DISADVANTAGES – CONSUMER/INTERNET 435

DISADVANTAGES — CONSUMER/INTERNET 435

YOUTH FREE SPEECH

ONLINE CHILD PROTECTION EFFORTS OFTEN INVADE FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS OF YOUNG PEOPLE

Suzanne Choney, The San Diego Union-Tribune, October 3, 1999, SECTION: NEWS Pg. A-1 TITLE: Cops prowl Web to trap pedophiles; Anonymity is useful tool; some say laws inhibit free speech // acs-EE2001

The Child Online Protection Act, passed by Congress last year, establishes criminal penalties for child pornography over the Internet. It also makes it a crime for commercial Web sites to communicate material considered "harmful to minors."

In this case, free speech -- not age -- is the issue.The ACLU contends the law is so broad that it is unconstitutional and, in essence, bars free speech on the Internet.

"When a law deprives adults of constitutionally protected speech, which by definition includes all of the speech at issue in this case, it is unconstitutional even if the purpose is to protect minors," the ACLU said in its legal challenge.

CHILDREN FACE VERY LITTLE REAL RISK FROM DIRECT MARKETING

Solveig Singleton, director of information studies at the Cato Institute, January 22, 1998 Cato Policy Analysis No. 295 PRIVACY AS CENSORSHIP: A Skeptical View of Proposals to Regulate Privacy in the Private Sector http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-295.html // acs-EE2001

More fundamentally, do children face any real harm from marketing? The main risk seems to be that children might end up with a little more useless junk than they would have otherwise. This is just not a serious problem. Over time, children might--or might not--learn some valuable lessons from careless consumerism. Many children have been inexpensively educated about the pitfalls of mail order from the "Sea Monkeys" sold in comic books: to children's surprise, brine shrimp do not develop much personality or wear clothing, as the ads suggest.

Compared with most of the world, we live in an affluent society. We not only buy many things for our children, we also give our children their own money to spend. It makes little sense to morally condemn those who sell to children when we ourselves give children the means to buy. So regulation of marketing lists that contain information about children is no more justified than regulation of lists containing information about adults.

INVASION OF YOUTH FREE SPEECH RIGHTS DOES THEM A GREAT HARM

Suzanne Choney, The San Diego Union-Tribune, October 3, 1999, SECTION: NEWS Pg. A-1 TITLE: Cops prowl Web to trap pedophiles; Anonymity is useful tool; some say laws inhibit free speech // acs-EE2001

Earlier this year, federal Judge Lowell Reed Jr. of Pennsylvania agreed.

"Perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection," Reed wrote in his ruling.