OVO

Amended Section 2257 becomes law in the United States at midnight tonight (June 23, 2005). This law requires that all Web pages, Usenet servers, ftp sites, and other forms of the Internet keep a record demonstrating that “every performer portrayed in a visual depiction of actual sexually explicit conduct” is over the age of 18. This law applies to both primary and secondary sources: that is, it applies to the people who initially made the images and to those who link to it, archive it, reproduce it and so on, irregardless of where the image was made in the world.

I’m sure if I dug hard enough I could find links in pleasant that qualify for my going to prison and paying huge fines based on this law. Rotten.com and GapingMaw.com have already ‘gone black’ because of this law (sure am glad I archived rotten.com last night). Speaking of archive, do you think archive.org has the required paperwork for all the images they ‘distribute?’ What about Google image search? Or Usenet archive Xusenet (or for that matter usenet itself)? If you don’t lock down your wireless and bone up on security at home, are you a ‘distributor’ if something on your computer is potentially accessible? What if someone in your house uses your computer and sees something the government doesn’t want them to see? What if your notion of “actual sexually explicit conduct” is different from the government? Does the physical location of the computer hosting the offending image matter (answer: it matters if the government wants it to matter)?

Goodbye, Sensual Liberation Army and IndieNudes. Goodbye Ernie’s House of Whoop Ass and Stile Project. Goodbye Voyeurweb. Goodbye Bare Witness, Baring Witness, Naked for Peace, Naked Protesters, Naked War Protests, Running of the Nudes and World Naked Bike Ride.

“The aim of the Party was not merely to prevent men and women from forming loyalties which it might not be able to control. Its real, undeclared purpose was to remove all pleasure from the sexual act. Not love so much as eroticism was the enemy, inside marriage as well as outside it. All marriages between Party members had to be approved by a committee appointed for the purpose, and — though the principle was never clearly stated — permission was always refused if the couple concerned gave the impression of being physically attracted to one another. The only recognized purpose of marriage was to beget children for the service of the Party. Sexual intercourse was to be looked on as a slightly disgusting minor operation, like having an enema. This again was never put into plain words, but in an indirect way it was rubbed into every Party member from childhood onwards. There were even organizations such as the Junior Anti-Sex League, which advocated complete celibacy for both sexes. All children were to be begotten by artificial insemination (artsem, it was called in Newspeak) and brought up in public institutions. This, Winston was aware, was not meant altogether seriously, but somehow it fitted in with the general ideology of the Party. The Party was trying to kill the sex instinct, or, if it could not be killed, then to distort it and dirty it. He did not know why this was so, but it seemed natural that it should be so. And as far as the women were concerned, the Party’s efforts were largely successful.” – George Orwell, 1984