Schwarzenegger wants California ISPs to terminate online child porn

UPDATE 4:20 P.M.: AT&T issued a statement saying it also was blocking newsgroups with child pornography. The company said:

"On June 6, AT&T received written notification from the New York Attorney General's office that an investigation conducted over a period of several months identified 88 Usenet newsgroups that each contained multiple images of child pornography. Based on information provided by the New York Attorney General, we had a good faith basis for concluding that these newsgroups contained illegal content and we removed them from our servers."

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On the heels of last week's announcement that Verizon Communications, Time Warner Cable and Sprint would block access to child pornography traveling through their online networks, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown want the state's other Internet service providers to do the same.

They sent a letter to the California Internet Service Providers Assn. today asking for its help in "cracking down on those who exploit children." They wrote:

Protecting the safety of our children must be a top priority, not just for government, but also for businesses with the direct power to reduce the ability to conduct illegal activity. Your association stands in a unique position to help.

We applaud three of the largest Internet service providers -– Verizon, Time Warner Cable and Sprint -– for taking steps to block access to child pornography. It is not enough, however, for only a few Internet service providers to join the fight against online predators. Child pornography is not protected by the First Amendment, and distributing this material is illegal.

The California Internet Service Providers Assn. is the largest association of Internet providers in the country, and we are asking your members to strongly assume the leadership role that status provides. The association can begin by working with its more than 100 members to remove child pornography from existing servers and blocking channels, which include newsgroups, used for distributing this material.

Verizon, Time Warner and Sprint committed to block websites and newsgroups that contain child pornography as part of an agreement with New York Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo. The companies committed to extend the blocking nationwide.

The state Internet provider group is ready to help and has offered to meet with staff for the governor and attorney general to work out the details, said W. Mark Esser, the group's chairman. But he's concerned about replicating the deal the three larger Internet service providers struck with Cuomo.

"The New York model is a brute-force model. It ends up punishing the non-guilty,'' said Esser, chief executive of Markon Computer Science in Lomita, which runs a small ISP called the SuperNet . Esser's not alone in that belief. CNet's Declan McCullagh said on his blog last week that Verizon was blocking far more usenet discussion groups than necessary.

Esser suggested that the ISPs help the state develop a continually updated list of child pornography sites -- "a real-time black-hole list," he called it -- and just block those. Such a system could be running 60 days after state officials and ISPs agree to the details, Esser said. "It could end up being an ideal example for the rest of the country," he said.

Camille Anderson, a spokeswoman for Schwarzenegger, said the governor has an open mind. "We are more than willing to review different proposals," she said. "But anything that falls short of guaranteeing the protection of innocent children from exploitation will be unacceptable."

-- Jim Puzzanghera

Puzzanghera, a Times staff writer, covers tech and media policy from Washington, D.C.

Photo: California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger watches second graders at a computer lab at Hart Street Elementary School in Canoga Park. Credit: Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Philip Hoskins]

The governor has apparently forgotten his Constitutional law. Prior restraint is barred by the First Amendment. Who determines what is "child porn"? What is to stop a Chinese-style censoring of the internet once we start with the "easy" cases?

There are many things some or even all of us dislike. That is THE REASON FOR THE FIRST AMENDMENT!

Back to civics class, Governor.

[phoenixandrew]

Philip, child pornography is illegal and not protected as free speech.

[nick]

Hoskins,

Your civics lesson is all well and good, except for the fact that child porn is illegal and not protected by the constitution. So while ACLU types will probably try to defend exploiting children, there really isn't much to stand on.

[Philip Hoskins]

Ah, the lack of education in America. yes child porn is illegal -- after a court finds that particular material is in fact child porn, not until then. The Constitution has been repeatedly held to prohibit the government from banning speech, even that speech which is illegal, PRIOR to a prosecution.

For example, the government cannot prohibit child porn, it can, however, punish someone from uttering it. Big difference. What is the difference? A court has determined in the latter case what illegal speech is. In the former the Governor or his appointee determines it.

That is a formula for the loss of all free speech.

[Nick]

Hoskins,

You're only partially correct. There is actually a database of already identified and verified child pornography pictures. The ages of these kids have already been determined, and courts have already ruled that the possession and transmission of these pictures is illegal. Thus allowing I guess what can be considered preemptive enforcement.

[Bruce M]

This is less about kiddie porn and more about the bottom line. The New York AG found 88 out of more than 100,000 Usenet newsgroups containing kiddie porn. The "response" by the ISP was to drasticly limit or, in the case of Time Warner, eliminate the Usenet entirely. But, then again, the Usenet was a major drag on revenue, not for the low user response from the customers but rather from the huge volume of data available. Thje ISPs wanted out, without looking bad, so find a willing stooge politician who wants to look tough on kiddie porn, and have him "force the ISPs to drop the Usenet".

All this will do is drive the porn back underground and the arrests will go down as detectives will have a much harder time getting to the porn. Who knows, if the police can't justify the cost of seeking out these perverts, they may even make kiddie porn a low prioirty, and then we all suffer.

[Tricia]

Jim- I have two $40.00 Government Coupons that expire on July 10th- I've had them for almost 90 days and I have not used them yet because of several reasons

1) BIG REASON- there's no guarantee that the converter box will even work with my tv due to the fact that the owner of my apartment building doesn't have a TV antenna on our roof. And he is not going to be buying us an antenna at any time soon. Everyone else in my building is "cabled-up"

2) If he did buy us an antenna- there's no guarantee that all channels will reach it. If you go to AntennaWeb.com you will see that there are blue frequencies, purple frequencies, yellow, red--- and each broadcaster's frequencies may not be able to be picked up by the rooftop antennas currently out in the marketplace

3) It is going to cost me $19.99 for each converter box I buy plus tax. Yes -in addition to the coupons- I have to pay $44.00 and I don't have $44.00 to waste. Times are hard out here in Los Angeles.

4) WalMart has the best price on converter boxes-- the boxes sold in stores by Walmart are $10.00 cheaper then everywhere else-- but I've been to 10 Walmarts and they just remain out of stock.

5) Walmart is not even the wisest place to buy the converter boxes as they
only carry the boxes that Consumer Reports says are not good ones. So in the end you save some money but you are getting junk- so it pays to spend the higher amount of money at a different retailer.

6) The converter boxes will only give me local channels---why should I have to pay $44.00 for boxes that will give me TV that I am supposed to get for free ?

7) It's better to pay $200 more and get a new TV set that has the tuner built in- but then again the new TV sets hurt my eyes- too many pixels. And I love
the color and pixel allocations on the two sets I already own. It's hard to imagine that I now have to pay $44.00 somewhat dollars (after the coupon discount is applied) If I didn't have the two coupons I'd be paying triple the price. And there's no guarantee that I will even get reception due to the digitial brodcasts in blue, purple, red, yellow etc.

8) So here I sit with two expiring coupons. And what I am going to do is
only use one of the coupons. I just read that Direct TV makes a TV converter box and that Direct TV will accept the coupon and that you don't need to be a Direct TV subscriber to buy the box off of their site. I AM GOING TO BUY
one of the Direct TV boxes-- yes, I still will have to layout some cash. But I am hoping that the Tuner in the Direct TV digitial converter box will on it's own hook up with a neighbor's subscription to direct TV. Stealing reception off of a neighbor's direct TV is going to be the only way that I am going to
be able to get a signal in the West Hollywood apartment where I live. (Imagine that- I am going to have to hope that the Dpal box will get frequency
from a neighbor's hook-up- in essence I'm going to have to try to steal some
digitial signal).

Wish me luck !!!!!

[Chris]

Phillip Hoskins: who's to say what is child porn? How bout anything where a kid isn't fully clothed. Why do people like you fight for this? Who cares if we lose some freedoms on the internet if it can help save kids who are the future voters, politicians, and humans who will run the world when you are old and unable to fend for yourself, like they are now. Bruce M: Have you thought about the fact that if people couldn't get child porn on the internet then there would be alot less people with a reason to make it in the first place? Arrests will go down because there will be less heartless business men making a killing off of sales so they'll go into a different business. People see things on t.v. and movies and internet and it tells their brain that something they thought was impossible, is possible That's what human beings do. Keeping it accessible is keeping instructions on how to kidnap a child and take away their human rights. And why is everyone so damn worried about our freedom of speech but not those childrens' freedom to be children? And when it comes to the sites that have it and say they can't help it... You're gonna tell me they have millions of $ for advertisement, but none to hire people to scan every day to make sure the site is clean?

[anon]

Chris,

Funny isn't it? That piracy apparently hurts the MPAA and RIAA but it's good for the child porn "industry", is it?

The fact is that any remnants of a viable 'child porn industry' has all but evaporated. Most child porn on the 'net is either 1) faked, or 2) old and pirated/not-for-profit.

I'm sure you can come up with a lot of reasons for why child pornography should be illegal to posses or distribute, but the fact is, helping some phantom "industry" isn't one of them.

And let's not forget, this whole affair was merely a PR move by the AG as well as a way for the ISPs to lighten the load on their networks while at the same time maintaining their obscenely high prices. 99% of newsgroups already don't retain common child porn boards, and of course if someone were to want to subscribe to one of the uncensored newsgroups there are such newsservers readily available overseas.