It’s censorship projection day today. Leslie Harris, President and CEO of the Center for Democracy & Technology weighs in on the political landscape for internet censorship post-COPA at the Huffington Post:
So what happens next? Will Congress once again beat against the tide and enact yet another Internet censorship law? … Will the Obama administration slam the coffin on Internet censorship laws once and for all? It would seem so. The Obama Platform says that the new Administration “values our First Amendment freedom” and “does not view regulation as the answer to these concerns.” However, it’s not clear the Congress will fall in line.
Before Congress adjourned last fall, it quietly approved a bill that will require the Federal Communications Commission to study the technologies available for blocking access to content across platforms, a move some fear is a precursor to a mandate for a V-Chip for the Internet. Another bill has charged the NTIA with a similar study. And the Senate Commerce Committee’s new Chairman, Senator Jay Rockefeller, has made it clear that he wants to regulate violent content on television in the same discredited way that Kevin Martin led the FCC to over regulate so-called “indecency.” This series of events, lined up end-to-end, should give free speech advocates a reason to stay vigilant; it looks like we may continue tilting at windmills for another four years.