“Community Conscious” Internet Service Providers

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p>Tennessee has a proposal to create a “Tennessee community conscious Internet provider” seal to be awarded by the consumer affairs division. A bill introduced in the Tennessee General Assembly – HB 2530 – would award a seal to ISPs that:

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p>1) retain IP addresses for 2 years;

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p>2) take down communications that are obscene or harmful to minors;

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p>3) prohibit customers from publishing communications obscene or harmful to minors; and

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p>4) comply and cooperate with law enforcement requests and court orders.

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p>Granted, Tennessee is the “volunteer state”, but if this bill were to pass would ISPs really participate?

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p>Note how the bill links “obscenity” – which is not protected speech under the 1st Amendment – with material harmful to minors -  which could be almost anything, most of which would be protected speech.

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p>This is a trend we’re seeing–using child porn and child online safety as a “trojan horse” into regulating the online behavior of everybody through rules on ISPs. Adam Thierer calls it “deputizing the middleman” — an apt phrase for the kinds of policing that ISPs may be doing in the future based on the regulatory and market pressures they’re seeing today.

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p>Hawaii has a bill pending that would make it a felony for ISPs to knowingly fail to report subscribers who acquire, possess, solicit or transmit images of child pornography.

Forget a “seal of approval” – may as well just throw ISPs a badge.

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