At 10:49 AM -0700 7/25/97, James Love wrote:
Tim, if you think that no web site are unambiguously inappropriate for children, then you are in a state of denial. However, while I don't expect to change your mind on that point, let me set the record straight on your note. I don't favor RSACi or other PICS systems. I think these are a mistake, and should be resisted. However, I do favor a far less ambitious and less informative system (less is more, as far as I am concerned), which involves a simple, single voluntary tag, selected by the web page publisher, at their discretion, of the nature of
<META NAME="Rating" CONTENT="adult">
So long as it is completely voluntary, and I am free to label my sites as "Suitable for children," whatever they contain, I have no problem with your proposal. (And marking my sites "suitable for children" may help me to recruit some fine young lolitas to my nudist site, so I may actually _like_ your system.) However, if you or Justice Rehnquist or Louis Freeh or Ralph Reed should _disagree_ with my "voluntary" labeling of my site as "suitable for children," and should then bring the courts into the process in a prosecution or other action against me, then it will hardly be "voluntary," will it? And since my standards of what is "suitable" and what is "not suitable" may well differ from your standards, etc., why not just have an Office of the Censor to resolve these issues so that I won't later be charged? (I don't mean this as a cheap shot, by the way. I am sure you would recoil in horror at the concept of an Office of the Censor. However, what other option exists, given that I would otherwise have no idea what my site should be "voluntarily" rated as? I happen to think my nudist web page is indeed a good place for healty young lolita girls to come and hang out. My values. Yours may be different.) There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."