The Supreme Court has decided to put the responsibility of protecting children from online porn on the parents. Online child safety advocate, Parry Aftab, comments on the COPA decision and offers parents advice.
Vero Beach, FL (PRWEB) July 5, 2004 -- In an historic decision, the Supreme Court struck down the Child Online Protection Act, which was designed to punish pornographers who do not take steps to make sure children cannot access their web sites.
The Supreme Court felt that the law violated First Amendment guarantees of free speech and sent the case back to a lower court. This is the second time that the Supreme Court has effectively blocked legislation attempted by Congress to shield children from Internet pornography. In 1997, the Supreme Court rejected the Communications Decency Act.
"There is a potential for extraordinary harm and a serious chill upon protected speech" if the law took effect, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the 5-4 majority.
Mr. Kennedy added that software that includes filtering may be preferable to legislation because it is less restrictive and probably more effective at keeping kids from viewing Internet smut. According to Kennedy, "COPA presumes that parents lack the ability, not the will, to monitor what their children see."
Parry Aftab, cyber lawyer and the world's premiere online child safety advocate, was immediately called on by the major news networks to comment on the court's findings. According to Ms. Aftab, "These Supreme Court cases clarify once more that parents need to be in charge of their children's safe surfing. I have been saying for ten years that the Internet is a dangerous place for children and that we can't expect the government to watch our kids in cyberspace. Parents have to take charge and know exactly what their kids are doing so they can make the proper decisions. Justice Kennedy talked about filtering software, which I think is one good step."
"Even more important than filtering is monitoring software that can monitor what your kids do online. When you can see what they are doing, what they are looking at, who they are talking to, then you know if you have a problem and what action you need to take, like blocking them from certain web sites."
Is there any software that Ms. Aftab recommends? "When I started looking around, I found one company was head and shoulders above the rest and I decided to become their spokesperson. Take a look at Spectorsoft."
For more information on Spectorsoft products, please visit www.spectorsoft.com .
For biographical information on Parry Aftab, please visit www.aftab.com .
To schedule an interview or appearance with Ms. Aftab, to request a review copy of Spectorsoft software, or for more information, contact:
Kasey Sellati
www.spectorsoft.com
(919) 465-2651
ksellati@spectorsoft.com
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