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Three Hot Babes debate the UK’s Porn Block

Tuesday, December 21st, 2010

Reason Magazine’s Katherine Mangu-Ward and Safety101.org’s Cris Clapp Logan discuss the UK’s plan to block all internet porn on RT’s Alyona Show.

Gotta love the characterization by Cris Clapp Logan (at 1:45) that porn is a “mental health issue”. Ms Mangu-Ward does a nice job of pointing out that “voluntary” compliance is ensured by threats of legislation to make it mandatory.

This video talks about the apparent requirement that internet users specify precisely which adult sites they want access to rather than just being able to turn the blocking completely on or off. If that is indeed the case, that means the government will have a data base that lists every porn someone visits. If that doesn’t generate a huge public uproar, then the UK is a completely lost cause in the fight for internet freedom.

The question is asked whether something like this could find its way to the U.S. Well, think about it. We’re banning toys in McDonald’s Happy Meals. Not only could this type of blocking be introduced to the U.S., but it would probably also block violence, smoking, profanity, drug use, drinking, etc. The possibilities are endless.

By the way, internetsafety101.org is better known as Enough is Enough which was started by Donna Rice Hughes, famous for her adulterous affair in 1984 with front running presidential candidate Gary Hart and now less famous for her moral crusade against pornography.

Posted in Censorship, Pornography, United Kingdom | 8 Comments »

Will inernet censorship lead to censorship?

Tuesday, December 21st, 2010

That basically sums up what this article is asking:

Will ‘Porn Lock’ in UK and France Lead to Internet Censorship?

It epitomizes the logic in people’s minds that it isn’t censorship if it only targets bad stuff.

The most frightening aspect of the current torrent of internet censorship proposals, coming from countries that supposedly espouse free speech, is the near vacuum of opposition coming from the mainstream press. There is no doubt that the traditional media see the uncontrolled internet free-for-all as a threat to their very existence. In a world where every industry has learned how to harness the power of government to tip the balance in their favor, it would be no surprise that the major media would look to government for protection from their biggest competitor.

Of course, the government can’t help unless it has control. And, just as certain as the sun will rise tomorrow, eventually government will control the internet as they already control every other industry. Does anyone really believe the internet is going to be the one single exception?

Posted in Censorship, Child Pornography, France, Pornography, United Kingdom | Comments Off

UK wants to block internet porn

Monday, December 20th, 2010

The UK’s Communications Minister, Ed Vaizey is proposing that all internet pornography be blocked at the internet interface to people’s homes. Regardless of whether the household has any children or not, this measure is being passed off as a means to protect children. To gain access to the blocked material, you would be required to request access through your ISP.

From news.com.au:

The move is intended to ensure that children are not exposed to sex as a routine by-product of the internet. It follows warnings about the hidden damage being done to children by sex sites.

Hidden damage? I guess by “hidden” he means damage that can’t be proven to exist, but can be used to justify restricting the rights of every one past the age of puberty.

Mr Vaizey said: “This is a very serious matter. I think it is very important that it’s the ISPs that come up with solutions to protect children.

“I’m hoping they will get their acts together so we don’t have to legislate, but we are keeping an eye on the situation and we will have a new communications bill in the next couple of years.”

Yeah, clearly the ISPs should get their acts together and get past this idea that adults should be free to view what they want without having to submit a request to a higher authority.

Claire Perry, the Tory MP for Devizes and a keen lobbyist for more restrictions, said: “Unless we show leadership, the internet industry is not going to self-regulate. The minister has said he will get the ISPs together and say, ‘Either you clean out your stables or we are going to do it for you’.”

The arrogance of such a comment is mind numbing. By default it is now the responsibility of the private telecom sector to draw the line that determines what people are permitted to see on the internet.

We are not coming at this from an anti-porn perspective. We just want to make sure our children aren’t stumbling across things we don’t want them to see.”

No, you’re not coming from an anti-porn perspective. You’re coming from the perspective that, because you’re the government, you’re the senior parent in every family. You’re coming from the perspective of most politicians. You’re coming from the perspective of not being able to resist the exercise of power, epitomizing the very reason why politicians shouldn’t be given so much power.

This weekend some ISPs appeared ready to introduce an “opt in” clause voluntarily. Andrew Heaney, executive director of strategy and regulation for TalkTalk, said: “Our objective was not to do what the politicians want us to do but to do what was right by our customers.

Mr Heaney is very thoughtful. He’s only doing what his customers want. It has nothing to do with explicit government threats. As for the competition, fuck ‘em. They should be forced to do it”:

“If other companies aren’t going to do it of their own volition, then maybe they should be leant on. Legislation is a sledgehammer but it could work.”

We have to hand it to the UK. Unlike Australia that wanted to screen illegal material, the UK is starting in directly on content that is legal. They are also smarter in permitting people to opt out. How can you argue against something that is optional? Of course, once the censorship infrastructure is established, it’s a simple matter to make it less optional.

As I’ve said before, without exception, all governments view the internet as a threat. Democratic governments are only different in that they give lofty sounding speeches about internet freedom even as they do all in their power to bring it firmly under state control.

Thanks to Maggie McNeil for the heads-up on this news.

[UPDATE]

Reason.com has a brief, but interesting take on this story pointing out that filtering adult porn grew out of the knowledge that ISPs were already blocking child porn. Of course, the measure is voluntary:

Communications minister Ed Valzey plans to meet with the heads of the major ISPs next month. You know, just to chat…

Those UK residents who do opt for access to porn should understand it’s only a matter of time before their names are “leaked” and published on the net by moral crusaders out to embarrass them.

Posted in Censorship, Pornography, United Kingdom | 1 Comment »

What if sex became the next ‘ethical’ industry?

Thursday, December 9th, 2010

Grist takes on the idea of sex work as a legitimate mainstream industry. It’s an interesting article once you choke down the first paragraph that seems to lay every sex related societal ill at the feet of the commercial sex trade.

Can the sex industry ever be sustainable? Some find the very question outrageous. Prostitution and pornography have too much to answer for. There’s the global spread of HIV, the trafficking of women and children, instances of rape apparently inspired by violent porn, and unhealthy obsessions with body image provoked by sexualized clichés of beauty.

After reading it a few times, I have now reconciled it with the rest of the article by supposing it was meant to portray a popular, but erroneous, perspective for purposes of contrast. It does get more palatable:

The common assumption that sex work is inherently dangerous or degrading can, with bitter irony, actually make life harder for those involved. In November 2010, The Economist warned that laws designed to suppress human trafficking and sexual exploitation, leading to the closure of bars and brothels, have “helped the police to beat, rob, and rape sex workers ‘with impunity.’” Citing a report by Human Rights Watch, it asserted, “most migrant sex workers have left home for good reasons of their own — among them a desire to work away from their families, and to earn more money.”

Compared to the usual media drivel sourced from delusional rescue industry claims, that paragraph actually begins to sound like responsible journalism (although she could have left out that “bitter irony” crap). But, nothing lasts forever and what begins as a critical examination of current attitudes descends into an advocacy of some kind of Marxist utopia (aka Orwellian dystopia) where sex is completely relegated to government control. Apparently the universality of government incompetence has been cured by the time this evolves.

Feel like watching the latest Fair Trade-certified porn film? The actors all enjoy decent pay, health insurance, and pensions. The carbon impact of the set lighting and travel is offset through investment in clean, efficient cookstoves sold at affordable prices to women in rural Africa.

By this time they must have broken the cycle of perpetual African poverty reinforced by foreign aid to warring factions from western democracies bedeviled by an uncontrollable compulsion to see what monetary collapse looks like.

Perhaps you’d prefer a spot of ethical lap-dancing? You can be sure the performers are all willing and well-paid: It’s certified by Care and Consent, the highly reputable international certification body for ethical sex. You tip generously, knowing that 50 percent of the profits are promised to the local women’s community center.

Care Consent? Oh, I get it. After all, the rescue industry needs employment in the magical new world, too, and it’s not like civilization is suddenly going to abandon its responsibility to keep women from making the wrong choices.

Or, maybe best of all, you opt for an evening in with your sweetheart. You’ve got everything you need: condoms made from rubber tapped sustainably in Brazil, hand-carved FSC-certified sex toys, and delicious Fair Trade dark chocolate body paint.

Hand carved? So, in this new green economy we’ve apparently given up on industrialization and reverted to third world productivity standards.

So, if you think the current environment of persecution, incarceration, moral condemnation, violence, and police harassment are bad, just remember there are plenty of people out there who have the vision to turn it into something it far worse.

Posted in Politics, Pornography, Prostitution, United Kingdom | Comments Off

Innocent man kills himself after child porn raid

Sunday, December 5th, 2010

In the current climate of child sex abuse hysteria, even the mere suspicion of being involved with child porn can destroy someone’s life and wreck their family. When it comes to children, the principle of “innocent until proven guilty” is dispensed with in favor of the lynch mob mentality. And, when it comes to “saving children” even a vague hint of suspicion is all it takes to set the wheels of “justice” in motion.

Such was apparently the case with a UK man, Michael Curtis:

A grandfather gassed himself just hours after child porn police raided his home – even though he was innocent.

Last night his widow launched a bitter attack on the police after hearing at an inquest how detectives who seized his computers found nothing illegal.

Michael Curtis’s home was raided and three laptop computers seized after intelligence led officers to his address after he stumbled upon one indecent picture and viewed it for a matter of seconds.

And what was it that led the cops to invade his house and seize three computer belonging to Mr Curtis? What evidence made him a danger to society that warranted such action?

Detective Sergeant Howard Berry told the coroner: ‘There was no evidence but there was intelligence. Police in Luxembourg traced access to the website to the address.

‘A picture had been viewed which was of an illegal nature. Intelligence came to police through international channels. Then there was a decision to investigate further and the warrant was issued.’

Although the article doesn’t say, it would come as no surprise to most people if the so-called “intelligence” was derived from law enforcement’s new best friend in the war against sex and drugs: the sting.

Mrs Curtis described the raid and questioned the competency of law enforcement :

‘The police when they turned up to the house treated him like he was guilty and treated him exactly like they would a convicted paedophile.

‘I don’t understand how accidently looking at one single picture for a matter of seconds in March 2009 has filtered down into an investigation in July 2010.

‘They must have known he didn’t look at any other pictures or visited any other website afterwards. Surely they can come to the conclusion he stumbled upon it?

Mrs. Curtis makes a common mistake. She assumes cops and prosecutors are interested in evidence of innocence. They are not. They are interested in the only two things by which they are judged: arrests and convictions. They love prosecuting sex crimes that can be tied to children. They are career makers and the public worships them for it. After all, there is no such thing as being too aggressive when it comes to protecting children. And if a few innocents get chewed up in the gears, it’s no big deal. People are always willing to sacrifice someone else in the name of making kids safe. Unfortunately, as I already spelled out here and here, prosecuting child porn possession doesn’t make anyone safer.

Much appreciation to reader, Richard for posting a link to this story in a comment.

Posted in Child Pornography, United Kingdom | 7 Comments »

The persistent threat of internet censorship.

Monday, November 1st, 2010

The UK is considering a plan to have internet service providers censor content based on user complaints without a court order.

From ISPReview:

The UK governments Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries, Ed Vaizey, has ominously proposed that broadband ISPs could introduce a new Mediation Service that would allow them the freedom to censor third party content on the internet, without court intervention, in response to little more than a public complaint.

A few things about the above paragraph are disturbing. First, it is inherently contradictory for a so-called free country have a ministry for things like culture and creativity. That belongs in the same category as fucking for virginity.

Secondly, you gotta love the shear idiocy of the phrase “freedom to censor”. Unfortunately, concepts like freedom and liberty have become so convoluted to the average citizen that most would never spot such a glaring oxymoron.

And why should internet content carriers not be pressured into censorship? Since the state has taken the position that some types of objectionable speech are punishable as a crime, it should not delegate the determination of what constitutes illegal speech to a non-governmental body. ISPs have no incentive to protect challenged expression and every incentive to heroically protect the public from offensive content regardless of its legality.

In other words, ISP censorship of third-party content would cripple the most powerful means of public communications since the invention of the pen. It would result in the suppression of much, otherwise protected, expression simply because it would be easy to do. Suppressing someone’s right to free speech should be a difficult task requiring a court order.

The free exchange of information over the internet is the biggest threat to government (and I mean all governments everywhere) ever conceived and no one knows that as well as government. Despite rhetoric to the contrary, governments will continue to pursue schemes that permit them to control and monitor that medium in the name of protecting children, national security, crime control, etc. It is inevitable that the public will slowly yield to that fear mongering. Enjoy it while you can.

[Update 11-2-10] Another treatment of this plan worth reading has been posted on CNET.

Posted in Big Brother is Watching You, Censorship, United Kingdom | 2 Comments »

Debate: Should prostitution be legalized?

Tuesday, September 21st, 2010

The Economist recently held an interesting debate on the merits of legalizing prostitution. I know of pro-legalization advocate Sienna Baskin from an interview she did about Craigslist , but don’t know Melissa Farley who argues against legalization.

Economist debates are kind of like an online version of UK’s Oxford Union debates. In fact, prostitution was debated at the Oxford Union earlier this year.

Ultimately, the reader voting was 3 to 1 in favor of legalizing prostitution , although the vote against legalization gained ground during the period of the debate.

Posted in Prostitution, United Kingdom | Comments Off

Where are all the sex slaves?

Friday, September 10th, 2010

Among the comments on another site, someone posted a very interesting link to a story in The Guardian about a sex trafficking investigation. The story is from last year, dated a month prior to the opening of this website, but it is most certainly still relevant to the barrage of propaganda generated by anti-prostitution groups and uncritically repeated by the mainstream press.

From the Guardian, Oct 20, 2009:

The UK’s biggest ever investigation of sex trafficking failed to find a single person who had forced anybody into prostitution in spite of hundreds of raids on sex workers in a six-month campaign by government departments, specialist agencies and every police force in the country.

The failure has been disclosed by a Guardian investigation which also suggests that the scale of and nature of sex trafficking into the UK has been exaggerated by politicians and media.

Anti-prostitution crusaders almost universally rely on the tragic accounts of a few women who claim to have been coerced into the sex trade. The stories are one sided which is, of course, the beauty of anecdotal evidence. They are chosen specifically for their power to exploit people’s natural compassion for victims of abuse and are intentionally portrayed as if they represent the industry in its entirely.

Complementing the tear tugging stories, moral crusaders masterfully quote labor trafficking statistics. Since labor trafficking encompasses a much broader range of activities, the larger numbers serve to inflate the picture with regard to the sex trade.

If that weren’t enough, this picture is distorted further by the inclusion of estimates that suppose most trafficking is hidden. You see sentences to the effect that “while no one knows for sure how many children are sold as sex slaves, it is estimated that…”

Current and former ministers have claimed that thousands of women have been imported into the UK and forced to work as sex slaves, but most of these statements were either based on distortions of quoted sources or fabrications without any source at all.

Sound familiar? You see the same wild claims made every day in the U.S. backed by a few instances of purported coercion that are largely shielded from any significant examination.

The sad stories, misleading statistics, and outright guesses are then picked up and uncritically repeated by the mainstream media as if they were facts. Investigative journalism is time consuming and expensive. But simply repeating sensational claims sells papers and costs next to nothing.

The fact that there is no substantive supporting evidence for the claims of the rescue industry rarely makes the headlines, but when it does, moral crusaders simply roll out a victim or two, knowing that emotional appeal always trumps facts.

Posted in Prostitution, Trafficking, United Kingdom | Comments Off

UK social program pays for sex

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

According to the Telegraph, the UK has a program that provides money to the old and disabled with practically no strings attached. As a result, some of the money is being used to pay for prostitutes and lap dances.

The £520 million scheme promised to give elderly people and those with disabilities more control over the care they received, by passing on cash so individuals could choose the services they needed, such as home help, or mobility aids.

An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph can disclose that exotic holidays, internet dating subscriptions and adventure breaks, as well as visits to sex workers and lap dancing clubs have been permitted under the system.

Hell, in the “Land of the Free”, the government won’t let us have some of that stuff even if we pay for it ourselves.

Posted in Prostitution, United Kingdom | Comments Off

U.S. urges Europeans governments to open criminal investigations against Wikileaks founder

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010

According to The Daily Beast, the Obama administration is actively campaigning to bring a criminal charges against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. They are not only pressuring Europena countries to open criminal investigations, but officials are also contemplating criminal charges in the U.S.

Officials tell The Daily Beast that the U.S. effort reflects a growing belief that WikiLeaks and organizations like it threaten grave damage to American national security, as well as a growing suspicion in Washington that Assange has damaged his own standing with foreign governments and organizations that might otherwise be sympathetic to his anti-censorship cause.

I think what the U.S. is worried about is the embarrassment caused by the disclosure of information that contradicts official public reports. Despite all the lofty rhetoric to the contrary, government concerns over the loss of life in any war are generally limited to how casualties might affect public support of the war. There is no shortage of examples that illustrate the willingness of the U.S. to engage in war, so it’s more than a little disingenuous to point the finger elsewhere when it comes to endangering anyone’s life.

Democracies require an informed populace. Wikileaks is working to that end while Western governments are becoming more secretive. While Obama made transparency a campaign promise, it has not been forthcoming and despite all the objections voiced by Democrats in response to Patriot Act secrecy requirements, little to no action has been taken to roll back those infringements on Constitutional protections.

If anyone is risking American and Afghan lives it isn’t Julian Assange and Wikileaks hasn’t been promoting a decade long war in and occupation of that country.

Posted in Afghanistan, Australia, Censorship, Germany, United Kingdom, United States | 1 Comment »

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