News.com reports Senator John McCain (RINO-Manchuria) is proposing a law that will levy a $300,000 fine (plus, one must assume, prison time) for any webmaster or blogger who fails to report “obscene” postings on a website or blog. This is the flip side of a bill that will force sex offenders to register their email addresses.
This is just utterly scary. We bloggers could handle the problem by simply turning off comments, but we generally have to comments on for a reason–we like to hear what our readers have to say. For those who run web-based discussion sites, such as War Rifles or Timebomb 2000, life won’t be that easy. No matter how many moderators you can field, the idea of checking every post is overwhelming. I’d bet we would see many boards close shortly after this POS became law.
This sort of law is one of those that is frightening prone to abuse. Similar laws relating to use use of the US Mail have a long history, going back into the 1800’s, of such abuse. Can you imagine some political operative targeting a blog unfriendly to their patron using this law? All they would have to do is post something “obscene” (and remember, obscenity, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder and their “prevailing community standards”) way back in the comments. They then notify the proper authorities, and bing-bang-boom that PITA blogger is outta there!
No only does this proposal never need to become law, but we don’t need anyone who would even consider such things as President of the United States. And Arizona, do you really want this guy representing you?