Column: Filtering Internet porn isn’t the government’s job

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Universal Internet access sounds great. But not the way the head of the Federal Communications Commission envisions it.

FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin is proposing that free wireless Net access be made available to everyone as part of a sale of public airwaves. At the same time, he wants filters put in place so that no smut slips through to impressionable young Web surfers.

This would be the first time such filters have been imposed by an Internet service provider rather than individual users, allowing government officials or a private company to decide what can and can’t be seen online.

‘It’s very troubling,’ said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a digital-rights watchdog. ‘A government-mandated filter at the network level means the government can block anything it finds objectionable.’

Read the rest of the column here.

-- David Lazarus