Andrew Cuomo Threatens To Sue Comcast If It Doesn't Sign Up For His Plan To Pretend To Fight Child Porn
from the grandstanding dept
Last month, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo made some news by pressuring a bunch of ISPs to agree to block certain sites in a totally misguided effort to fight child porn. It will actually do the opposite, because it merely hides the issue, driving it further underground, rather than attacking at the source. At the same time, it opens up a very questionable door: having ISPs blocking any content that they feel is "objectionable" in some manner. It's not hard to predict where this goes, in terms of ISPs blocking other types of content as well.Comcast was one of the companies that agreed last week to a similar proposal with a bunch of state attorneys general, but apparently that's not enough for Andrew Cuomo. He's now threatening to sue Comcast within five days if it doesn't sign the more stringent "code of conduct" that Cuomo wrote up. Apparently Cuomo doesn't think last week's agreement goes far enough.
Of course, what's odd is that nowhere does Cuomo explain how Comcast's actions violate the law. He just threatens to sue over it -- and even makes a veiled threat that the lawsuit alone will be damaging to Comcast, because Cuomo will position it as Comcast protecting child porn:
Comcast's unwillingness to sign the code of conduct and purge its system of child pornography puts Comcast at the back of the pack in the race to fight this scourge, and would likely be surprising to Comcast's millions of customers across the country.The reason Cuomo doesn't explain what the legal rationale for any lawsuit, is because there isn't one. Comcast as a connectivity provider is not responsible for what content goes across its network. Cuomo (one would hope) knows this -- and is bullying Comcast into signing his "Code of Conduct" by threatening to paint the company as protecting child porn. That's a rather sickening abuse of power -- and the end result will only be to make it more difficult to stop child pornography, while opening the door to widespread content blocking by ISPs.
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Filed Under: andrew cuomo, attorney general, blocking, child porn, isps
Companies: comcast
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Who does this remind you of?
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Re: Who does this remind you of?
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Liability
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Re: Liability
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On what grounds?
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Cuomo steps over the line
And clearly this anti-child porn crusade, while most everyone agrees child porn is very bad stuff, is political positioning to move his career forward.
But, for me, he is crossing the line (OK, he long ago crossed it, but it didn't get my attention) by going after Comcast.
As Mike keeps writing, this crusade does little to actually impact child porn. But I use Comcast; and now that his crusade threatens to either [a] make my cable/internet service more expensive, [b] limit some of my (non-child porn) options, or [c] both, his silly (silly because it doesn't impact actual child porn) crusade is impacting my life in the negative.
And as career positioning move, Cuomo is about to see some push back.
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Government Abuses
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Re: Government Abuses
As to Cuomo, he is an elitest like most people in his position. Like was said above, look at Spitzer's ordeal.
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Only in America
Why must we always retard our technology giving away
every inch of hardwon technical research through stupid
policies like this....
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Re: Only in America
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Re: Only in America
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Re: Re: Only in America
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Re: Only in America (keep studying insipid poster!)
(shakes head at the lame only in America comment).
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Er... not Comcast
Eric
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Cuomo's Crusade
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Stupid
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Pepper cable with anti-cuomo ads
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Re:
That first line should read"
It Shouldn't be the job of the ISP's.
just wanted to clarify that.
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Ahem
And any contract signed under a threat, is void. You can't threat people into signing things.
Moreover, it's illegal to use litigation as a threat, and then not go through with it. So if he DOESN'T sue in 5 days, they can actually open quite a can upon this douche...
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Comcast Cast As the Victim?
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Re: Comcast Cast As the Victim?
I think Danny above's right, unfortunately - he doesn't care about the issue, it's just a hot button to press to appear to be doing something. He can ignore criticism and paint opponents as being "for" child porn, while having a nice soundbite or two to put on his political resume. In his world, who cares if anything he's doing makes things any better or worse as long as he looks good?
Sadly, that's the level of American politics.
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and because of the way it works, it is practically impossible to kill it. it can use HTTP, so the encrypted traffic looks like a secure website visit and since the nodes are decentralized you can only kill them off one-by-one.
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Kill The internet
close all city parks
abolish the catholic religion
abolish the scouts
establish the death penalty for child molesters and rapists
... Or SHUT THE F@&$ UP!
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Re:
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2: Who decides what material is "appropriate" for children? Is there some "content advisory board" like ESRB or MPAA that will rate sites accordingly? Serious First Amendment issues exist here.
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Manipulation Through Insult
Now that the patriotism tactic has lost its effect, a new method has showed up. Today we can vilify by accusing the target of supporting child porn just because they see our freedoms being eroded.
Censorship didn't make the actions of the government any more worthy by suppressing the opposing views, and censorship likewise won't make the InterWeb any safer by suppressing overt child porn and forcing the purveyors to encrypt it.
Accusing Comcast of supporting child porn, however, is much more blatantly ridiculous than accusing the Dixie Chicks of failing to be sufficiently patriotic, so we can hope their customers will see through this bogosity and thereby, Cuomo will have shot his career in the foot with it.
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That's because politics is all about power and not about stopping illegal activity or protecting anyone.
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Show my support
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A liberal With Delusions of Grandeur
The trouble is that ol' Andy boy wants to be President some day and he thinks this will help him. You see he has an inferiority complex when it comes to daddy.
Plus he's a leftest liberal that wants to tell you and me what we can do, say and see. He wants control.
I say go on and watch my new hair cut and rick roll on youtube and don't do a damn thing to complain to your elected idiots.
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Andrew Cumo
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Is this only about child porn
Which makes me wonder if the **AA isn't involved in this somehow. Coumo's yelling child porn is like bush yelling terror, it is just a keyword they know will get people behind them for their own cause.
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What if it fails?
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Comcast Corporate HQ
Not to use a slippery slope, but if we give in on kiddie pr0n today we will have little ground to stand on when the politicians want us to block the New York Times for an "objectionable" piece that paints said politician in an unfavorable light.
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Re: Comcast Corporate HQ
Brian Roberts, CEO
Comcast Corporate Office
1500 Market Street
Philadelphia, PA 19102
+1 215-981-8497
brian_roberts@comcast.com
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really really stop it at the source
we must outlaw children.
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verizon
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Push back
Guess what happens to all the Comcast customers who get their cable service from a monopoly? Yep, they're all ****-ed.
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Andrew Cuomo.
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So what has to happen? The business fails or goes bankcrupt
all the employees go on welfare, and the State is billed now
for their weekly pay in order to live! It's supposed to
be a "free enterprise system." ?????
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