At 1:39 PM -0400 10/25/00, Ray Dillinger wrote:
The v-chip does *not* prevent programming from reaching my home - it doesn't even prevent programming from reaching the homes of those who've willingly purchased and installed it, but it prevents stuff they'd find objectionable from being displayed on their screens. This is their right. After all, we're talking about *their* screens.
1. The V-chip was _mandated_ for inclusion in all televisions bought after some date. No choice, no opt out, a mandatory increased cost. This is not consistent with freedom and non-coercion. (Saying the customer has the option of not using the V-chip features is irrelevant; that the manufacturer was commanded to include V-chip was the crime.) 2. The V-chip is, predictably, completely ineffectual in preventing Junior from accessing porn, whatever. For obvious reasons. First, most televisions pre-date the V-chip. Second, many other distribution mechanisms abound. Third, the V-chip programming is accessible to teens and others...their parents probably go to _them_ to ask for help (and then give up on the whole process). All it takes is the kid with the stash of porn to defeat the whole idea...just as when we were kids. The kid with the "questionable content" is precisely the one who will find one of the hundreds of millions of televisions without the V-Chip. And much more importantly, one of the hundreds of millions of VCRs which will play "Debbie Does Cyberspace" without any regard for what some nominal V-Chip will provide. (I don't believe even current-production VCRs are required to have the V-Chip, and since many folks use the VCR as their television tuner....) The whole V-Chip thing was a typical exercise in "feel good legislation." "Let's do something to show we care about saving the children." In any case, pragmatic issues aside, there is no justification in a free society for telling the maker of some piece of equipment that he must include some piece of censorware. --Tim May -- ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.