Network Level Content Blocking (UK) for people who cant be bothered to read the article..

Fri Jun 8 14:33:58 UTC 2007

> This was a very curious experience. What they want to achieve is protecting 
> children from abuse. This is of course a laudable goal. But they think they 
> can do that by ridding the internet of images depicting said abuse. There are 
> pretty strong laws against that in the Netherlands*, but this woman thought 
> that wasn't enough: she felt it would be good to also outlaw _text_ 
> describing child abuse. This is really scary. If these well-intentioned but 
> extremely dangerous people get their way, someone can end up in jail for 
> simply writing some text.
"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of 
zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."

-Judge Louis Brandeis

"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its 
victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber 
barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies, The robber baron's cruelty 
may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those 
who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so 
with the approval of their own conscience.

- C.S. Lewis

> I'm not one to give up my civil liberties without a struggle, but protecting 
> kids may be important enough to make it worth giving up a few. But is it too 
> much to ask for something that actually works in return?
"They that would give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety 
deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

"Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the 
government's purposes are beneficent."

-Judge Louis Brandeis

I am not willing to give up any of my own liberties to protect children. 
We already have laws that do that and judging by the number of people 
arrested they seem to work. You reach a point of diminishing returns.

At some point you have to accept that the world is a dangerous place and 
that bad things happen. There is a balancing point and a greater good to 
think about. Making everyone elses life less free does not balance out 
with the prospect of maybe saving a few kids. As the laws become more 
invasive they will eventually breed resentment and hatred for the 
government and fellow citizens. The end result will be civil unrest and 
fighting and that helps noone. Sadly it's already happening. Americans 
hate each other more than at any almost any other time in our history- and 
the hatred is becoming vicious.

-Don