As far as I am concerned we’ve already crossed the point of ‘clear and specific evidence’ to wit:

• In 2004, North Carolina ISP Madison River blocked their DSL customers from using any rival Web-based phone service.

• In 2005, Canada’s telephone giant Telus blocked customers from visiting a Web site sympathetic to the Telecommunications Workers Union during a labor dispute. (Welcome to the world of CORPORATE FASCISM),

• Shaw, a big Canadian cable TV company, is charging an extra $10 a month to subscribers in order to “enhance” competing Internet telephone services.

• In April, Time Warner’s AOL blocked all emails that mentioned http://www.dearaol.com – an advocacy campaign opposing the company’s pay-to-send e-mail scheme.

This type of censorship and repression of individual liberties by large corporations will become the norm unless we act now. Given the chance, these gatekeepers will consistently put their own interests before the public good.

I have repeatedly asked Tim Lee to respond to the question: Given the above facts, how would you present these kinds of abuses, without regulation?

The Supreme Court cited the principle that, absent clear and specific evidence of law enforcement failure or citizen harm, lawmakers should not enact blanket prohibitions of particular crime models or conduct. The time to criminalize murder, rape, burglary and fraud is after there is clear evidence that it is both occurring in significant amounts and that it is doing actual harm.

Doesn’t wash, does it? And no, it is not different. Criminalizing/regulating harmful activity after is has already been committed and done harm is too little, too late. You can not turn back time erase the harm done.