Can Congress restrict access to Social Networking sites?

by Matt Craven

A current bill pending before the United States Congress, HR 5319, the “Deleting Online Predators Act”, purports to remove federal funding from public libraries and schools that do not block access to chat rooms and other social networking sites, such as MySpace and others.

Mind you, it’s already illegal to lure a child for sex, to proposition sex, and a slew of other crimes related to this topic… but now we need to make it illegal to even look at these sites (which would likely include blogs – since they offer a comment function) from libraries and/or schools.

Attorney Evan. D Brown, at the Internet Cases site, digs into the legal issues surrounding this bill.

Hat/Tip: The Blogging Journalist

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  1. rllzrust • May 21, 2006 at 8:20 am
  2. dnmzzscp • May 21, 2006 at 8:22 am

  3. By Mimz posted on May 21, 2006 at 9:21 am
    Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment

    Ah, so Wikipedia wouldn’t be allowed either?

    My school already blocks access to most forums and all chatrooms. And, of course, MySpace. It also blocks sites like Xanga and LiveJournal. It may even block Flickr. But why? So many social sites are educational. Or, at the very least, harmless.