Where do I even begin with this subject. Who has jurisdiction? Who needs to monitor the web, which country, where it comes from or where it ends up? How do parents deal with technology when most children know far more than their parents. What is yours and what belongs to others. What about civil liberties. What about freedom of choice, art freedom of expression? How does legislation catch up? These are just a small sampling of the logistical problems facing us today with regards to technology and the law.
I know of a situation in my town where 3 freshman girls in high school jumped and beat up another girl. One of the girls wrote on her my space that she had the other girls’s teeth marks on her hand from when she hit her in the mouth. The police where able to access her my space and see theses comments. What about Miranda rights? When is it no longer hers? When is it invading her privacy? Does she have a right to privacy if she was talking to one individual. This is not even touching the fact that this information is out there. Even if you cancel your facebook accout, where is all of the information. Where does it go? Who is responsible for it. Since this person was a minor, shouldn’t she be afforded more protection? Is there a way to make it all go away or is it out there somewhere in space for all of eternity? As a parent, I want certain controls with regards to the computer and the internet. The problem here is my child knows more about computers than I do. If I have problems with my computer he is the first person I talk to for help. Where do I go with this. How do I solve this problem? When children know how to navigate the computer and the web better than the parents. The roles are reversed, they can out smart us because they are so much more technologically advanced than we are.
We created ratings for movies. Then we created ratings for video games, what about websites? When you went to the movie theater you needed identification or an adult with you for certain movies, or not at all. Buying video games again same thing. Now you have websites, that have explicit material and it is visible in a small portion initially most of the time. These web sites ask you to not go into it if you are under eighteen. Lets be real, not much control. Parents can put parental controls, however I bet my son could circumvate that control or one of his friends knows how to do it. They know how to delete the history, what is a parent to do?
This is just the tip of the iceberg. How do you enforce laws that don’t even exist yet. How do write laws for technology, how do you enforce those laws. Technology is moving so fast, by the time we enact a law it will probably be obsolete because the technology has moved so far ahead of the legislation. Just like drug testing for atheletes, they have new ways to dope before you have figured out how test for the old stuff. I am afraid we will always be a day late and dollar short.
