the brown rabbits will live to sully your mind another day.

I kinda let this one slip by me without pause for celebration, but it should be noted that, a couple of weeks ago, The Supreme Court shot down the Child Online Protection Act once and for all. And seriously? Thank your pan-theistic diety(s) of choice the First Amendment still means something around here.

COPA, on the surface, looks like an anti-internet porn law. Had it been upheld, it would have banned all *commercial* websites from posting any "material that is harmful to minors." Now, I'm not entirely clear on what "commercial" means as, these days, anybody who feels like earning an extra 17 cents per month can rent out ad space on his or her blog. And "material that is harmful to minors" is only the most vague phraseology the drafters of said Act could possibly have conjured (good little lawyers, they). But it does remain clear that the folks pushing this legislation really had no respect for the civil liberties of American private citizens whatsoever.

As I mentioned a couple posts ago, I got all bent out of shape when the Internet Dude accidentally turned on some porn-blocks on my building's system. On principal, I can't think of a single scenario in which it's OK to impede people's internet searching capabilities in their own homes... but I was even more irked when I discovered how much great stuff gets caught in the net when such systems send out their censorious little tentacles. For a whole weekend, I fumed over being denied access to all the blogs listed over there in my "In Which People Wax Erotic" blogroll. And that was just a weekend! Imagine the caterwauling you would have heard from me if the porn-blocks had been permanent!

Another problem is that it's not just sex blogs and tittie flicks that would get sloughed away in the blast this internet firehose of a law would let fly. Plaintiffs in this case included not only a sampling of queer-themed and gay rights sites, but also such mainstream media venues as Salon.com, The New York Times Co., and even Reuters. Doubtlessly, all these organizations saw red (and not red lights... never enough red lights.) when they realized that this law would prevent them from discussing sexuality on the internet for even non-prurient purposes.

Now, heaven knows, I'm not drawing any kind of line here-- far be it from me to say that it's OK to legislate actual internet porn, but not more "respectable" media explorations into sex. It's not appropriate at all for the government to interfere with the porn-viewing habits of private citizens. Or to prevent those same citizens from culling informative text about sex from the internet. And beyond that, I continue to fail to see how shielding children from all sexuality at all times, from every source available is a) possible or b) "protecting" them.

But I've said all this before. Over the course of three blogging years and myriad potty-mouthed posts.

Suffice it to say that, although this blog will never be considered "commercial," I still can't help but feel that this wise decision on the part of the Supreme Court protects me and my right to say whatever nasty thing I feel needs to be said in a public forum. And it protects my right to choose for myself the shape of my own internet. For that, I'm grateful.

And to that end, here're a couple celebratory dirty pictures:





("+" and "Ooooups" via Herr Buchta )