Friday, December 7, 2007

Innovation introduces Legal Challenges

I have a friend whose life was greatly impacted by a child predator and pornographer. This person grew up outside of the United States and I found it interesting and upsetting to hear about their experience facing this person and how the judicial system there addressed the situation. It also made me start to worry about how this sort of thing can be stopped in the future and what sorts of laws exist regarding this. As a result, I decided to take a look at how the United States, and a European country, England (chosen to avoid language barriers) are attacking this and if/how globalisation and growing technology was helping or hurting this battle. My research is a bit dry as it does, after all, focus on legal issues - but I think it's an important one. For an abstract of my approach, keep reading.

Abstract:
Many differences exist between American and English pornography history and laws. There are also vast differences in censorship policies in these two countries. The new Internet medium is causing these countries to pass legislation that will determine how illegal Internet activity, such as child pornography, will be handled. American law was originally based on English common law, but a number of changes have taken place in the last century creating a great divide between the two countries’ sets of laws. Both countries’ laws regarding pornography have recently undergone a large amount of scrutiny and also some change. Pornography laws, some only recently made, are currently being challenged by legislators and litigation in both nations. As a result, a number of landmark decisions are expected to be made that greatly effect policing of Internet Service Providers, Web site creators, pornographers, in addition to individual Internet users. Based on the history of legislation in each country, a comparison is made between recently developed changes as a result of the introduction of the Internet. Additionally, a comparison of currently pending decisions is examined to discuss the possibilities of the growing or decreasing divide between the two nations’ attempt to reduce illegal Internet pornography circulation and viewing.

The full paper is here: http://www.404films.com/Brock_713_fa07_essay[1].pdf

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