“Americans” (or United Statians), as Americans do, pass laws which restrict fundamental freedoms more than any other nation lately. The last statute had a compelling and delighting patriotic name – “The Safe Act” (“Securing Adolescents From Exploitation-Online” with a highly coerced name and that could have been easily named the “Simply Amusing Fraudulent Enactment” in the same manner, especially since there is already another SAFE Act – Security and Freedom Ensured Act) .The statute, basically, states that internet service providers will be liable (directly) to any content passed through by their users and will have to report any passage of child pornography to the authorities. (I’ve already discussed the problem with determining which photos are obscene and holding cached copies of those images). The statute’s purpose is, prima facia, to deter the distributors of child pornography. However, the statute does not prevent distribution but encourages snitching against consumers.

I don’t want to discuss the statute’s inapplicability, nor the discussion regarding liability of home WiFi operators ; I do want to mention the amusing element where the power to tap, spy and monitor people is delegated from the state to private entities (See also) and especially the requirement that ISPs hold a database of child pornography to be cross-referred with images transacted over the net  (see also how Apple deals with snitching effects).

When the state’s role is to enforce the law, it doe not carry the authority to delegate enforcement to private entities. One the other hand, the same private entities cannot be coerced to enforce the law (and against their financial interest). Meaning that forcing liability on ISPs will commit them in actively censoring content and not snitching on customers, in order to prevent a state where images are passed and the service providers will face liability for images they didn’t now about and couldn’t block. Of course, the enforcement of censorship will be harsher in order to prevent a situation where images might “slip” through the filters.

Allegedly, the same statute may also deter websites’ motivation to be hosted on servers located in the united states, and increase motivation to convey websites to countries where no restricting statutes exist; However, the US law requires that the US and its legal representatives do their best in order to encourage foreign government to pass laws against child pornography.

But that doesn’t have to be the case : Jerry Bell claims otherwise. He states that the privacy clause in the act states that no ISP shall be liable unless it actually monitored traffic. so could it be that the statute’s purpose is contrary to popular belief? Could it be that the statute was enacted to prevent the active monitoring of internet traffic by ISPs?

When you think of it, a policy of “if you’ve seen the customer’s habits and did not report it then liability”, could protect the customer. If ISPs were directly liable for traffic, then they would rather not listen to it in order to avoid liablity : therefore increasing fundamental freedoms. Will this be the ISPs conduct? time will tell.

This question is highly important with subjects such as Net Neutrality and Internet Surveillance;  The question won’t be solved so quickly, but it could be that in spite of all the big headlines, the legislator, like god, works in mysterious ways.