s internet access nor do they have filters in place. We were all teens once. I keep hearing the same comments. “Parents do your job.” Well I ask you this, “How many of you rebelled against your parents?”
No matter how much we take care of our children and educate them, it only takes them making one unhealthy choice to put them at risk. You can educate your child untill you are all blue in the face. The truth is that children don’t often think of the consequences of unhealthy choices. If DOPA will save just one child, don’t you think the bill is worth it?
I do want to add that while I support the bill, I do think that the legislation should be rewritten so it does not block sites such as Yahoo and Google. I think they need to better determine what sites will be blocked before passing the law.
These are just my thoughts!
July 30th, 2006 at 7:14 am
“If DOPA will save just one child, don’t you think the bill is worth it?”
No. Increasing the risk to millions while ‘saving just one child’ is not an acceptable solution. By that logic, you ought to be arguing that we close playgrounds and schools because kids are MUCH more likely to be prey in those locations than online.
You say, “I agree that they should be educated, but let us face it, not all parents do their job…” Who is going to educate the kids if parents aren’t and schools can’t? There seems to be a flaw in this argument.
The bill has two unintended consequences:
1. It removes what might be the single most valuable new tool from the US teachers tool box to come along in 20 years at a time when we need every edge in the classroom that we can get. The fact that we haven’t begun to take advantage of it yet, notwithstanding.
2. It removes the ability for educators to monitor online activity because the implementation of this law is going to result in the wholesale filtering of sites from all computers in a district. We’ve already seen this in school districts that have blocked MySp*ce. Districts don’t just block the students — they block EVERYBODY, including the administrators who then cannot respond to parental concerns. This gives predators free access to kids who have none of the instruction and supervision that educators, librarians, and media specialists might provide. This bill doesn’t just remove access from schools and libraries. It guarantees that any kid online between 3 and 7pm local time is largely free of adult oversight because nobody associated with schools or libraries will be able to see what’s happening while they’re at work.
I can overlook the negative impact on education. I’m beginning to think that education needs a good shake out anyway. What I can’t overlook is that we’re willing to add even MORE risk to kids in the misguided notion this bill does anything but provide politicians with yet one more stupid opportunity to beat up on each other over manufactured isses while the real, substantial, and crucial issues go begging.
This is not about keeping kids safe. It’s about manipulating voters with mis-information and fear.