Re:Are we moral sensors now? (Score 2)

I agree with you, PG, that the government goes too far with the way the laws are written. It just so happens that it's easier for them to catch and prosecute someone with a picture of a 13 year old girl getting raped, than it is to catch and prosecute the actual rapist. The laws are written the way they are so that law enforcement can make itself *look* like it's doing it's job. Kinda like those cops who wait out by the freeway all day handing out speeding tickets, rather than going out and finding the people who are commiting more serious crimes like assault, robbery, and murder.

They also go too far in what they define as pornographic. Here, the government caters directly into the hands of the puritanical Christian zealots of the "Religious Right", and their "Moral Superiority (patent pending)". There's something seriously wrong with laws that criminalize the great artistry of people like Jock Sturges, Sally Mann, and Graham Ovenden. The way the laws are currently written, a court could interpret an image of Michelangelo's David as pornographic.

I also agree with all those who have expressed the opinion that employers should have the right to censor (yes, censor!) what appears on their networks and workstations. After all, the network, the hardware, the domain name, the IP addresses, the software, and the mail exchange servers all belong to the company. I think a company has as much right to monitor and control what their employees do on company equipent, and during the time they're being paid to work, as parents have to monitor and control what their children do and see (on TV, the 'net, who they hang out with, etc.).

It seems like common sense to me that when I'm at work, I do work, and when I'm on my own time I do whatever the hell I want.

I'm convinced that the primary reason that companies have these crackdowns on people looking at porn, or whatever, is that they're afraid that the government will hold the business criminally liable for letting their employees do it. That's another symptom of the way the laws are written. After all, a pornographic image mailed to me at my work email address resides on the company server, and is thus company property ... for which the company can be held criminally liable, the way the law currently reads.

As far as moral censorship goes ... IMNERHO, it belongs solely and completely with the individual. If you don't want to see porn, don't look at it. If you don't want your kids to see porn, teach them not to look at it. They probably will anyway, though, and you know what? There's not a thing anybody can do about it! (Just look at what criminalization has done to the drug scene.)

Anyway, I'll get down off my soapbox now and prepare to be flamed.