vigilant TV

Wired reports on the CDT’s challenge to Pennsylvania’s internet child pornorgraphy law. The law requires ISPs to block access to web sites blacklisted by the Attorney General. The CDT wants the A-G to provide information on the blacklisted sites. The situation is reminiscent of Australia’s internet censorship regime; the ABA blacklists sites and issues takedown orders to ISPs, but refuses to provide any information about the sites being blocked.

Mike Fisher, Pennsylvania’s attorney general, has sent letters to an unknown number of ISPs over the past few months demanding that the ISPs block Pennsylvania subscribers’ access to at least 423 websites or face a $5,000 fine, according to news reports.

Morris said the CDT wants Fisher to provide details on exactly what sites have been blocked so that it can determine if any of the blocked sites are accessible outside of Pennsylvania, and if access to non-porn sites is prohibited by the blocks. Depending on what the organization discovers, its staff lawyers may decide to challenge the Pennsylvania law in court.

[...]

More than two-thirds of all dot-com, dot-net and dot-org websites share their IP addresses with at least 50 other websites, according to a report released last week by Benjamin Edelman of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at the Harvard Law School. As a result, any blocking order aimed at one of those websites under the Pennsylvania law would block all 50 (or more) sites, even if those sites are wholly unrelated to the targeted website.

– Wired, State Law Blocks Out Kiddie Porn.