Is requiring a screening process (like providing your credit card number) to view porn intruding on your civil liberties?

Are we willing to give up our right to privacy to protect minors?

Good question, although I don't think this debate belongs in the "Constitutional Debate" forum.

That said, I don't think requiring a credit card intrudes on my civil liberties. However, I do not think this will be effective whatsoever. I'm a member of a photography website which quite frequently displays graphic nudity. Would this website then fall under this restriction? The Internet has opened up a whole new can of worms concerning this issue. You can no longer place a brown paper bag over the explicit images. Frankly, it seems impossible to implement--what about porn websites from outside our country? They don't have to abide by our laws, and anyone in America can access those websites.

This is just a flimsy case to try and curb pornography. Am I willing to give up my privacy rights? Not really. I don't have children myself, so why should I care about them? I know that's extremely selfish, but I purposely don't want children because I'm not responsible enough to have them.

Absolutely!!

All a law like this will do is cause all the corporate pornographic websites to move out of the United States. Yet another move to loose jobs in the US.

As for the Mom and Pops, well they will have to go back to the days when all we had was BBSs (Bulletin Board Systems for you youngin's). Back then a SySop (owner of the BBS which was accessed by calling that persons computer via modem) might require a copy of a photo ID be mailed. Other Sysops would require a personal phone call. It was rare for any to require a CC# unless it was a subscription service.

My problem is this:

What keeps kids from using mom or dad's credit card number?


Lets face it. The issue is the failure of parents to monitor their childrens activities or at a minimum, use one of the many parental control programs out there.

The question should be: Are you willing to sacrifice your personal privacy and the jobs of many Americans to deal with a problem created by Irresponsible Parents?

It seems to me that a better approach to this would be to make use of the many programs that exist to filter out inappropriate material on computers used in public places such as libraries. This will certainly not be 100% effective, but no method can ever hope to completely prevent adult material from reaching children. This proposed policy will have little, if any, benefit, and raises disturbing question about freedom of speech.

As a teenage male who has grown-up under the age of the internet, I might be able to shed some light onto this whole dilemma.

It was about 5th or 6th grade when I reached puberty. I found myself full of questions, and these questions were always fully unanswered. I did what the normal teenage boy would do, and searched for porn in any place it could be found. Television, magazines, literature etc. all became part of a desperate struggle to fulfill insatiable cravings. Everywhere I ran, I found closed doors. Apparently, soccer games and school did nothing to help raging hormones.

Then, my parents got the internet. Even with AOL protections, it was easy for me to slip past the security parameters in order to find the porn I would have not found anywhere else. I have enjoyed internet porn ever since.

I realize that this story probably disgusts many of you. But, I swear that my story rings familiar tones all across America.

The main reason I bring this up is to simply ask the question, "What were those AOL protections protecting me from?" It was I that sought after nude photos, typing in words to search engines in order to satisfy my curiosity. Never once did I feel forced to view any images, and I haven't become some rapist or pedophile. These "protections" only served to prevent me from seeing what I wanted to see.

Thus, I have a problem with the word "protect." It is totally disingenuous for any group to believe that kids will be fine with having no outlets. I don't see this issue so much as an adult having to forgo the right of privacy as I see it as one that denies teenagers an appropriate outlet in a world of closed doors.

While I believe government should stay out of it, it does irk me that the 1st Amendment can be seen as protecting porn while not protecting political speech near an election.

I read somewhere that well over 50% of internet content is porn. Funny thing is- it is like disco and Bill Clinton- SOMEBODY was dancing to disco and SOMEBODY voted for Bill Clinton for them to reach the point and popularity that they did. Look at all the "at home web cam" sites there are- this made big news up here, there was a house of swingers in a "normal" suburban nieghborhood and the owners of the house were in danger of losing thier house due to layoffs until they made their bedroom antics public- now they are millionares!

So if there is so much darn porn, who are we protecting it from? Just for fun, I just typed in "grandma and grandpa porn"- and there were like over a million sites! I mean, um, WOW- I didn't think grandmas and grandpas were so into computer OR porn, so who wants to see thier senator nekkid?

Listen, if millions and millions of poeple didn't want it, it wouldn't exist. If you don't like porn or want your kids to view it, put the computer in a place that forces them to view the computer while you are watching THEM. No need to get the gov't involved unless YOU are unwilling to do YOUR job as a parent!

Isn't the porn industry something like a multibillion dollar business in America alone.
Thats way more money than just a few sweaty guys in the book store.
No! no sacrifices should be allowed.

Is requiring a screening process (like providing your credit card number) to view porn intruding on your civil liberties?
Yes it is. What I do is my own business and the government has no right to track what I do. Oh yeeeeaaah! Homeland Security! Guess we already have sacrificed our freedoms.

Are we willing to give up our right to privacy to protect minors?
Not one damn bit.

I can't stand giving them my credit card info. Porn sites who cater to customer service should respect their customers' privacy rights - and especially with something as sensititive as a credit card. If they must verify adult status, require something less sensitive - maybe a voter's registration card or something. But a credit card? I remember I signed up "just for age verication - YOUR CARD WILL NOT BE CHARGED" and in the small print below they wanted me to call back and cancel the service to avoid charging my card. (I HATE OFFERS LIKE THAT - not just in porn, but in anything). Of course I forgot to call and cancel and they ended up charging my card. I don't want to give you my credit card info. And the point was brought up - what's to keep kids from "borrowing" mom or dad's credit card anyway? If you're going to use a flimsy age-verification method - at least use a less sensitive flimsy verification (voter registration card or high school ID or something). Yes, those are easy to "borrow" from someone else, but so is a credit card.


I'll give up a bit of privacy - but I think credit card age-verification is just a sleezy way to harvest credit cards. It provides vulnerabilities and opens people up for identity theft. It isn't necessary and it most definately shouldn't be required of porn sites by the government.

I completely agree with Perspective on this one. Providing a credit card number to a trusted company, like paypal, is one thing. To provide it to shady operations, like some porn sites, is another. It's just kicks the door open, like the police coming for unabomber, wide open for identity theft. I suspect this will do more harm then good because:
1.) Credit card numbers will be stolen off the internet and will be stolen, offline, to gain access, either by close relatives or complete strangers.
2.) Porno will lose business due to the added hassle of submitting credit cards.
3.) How's this going to protect anyone, anymore then the old "click here if your 18" screen?
4.) Free porno sites will now need to pay to verify credit card numbers.
5.) Now porn is only for people with good credit.
6.) Now we need to find our wallets before we get online.

Hmm. I use internet porn from time to time, and I have no problem at all with registering my credit card details (though that's mainly because I subscribe to a paid-for site).

I find it odd that the country that was so up in arms about a three-second flash of Janet Jackson's breast should be so vocally defending the right to view free pornography unmonitored.

Especially as nobody has qualified the debate by saying ordinary sex between consenting adults might be okay (under these circumstances I agree it should be nobody else's business); but those depicting illegal acts, such as child abuse, rape, bestiality or even murder, are not okay and access should not be protected by the figleaf of "free speech".

No, it’s not an infringement on my civil liberties. I would have to provide proof of age to purchase porn in person, buy cigarettes or booze.

I see no difference between restricting internet porn in the same manner that the ’blind racks’ provide. You have to provide proof of age to purchase it out of a store and there should be no difference with viewing it over the internet. In fact I’ve always been surprised that the porn magazines haven’t taken action against what I consider a double standard.

Technically, you can prevent US subscribers from viewing international porn sites. It would take a monitoring service to identify sites that didn’t comply with the ‘blind rack’ policy and then you simply mandate that the services providers block those IP addresses (and it can be automated to minimize head count). Once the offending sites realize they’ve eliminated the largest economic market in the world for failure to comply my guess is they’d quickly adhere to the standards.

Kids using their parent’s credit cards. Well, someone has to pay the bill and my guess is in most cases the kids don’t, so when the monthly statement comes in they’re caught. If a kid has their own credit card and pays there own bills then more power to them and how they choose to spend their money.

Relying on parental control is a dicey proposition at best. On one hand you want to give your children all the rope they can handle and allow them as much autonomy as possible. To consistently watch over their shoulders can only lead to conflict. Using tools like Net Nanny, Cybersitter, etc… have proven no match for the technically savvy youngster, to BecomingHumans point he was easily able to bypass the AOL controls.

The ‘sticky’ part I see here would be the nude art galleries. Again I think it should be handled just like the printed verision: if it’s ok for a 10 year old to walk into a bookstore and look through an artist’s nude collection then it should be ok to view the same on the internet.