Things That Start With P
In general, a second Bush administration is good for tech companies. It's unlikely that there are geeks in this White House who are anxious to place their stamp on the internet.
But the next four years hold risks for speech. Even the most innovation-friendly conservative loses his head when it comes to protecting kids from smut online — material that is perfectly lawful for adults to view.
It's not difficult to imagine that an alliance between the content industry and Christian conservatives could be joined to fight against a passel of things that start with P: porn, piracy, and P2P. The goal: to frame the internet as a dark den of iniquity rather than an engine of economic growth and opportunity. (”Someone should be in charge of this thing that is destroying our controlled distribution channel.”)
In a kind of harmonic convergence, this pack of Ps can be tied together: P2P systems can be attacked in hearings as full of porn and piracy. And it's not difficult to predict that we'll see some one-off P-related initiatives that are aimed towards son-of son-of CDA attempts. (CDT has a great resource page here.)
Just yesterday, Sen.Brownback led a subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee in a remarkable P-attack hearing, targeting online pornography addiction.
There's a hysterical tone to the reports of this hearing. It sounds like recovered-memory testimony, or the twinkie defense, or other famous witch-hunts across the ages. “My God! I had no idea this well-established syndrome was such a problem!”
Line up to watch the P-rade. We'll all meet afterwards in court.